Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

It's too late, but I think a tell-all book by Ted Johnson would have been most interesting.

Sammy would be a great read if he was willing to tell us everything he's held back all these years.

Roger Rager. You'll never find a more interesting personality in all of racing. The stories he can tell are nothing short of amazing.

Stan Meissner

An interesting book would be on MSPN,Mike Nelligan.He seems to have been there and done it all.Would love to hear some of his stories.

I agree with Roger Rager not only has he been a family friend but hes a interesting person to listen to and hell lets face it at 58 years old he still stands on the gas, led the indy 500 for a few laps in 80' which was a story of all its own , has raced just about anything with wheels, truly one of the Iron Men of racing and still able to curl the front of his race cars even after a feature race His stories are amazing rather talking about goin fast or crashing fast and hes kinda like that old commercial of EF Hutton when he speaks people listen.

His father was a racer and is still with us along with his mom, some of his dads records still stand at some tracks and his mom told us when Roger was in high school she had bought a brand new 57' Chevy for herself and she let Roger drive it and told him not to drive it fast she told us two years ago at the masters race she will never forget watching Roger and his friends coming down the road in the Chevy with one hanging out of the window trying to get the time letters off the windshield from the local drag strip, Sounds like Roger always had the racing bug.

Well, if Kinser is in the future, then here are my picks of the suggestions so far-

Scruffy

Ferkel

Rager

May brothers

The Complete Supermodified story(I'm a supermodified fan)

Harold Leep

Ted Johnson

Karl Kinser

The Real King of Outlaws Steve Kinser

Long Live  20 Time  World Of Outlaws Champion Steve 
Kinser #11 

I agree, it has to be mspn. No other book would ever be needed and then all of us would fall into his elite category of genius.

He's a legend in his own mind!

....Opperman forever!

The obvious choice is Kinser but he's still got some racing to do so I think there is time to put that one together.

I like the ideas of Steve Smith and Roger Rager.  Hell Rager's try at Indy in 1980 would be a good chapter or two!  But I've got to give a call to old guy who's still rambling on and is a joy to be around and talk to: Clarence "Hooker" Hood.  Now that would be a story!

sammy swindell

Actually it would be cool to get several of them involved and write it in the style of a panel of drivers feeding off each other's stories. One would tell his experience which would tie into the next guy and he'd give his take on some track, driver or shared incident. They would have to be from the same era and have crossed paths from time to time. One time Schrader was up here for a guest appearance with his Late Model and I mentioned Rager. Kenny and Roger share some racing stories so I could imagine those too having some input.

I think that would be a neat format for a book but whoever authored it would have to rack up a helluva long distance bill and a whole lotta frequent flyer miles. We're a niche market so I wonder what kind of circulation open wheel dirt track racing are capable of generating. I would imagine that the money made from a book of this genre would require an understanding publisher and a writer motivated by the love of the sport. They're certainly not going to get their work on the New York Times Best Seller List.

Stan Meissner

Yes Stan, that would be cool. For sprint car racing, that seems like a very original idea. HOWBOUTIT DAVE?

Dubby & Van May By The Way What Ever Happened To Them

A book of short stories from various drivers, triumphs, tragedies, good times, hard times ect...

Kind of like the "Racer on Racer" series but on a personal level. 100 different drivers with a hundred different unique memories. I'd buy it.

Schraeder & Rager would be great...I'd give anything to hear Parson's story too...all 3 still goin' strong & racin' at Springfield & DuQuoin (I hope), as we speak...start the story this Labor Day weekend at DuQuoin.

Jon Buckland I'll bet he has some whoppers to tell......LOL

My heros have always been cowboys!!!

Dude, that is not cool...

Savage

Lots of great suggestions in this thread. Probably 10 good books lurking amid all those ideas. Actually I already had several things in the works from months (and years) ago, I just have to sort out which one to tackle first and get busy. But these are good suggestions and I am saving this thread for future reference.

I have actually been intrigued with the idea of an updated Dusty Heroes/Stand on the Gas type book for many years, even to the point of drawing up a couple of outlines. I guess I just got busy with other stuff and never got to them. Both of those books are wonderful, and timeless. Maybe one of these days I can get something started.

One of my great regrets is that in 2001 I began a book that was to cover a full year on the Outlaws tour. I was inspired by a book by John Feinstein called "March to Madness" which detailed a full basketball season in the ACC, with great behind-the-scenes stuff from all of the coaches. Great book! I figured it would be cool to do something along that line within the World of Outlaws. I was going to a lot of the races at the time because I was involved in the TNN broadcasts, and at the start of 2001 I had the book outlined and began doing interviews. But amid all the stuff going on at the time I got distracted and let it get away from me and when I got serious about picking it up again it was too late. The season was winding down and it became obvious that I couldn't possibly complete the book over the winter. I lost the TNN gig when they cut back to one pit reporter, and after that it seemed like I never got going again with that book project. I started working with Jack Hewitt on Hewitt's Law and the next thing you know the Outlaws book was so far away it had disappeared. Oh, well. I still think it would be a cool book.

I am serious about expanding the Best of Times serial into a book. Stay tuned.

Although my books so far have been about sprint car people, there are a lot of late model guys that I think would be very compelling. For a long time I've wanted to do a book with Larry Moore, who was a legend in late models (and also ran some sprint cars with USAC in the late '70s). Jack Hewitt insisted that I talk to Larry about a book and Jack was right, there would be a great read about this guy's life. There are a few other late model guys who I think have great stories, including Billy Moyer, Scott Bloomquist, and a couple more. My hope is that some sprint car people would find these guys interesting, because they have certainly had interesting careers. Actually, I think there are a lot more late model/sprint car crossover fans than we think.

All the ideas on this thread got me thinking about some things and I used the ideas in my weekly NSSN blog (it's free), you can see it at...

http://www.nationalspeedsportnews.com/columns/dave-argabright/dave-argabrights-blogs/dave-argabrights-august-blog

Thanks for the great feedback, and more importantly, thanks for reading some of my books!

Dave Argabright
www.daveargabright.com

Karl Kinser

Imagine the tales that man could tell.

Not afraid to sign my name: Wayne Redmond

Gary Patterson or Bubby Jones.