Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR.

Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR. By Neal Thompson. (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006. Pp. xvi, 411. $25.00, ISBN 978-1-4000-8225-4.) In this account of early southern stock car racing, former Baltimore Sun journalist Neal Thompson focuses on the colorful careers of Bill France, Raymond Parks, Lloyd Seay, Roy Hall, Red Byron, and Red Vogt. All of these men were instrumental in the growth of the young sport, but, as Thompson stresses, "Bill France, for better or worse, commandeered stock car racing, declared himself its king, appropriated its coffers and history, leaving the real but untidy story behind" (p. 9). The book illustrates how France brought organization to the sport through the establishment of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). By 1951 nearly all top-level stock car racing was sanctioned under France's authoritarian control.

As the title suggests, the book outlines the roles that whiskey and technology played in the development of auto racing in the South. Thompson points out that many southern stock car competitors at one time were associated with the moonshine business, and he explains how the Ford V-8 engine, preferred by bootleggers, contributed to the expansion of grassroots participation in motorsports. Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR is a valuable addition to a growing body of auto racing historiography, and Thompson does an excellent job of discussing the southern component of an enthusiasm for stock car racing that emerged in many parts of America during the 1930s and 1940s. [DANIEL J. SIMONE, University of Florida]