Liz Clarke on One Helluva Ride
Washington Post’s Liz Clarke entered my area of knowledge in 2007 when hearing her as a cohort on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show. When Kornheiser returned to radio in January 2008, Clarke was back onboard with him as well, appearing on the show almost every Tuesday and Thursday. After hearing her briefly detail her new book, One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation, I contacted Clarke to see if she’d like to discuss the book, as well as briefly talk about Mr. Tony (as regular listeners call him). Fortunately she was equally open to both topics.
Before starting the interview, here’s a bit of how the book is officially described: “… a full-throttle account of the rise and reign of NASCAR nation, is … Clarke’s chronicle of how stock car racing exploded from regional obsession to national phenomenon. “
Also, here is Clarke’s bio: “A sportswriter for The Washington Post, Liz Clarke has also covered NASCAR for USA Today, The Charlotte Observer, and The Dallas Morning News, and was twice honored with the Russ Catlin award for excellence in motorsports journalism. She spent four seasons as a Post beat writer on the Washington Redskins and has written extensively about the Olympics, tennis, and college sports. A graduate of Barnard College, she lives in Washington, D.C., with her beloved Lab, Rusty.”
Given that I have lived in Atlanta my entire life, while I do not consider myself a NASCAR fan, I do have a healthy respect for the sport. Note that I do call it a sport, which is a label some people debate. I do not.
One more bit of background before delving into the interview itself, towards the end we briefly discuss Canada. This topic stems from Clarke’s tongue-in-cheek admission last year over the course of a few weeks: A) Her strong distaste for the work of Canadian singer Anne Murray; and B) Her distaste for Canada due to its strong connection to Murray.
In all seriousness, Clarke is a savvy writer who has a strong dedication to her subject matter. It was a pleasure to get her perspective on NASCAR in general and her new book in particular.
Tim O’Shea: Why did you choose such a challenging and wide scope of work: mapping the history of NASCAR as told to you through interviews with many of those involved in making its history? Why choose such an ambitious scale rather than tackling a bio of one of the pivotal figures, such as Petty or Earnhardt?
Liz Clarke: That’s a very good question. I’ve never written a book before. And while it probably would have been more manageable to write one that was narrowly defined, I wasn’t particularly interested in that—whether it was telling one racer’s story or chronicling a single season, start-to-finish. I found something oddly presumptuous about trying to tell one racer’s story, for one. It would also have required cooperation from the subject, and that, in turn, would certainly have come with some degree of editorial control, which I wasn’t interested in ceding.
But mainly I felt I had only one NASCAR story to tell. And it was a personal one, in which I would write about everything that drew me into the sport, for better or worse, in the years I covered it and watched it grow. I wanted to have the freedom to write about the entire landscape of the sport—its most striking personalities, most thrilling moments, saddest moments, most quirky and colorful places. I didn’t have a goal of writing the complete, definitive history of NASCAR. I wanted to write a history of NASCAR through my eyes, exploring what moved me about it. And I hoped it would appeal to people like myself, who found themselves drawn into a world that was so very powerful and unlike any other sport.
By claiming the whole landscape as my turf, I could go anywhere I felt pulled–whether to specific tracks, like North Wilkesboro; specific people, like Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt; to specific institutions, like R.J. Reynolds and its Miss Winston beauty queen; or specific traditions, like drivers’ accessibility to fans.
I wanted to write about it all partly in tribute, as well–as a way of recording moments and memories I experienced along the way that never fit neatly into a newspaper story. NASCAR is changing so radically and so rapidly, and a lot of it seemed to be disappearing before my eyes—again, for better or worse.
O’Shea: In compiling the history and interviewing the different participants, did the different accounts of the same events all gibe along the same lines for the most part or were there widely divergent recollections that you had to sort out to get a clearer picture?
Clarke: I think for the most part the accounts complemented each other. There might have been a few times when someone’s recollection conflicted with another person’s, but those things were fairly easy to straighten out. It may be that now the book is out, I’ll hear from people who recall things a different way or who have an entirely different “take” on a person or place.
O’Shea: How did you get NASCAR legend Richard Petty to write the forward to the book? Were you hesitant in asking him the favor?
Clarke: I was extremely hesitant. It was excruciating to ask such a huge favor, to be honest, even though I have covered the King since 1991. As a newspaper reporter, I have no trouble requesting interviews or asking difficult questions. But this book was my project, so asking the King to write a forward was more of a personal favor. And I cringe over asking personal favors, even if it’s as simple as asking my neighbors to feed my goldfish when I’m away.
But I took solace in the knowledge that the King is very blunt. I knew he’d flatly say no if he didn’t want to do it. So that made me feel better about asking. And that’s basically what he said when I pitched the idea. I was able to show him an image of the book jacket, which had just been designed. But the book hadn’t been written yet. He said, “I can’t give you an answer until I read the book.”
I completely understood and respected his answer; I’d feel the same, I suspect. But I was very worried about getting the book written in time for him to read it, make a decision and then actually do the forward; I wasn’t sure the publisher would wait that long. But the King, I learned, is an incredibly fast reader. It also helped that he agreed to decide based on the first 10 (of 11) chapters. So I printed out 10 chapters and sent them to him in Level Cross, NC; as soon as they were written. And in two days I heard back that he had agreed to do a forward. And I know he read it closely because he pointed out three errors I’d made—two of which had nothing to do with chapters involving him. I was deeply honored.
O’Shea: In promoting the book, when you get interviewed by folks who question if NASCAR is even a sport, do you think that you might stand to gain some new fans to the book and the sport once they hear your reasoned response?
Clarke: I haven’t fielded many questions yet about whether NASCAR is a sport, but I am asked often how anybody can stand it! “How can you watch cars turn left all day?” “I just don’t GET it!” Things that like.
I love answering those questions. That’s really the idea behind the book. My goal isn’t to convert new NASCAR fans or extend the footprint of “NASCAR Nation,” as it’s often called. NASCAR is making plenty of money without my help. But the book IS an attempt to explain why so many people came to care about stock-car racing. To me, the answer revolves around two things: the bond between fans and drivers (credit goes to Richard Petty, who to this day treats race fans as if they’re his neighbors), and the strong personalities (Dale Earnhardt being the prime example—loved or despised for the way he drove, depending on your personal ethic)
O’Shea: That being said, this book is not an evangelical effort to convert the non-NASCAR believers, do you get tired of defending the sport?
Clarke: No, I really enjoy talking to people about NASCAR. And I certainly don’t feel compelled to defend it. The sport has done many things that grieve me, to be honest, and many things I think are wrong-headed. But I always learn something from interviews or even casual conversations about NASCAR. I love knowing what people wonder about it. It helps me look at the sport in a different light, and it often leads me to find answers to things that never occurred to me.
O’Shea: “As NASCAR races toward mass appeal, some suggest it is leaving its roots behind,” according to the book’s advance press. As NASCAR stands at this perceived crossroads, how concerned is it about losing their core fan base, while trying to gain a new breed of fan?
Clarke: I don’t think the sport was all that concerned about losing its core fans until late last season, when ESPN returned to broadcast the second half of 2007 and failed to stem the decline in TV ratings. I think that was a huge awakening, and a long overdue one. Until then, I think NASCAR’s powerbrokers were quite content to leave stock-car racing’s roots behind (the sport has worked hard to disassociated itself from its moonshine beginnings, its Southern heritage, its small-market racetracks). NASCAR’s goal, though never explicitly stated, seemed to be to gain two new race fans with upscale demographics (younger, more urban, more affluent and educated) for every one “core” fan NASCAR alienated. But the math didn’t work out. Californians simply didn’t flock to racetracks with the same fervor as Carolinians, no matter how fancy the new superspeedways or how late the start time was pushed back to accommodate West Coast audiences. As an aside, I found it interesting that drivers from California won half the NASCAR races last year (Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Casey Mears and Kevin Harvick combined for 18 of 36 wins). Not a single driver from North Carolina won a race for the first time in NASCAR history (No Petty, Earnhardt or Jarrett, to name a few, visited Victory Lane). Yet the most passionate NASCAR fans remain in the Southeast; not the West.
O’Shea: In a video interview about the book at washingtonpost.com, you mention there are certain chapters/parts that you are particularly proud of in the book. Can you mention one or two parts and the reason it makes you proud.
Clarke: I worked terribly hard to get the Introduction and Conclusion just right. They are the most personal sections of the book, and I wanted to invite readers in the most honest, direct way I could. I think if you read the Introduction, you’ll know right away whether you’ll like this book or not. (I hope no one reads the Conclusion until the end, of course, because it refers to a few things discussed in the book itself, and it would lose a bit of its meaning if read in a vacuum. But it sums up how I feel about the sport and the experience of having watched it grow so rapidly).
I’m also proud of the characterization of Dale Earnhardt—both the explanation of why he raced the way he did, with the rage of a desperate man, and the characterization of his personality away from track, which I don’t think many people understood. He meant a great deal to me, as well as millions of others, and I agonized over portraying him as honestly and fully as I could.
O’Shea: How many female NASCAR beat reporters (ballpark estimates) were there when you first started out and has that number grown substantially in recent years?
Clarke: There were only a handful of female beat reporters when I started out—Deb Williams at Winston Cup Scene, Beth Tushak at USA Today and Sandy McKee at the Baltimore Sun, chief among them. Still, the sport felt as if it had more women involved it because there were several working in public-relations for major sponsors. Both the number and percentage of beat reporters have increased a lot in recent years, largely because of the explosion of broadcast and Internet-based journalism. In addition, the NASCAR reporter for the Associated Press is a woman (Jenna Fryer), as are the beat writers for the Miami Herald, Richmond Times-Dispatch and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
O’Shea: Is there anything that I did not ask about the book that you would like to discuss?
Clarke: I’d love to call attention to the photographs in the book, many of which fans won’t have seen before. The majority were taken by Mark Sluder, a wonderful photographer who started out at The Charlotte Observer and now works for NASCAR Scene. The book’s website, www.onehelluvaridebook.com, also has a gallery of more than 50 of Sluder’s racing photographs over the years. They are lovely.
O’Shea: Two brief Mr. Tony-related questions–do you have a favorite Tony show moment? Will you be promoting the book in Canada?
Clarke: Everyone knows that Mr. Tony is achingly funny—quick on his feet, super sharp, caustic on occasion. But my favorite moments on the show have been when he talks about something serious. I loved his musings on Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff,” for example, which I think was part of a discussion about the death of the astronaut Wally Schirra in May 2007. Mr. Tony, for all his humor, has a remarkable breadth of knowledge and a wonderful ability to put all sorts of things—whether major historical events or incidental—into powerful context.
Finally, I’d be proud to promote this book in Canada! I can’t say the Canadians have been clamoring for copies of One Helluva Ride, but if they’d consider reading it, I’d open my heart to the wonders of their country.
(Photo of Liz Clarke with Richard Petty, © Mark Sluder [Be sure to visit the photo gallery here for more of Sluder’s work])