Awesome Bill from Dawsonville: Looking Back on a Life in NASCAR

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Synopsis
In this long-awaited autobiography, the legendary Bill Elliott details his childhood in rural North Georgia, building cars from scratch, struggling on the anonymous small-time tracks of the South to his against-the-odds rise to the pinnacle of NASCAR stardom: Winston Cup Champion. From Daytona to Talladega, from Bristol to Sonoma, ride shoulder to shoulder with Elliott as he battles Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, Ricky Rudd, Rusty Wallace, and Alan Kulwicki for NASCAR's ultimate prize. Through Elliott's eyes we meet the colorful cast of old-school characters who built NASCAR: Cale Yarborough, Junior Johnson, the Allisons, Carl Kiekhaefer, and, of course, the France family. We join Bill in the car (and under it) as he sets the all-time record for the fastest official speed ever recorded in a stock car (a record he still holds today). Learn the secret-revealed for the first time-behind the Elliott family's unquestioned mastery of the sport's super speedways. Watch NASCAR grow from a southern diversion into a national phenomenon, and see Bill Elliott grow with it, ultimately becoming one of the sport's most popular heroes. In 1985 Elliott captured the inaugural Winston Million and became the first NASCAR driver ever to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Three years later he captured the Winston Cup Championship. He went on to be voted NASCAR Driver of the Decade for the 1980s by NASCAR fans. He was also voted Most Popular Driver sixteen times. Elliott also shares his thoughts on the dark side of the racing life: the stresses it can place on relationships, the ever-present physical risks, and the weight of fame. He addresses the racing-related deaths of competitors and friends. He is candid and critical in discussing the intense rivalry between him and the late Dale Earnhardt, and he sheds new light on their storied relationship as well as on Earnhardt's shocking death. Elliott discusses the future of NASCAR with critiques of its management and restrictor plates, and he takes on the controversial issues of track and driver safety. A window into the compelling personality of Bill Elliott, as well as a primer on the ascent of America's fastest growing sport, this is the definitive insider's view of the rising NASCAR nation.
Copyright:
2006

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9780061738494
Related ISBNs:
9780061125744
Publisher:
HarperCollins
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Bill Elliott
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Sports, Biographies and Memoirs
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

Reviews

3 out of 5

By on

In general, I don't like to read celebrity autobiographies, especially those by sports figures. I just find them to be unsatisfying at best, and full of crap at worst. However, having been a NASCAR fan in general, and a Bill Elliott fan in particular, since childhood, I couldn't resist this book. And it's not bad, if you have an interest in "Million-Dollar Bill" or the sport overall. Longtime fans probably won't learn anything they didn't already know or could guess, but I enjoyed getting hearing it from Bill's perspective (filtered through a ghostwriter, of course--early on Bill admits he was terrible in English in high school). In the early going, I didn't feel like Bill gave very much detail about his first few years in NASCAR, but he made up for it as he took us through his '80's and early '90's heyday. I also thought, early on, that he was being careful to say all the "right things" regarding NASCAR, but he eventually did offer up some criticism of the sanctioning body regarding their frequent rules changes, widely suspected "manipulation" of some races, favoritism toward certain drivers, and especially their attitude toward safety. He does spend a lot of time explaining fairly basic racing concepts to newer fans, so no worries about being snowed by a bunch of jargon and technical terms--no gearhead credentials required for this book. I guess my biggest gripe with the book is that it doesn't seem to have been proof-read. At all. I don't mean by Bookshare, but by the publisher. He'll say a certain event happened on such-and-such date, and then two pages later, a different date is given for the same event. Those kinds of minor contradictions litter the book, and it's the sort of thing that drives me crazy. There's also a fair amount of redundancy; sometimes he'll explain something three times in a row without really offering a different angle. But in the end, my respect for the man wasn't diminished at all by reading his book, and he comes off as honest and humble. Bonus drinking game: hit the bottle every time he mentions how much simpler life was when he was younger. Or, for an even faster buzz, drink every time, in true race-driver fashion, he uses the all-purpose word "deal."