University of Nebraska Press Releases Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots

2007-09-07 11:54:42

Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots

A Racing Odyssey on the Border of Obsession

By Sam Moses

With a new introduction by the author

Sam Moses, a motorsports writer for Sports Illustrated, was assigned to go

racing and write about what happened. Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots is

a personal odyssey that peers over the cliff of change and into the pit of

obsession. From small-time races to glittery grands prix, it lays bare the greed,

lust, and desperation of every driver for time behind the wheel and a faster car.

It explains the perfectionism behind taking a turn at the limit and describes

the intoxicating thrill of stealing down the Daytona backstraight at nearly

two hundred miles an hour.

The core of Moses's story takes place in the heartland of stock car racing,

where he finds a spot on a team in Ether, North Carolina. The team's owner

is a tough Louisiana oil man, its crew chief a lanky, laconic Texan, and its

number-one driver a hairy-chested leadfoot who learned fast driving on

backwoods Georgia roads, delivering beauty supplies in his Mustang. Crashes

echo throughout the tale that follows, five of them the author's own.

Sam Moses was a staff writer for Sports Illustrated for seventeen years on

the motorsports beat. He worked as deputy editor at AutoWeek and received

automotive journalism’s prestigious Ken Purdy Award. He is the author of At

All Costs: How a Crippled Ship and Two American Merchant Mariners Reversed

the Tide of World War II.

“A candid, often hilarious account of [Moses’s] experiences on the tracks, in

the garages and in the gasoline alleys of the racing world—but especially

memorable is the wild variety of characters Moses met along the way. The

book might have been written twenty years ago, but racing is still populated

by fast guys, rich guys, and idiots.”—Brock Yates, Wall Street Journal

Sam Moses