I was walking through a bookstore the other day, something that has become a routine for me these days, and I caught sight of the book “Become Your Own Matchmaker: 8 Easy Steps for Attracting Your Perfect Mate” by Patti Stanger.
Patti is a professional matchmaker and she has her own company called the Millionaire’s Club, where as the name pretty much says it she finds love for dateless millionaires. She’s also got her own reality show on Bravo, called “The Millionaire Matchmaker,” which is how I came to know of her.
Anyway, Patti is known for being super straightforward, cutting to chase and being sort of Simon Cowell when it comes to telling people what’s holding them back from finding true love. It’s one of the reasons why I like her show so much, she’s just honest with people whether they like it or not.
So the reason I’m bringing up Patti and her book is because I started to flip through it and came upon the page that you can see below. It’s from her section on where to find dateable single men. This is of EXTREME interest to me since I’m a single woman who is always on the lookout for eligible bachelors that don’t act like the dudes you see on the show “The Bachelor.” Ya know, a guy that actually wants to be in a relationship, but I digress.
My review of Andrew Giangola’s book, The Weekend Starts on Wednesday: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans, isn’t really a review, review. I think it’s more of a bunch of paragraphs telling you that you really need to add this book to your NASCAR library. I’m just being honest.
I was actually miffed that during that rain delay at Martinsville FOX didn’t include Andrew’s book when they were treading water waiting for the race to start again, but whatever.
When I say that I laughed, cried and cringed, I am not kidding. This book has it all. It’s truly a book about NASCAR fans from all walks of life. It tells the history of NASCAR through the eyes of NASCAR fans, which is what I think sets this book apart from so many others. It’s great to hear the facts of what it was like to be there on the beach at Daytona when NASCAR was coming together, but it’s totally different to read a person’s memories of it. It’s a fresh perspective on the sport we all love so much.
It’s just a really fun read. Ditch that Jackie Collins novel and take this sucker with you to the beach this summer.
I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting Andrew and so I loved reading about his tales of being a newbie in the Talladega infield and his other hilarious mishaps. I cannot believe he used dry erase markers to hide holes in his pants! I LOL’d at that one. You’re brave for laying that one out there, Andrew. He’s a funny guy and knows how to tell a story. This book isn’t dry, or boring or any of those bad words.
If Andrew ever decides to do a follow-up to this book, my plan is to be in it. Hopefully I can think of something insanely cool to do that would warrant inclusion. Hmm. Maybe I’ll name my first born child NASCAR, or something. hehe.
Buy this book, you won’t regret it. It’s the embodiment of the NASCAR tagline: Yours. Mine. Our NASCAR.
Tomorrow night HBO airs the first episode in a 4-part series that follows Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 Lowe’s team as they prepare for the 2010 Daytona 500. I’m very excited for this show. I think it’s going to be awesome, especially if it’s anything like HBO’s other sports series “Hard Knocks,” which follows a different NFL team through training camp each season (I love that show so much I wish I could be an intern for it or something, I mean really, looooove it). I love, love a true reality series and from the looks of it “24/7 Jimmie Johnson: Race to Daytona” will deliver. Check out the clips below! (more…)
Gather ’round for I have news…
– So I Googled myself the other day, as I often do when I’m bored, and found out that I’ve been chosen as one of 101 Women Bloggers to Watch in 2010 by WE Magazine for Women. Check it out! It’s super cool. I’m totally honored to be on the list!
– A new book written by NASCAR’s Andrew Giangola titled “The Weekend Starts on Wednesday: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans” will be hitting store bookshelves on February 10th and I highly recommend it. It’s all about you and me, the fans of NASCAR. I got to read a couple chapters before it was complete and I think this is a book you’re going to want to pick up. There are stories that will make you laugh and others that will touch your heart. Plus, Tony Stewart wrote the foreword and Kyle Busch wrote the afterword. You can pre-order the book right now over at Amazon.com. And check out this article Texas Motor Speedway posted today about the book, highlighting some of the stories that took place at TMS, along with an excerpt.
– And speaking of Tony Stewart. I have yet another fantabulous photo of him to share with you courtesy of Office Depot. I am loving Tony’s partnership with Office Depot because they keep making him take all these photos in suits where he looks all snazzy and slick. Like, George Clooney slick. It’s cool, he’s making getting organized sexy.
Anywhoo, enjoy the picture and then check out Office Depot’s Facebook page where you can find tips from Tony on how to get organized for 2010 AND get a 10% discount coupon on qualifying organization products and services at Office Depot. Don’t delay; the coupon is only valid through January 16th!
– For my day job I work for a company called Lowepro, a product design company that builds protective gear for photography equipment and portable electronics. They recently launched a new camera sling bag that is absolutely awesome. I used the Passport Sling™ last year at Infineon and Auto Club Speedway and it is the PERFECT bag for carrying all of my raceday gear. So I wrote up a testimonial and they’ve included it on the Passport Sling™ series page on the Lowepro website. It’s pretty neat, if I do say so myself.
:: This is part two in a series of four posts (to see all of the posts on one page, click here) ::
Me: You talked about Jeff Gordon and his entrance into NASCAR and how that kind of signaled the entrance of, ya know, guys who grew up racing and learned about the whole corporate aspect of it and knew how to answer questions and all of those kinds of things. I’ve always thought of Jeff Gordon as the face of NASCAR, at least to the outside world, or to people who never NASCAR ever or haven’t in their lives. He usually the most recognizable person, I mean, obviously Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty are big too but Jeff Gordon kind of like in the 90′s was like, the guy. Do you think that’s changing as far as, ya know, other people coming through? Like Dale Earnhardt Jr. is so popular and Carl Edwards is like, camera ready.
Liz: Yeah, he is, isn’t he?
Me: And he’s so good at it. It seems like its part of his personality actually.
Liz: Yeah, and it seems very natural and authentic. Not like he went to some school to learn how to talk. I guess there are a few more characters that people associate with NASCAR. And I think, I totally agree with you regarding Jeff being the face of NASCAR in the 90′s. Ya know, it really helped too because his car was so special. Ya know most of those cars then were one solid color. Ya know they were a color and then a number. And he had the rainbow. I mean, it’s different now but I mean kids loved that. It was like the rainbow car with all the colors and it just looked so sparkly. And he was so sparkly.
I live in D.C. which is hardly a hotbed of NASCAR but this Halloween I had two little Tony Stewarts and one Lightning McQueen come to my door. They were in the like little miniature Home Depot suits and it was really adorable. Now, Joe Gibbs of course owns that car so a lot of Washingtonians follow Joe Gibbs, but I do think Tony in that orange car that’s kind of become iconic.
I’m really not at all a fan of Dale Jr. having this two car sponsorship and two car look. Not because I’m opposed to either sponsor or either look. But I just think in NASCAR it’s such an extension of the driver’s personality is his car. And when you keep switching it, it just muddles the message. I don’t think it does either sponsor a service. Who was it? It was Kyle Busch at California he was back to Interstate; he wasn’t the M&M’s car. It was annoying to me and I love Interstate, don’t get me wrong, but for little kids or new fans part of the way you come to know a driver is the black number 3, the rainbow colored 24 or the orange number 20. I mean I understand the business reasons for it, it’s too expensive, you need multiple companies to pay the freight, but I really think people are missing how serious this is to keep switching the uniform of the guy. It’s basically his uniform.
Me: Yea, I know what you mean. ‘Cause it’s the same thing with Clint Bowyer, he’s doing DirecTV and Jack Daniels. And then he has that switch happening at some point. Greg Biffle has a switch happening. It’s hard to remember which car they’re in, “Oh, wait, that’s so and so.”
Liz: And by extension it’s hard to care. I mean, it sounds silly but it’s just hard to care because that’s not my guy. You’re just more conscious of oh, he’s selling this product this week. You sort of don’t believe, like, “does he really like that product?” It’s not like you get that detailed in your thinking but the guy should look the same. You cheer for the car because you know who’s inside. I love that M&M’s car. I don’t like Kyle Busch, I’ll tell you that, but I love the M&M’s car. It should be in the race all the time.
Me: That’s one point where we totally agree. I don’t like Kyle Busch either. Well two points actually, I totally agree on both of those points.
That’s another thing that’s getting hard. Sometimes at the beginning of every season I have to go through the roster and say “Ok, this guy is with this team now and he’s driving this car, and he’s in these colors now so look for that if you’re looking for him.”
Liz: It’s hard enough as it is, with the regular changes.
Me: It’s one thing if the guy changes sponsors but then he’s changing his entire team, changing his number. I’m like “Oh wait, that’s not David Gilliland anymore, that’s Kyle Busch, so yea, don’t cheer anymore. If you see the M&M’s car just walk on by.”
A couple months ago I was given the opportunity to read Washington Post writer Liz Clarke’s new book about NASCAR entitled “One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation.” I mentioned once before, when I was close to finishing the book, how emotional it made me feel. If you’re new to NASCAR or have been a fan for all of your life you should definitely pick up One Helluva Ride. It gives great insight, from one reporter’s unique perspective, on how NASCAR began and evolved over the years.
Luckily for me I was also given the opportunity to speak with Liz about the book and ask her some questions. I’m posting the results of our conversation here and in subsequent posts. Enjoy!
:: This is part one in a series of four posts (to see all of the posts on one page, click here) ::
Me: Why did you want to write the book and how did it come about?
Liz: I think that my experience was different than a lot of peoples in that I was approached by an editor, a book editor who was familiar with my work at the Post and asked if I had ever thought about writing a book. She suggested one on gymnastics or tennis, which I was also covering at the time. She emailed and I said I’d love to write a book, I’ve never written a book but if I wrote one I really would feel more comfortable writing one about NASCAR. That’s the sport I know the best and would probably have the most to say and I thought she might go running, ya know fleeing and hanging up, I didn’t know how this would go over but she was open minded. She said “Well I’ll listen to that.” So that forced me to give some discipline to what was the book that I had in mind, I mean what is it that I wanted to say about NASCAR. Ya know and put that in written form, and do a proposal. Ya know one option would have been to focus on one driver’s story. Or to focus on a season in the life of the sport and I really wasn’t drawn to do either one.
I looked at this as the only book that I would ever write in my lifetime and I wanted sort of to say everything, just like say everything that I knew that I felt most strongly about and that there never was room for in a newspaper story or you edit your own self and you think “Well that’s not appropriate for a newspaper story, nobody really cares what I think, or nobody really cares about this funny conversation I had with so and so.” It’s invariably when you talk to people and they know you cover sports the questions they ask you are often the stories you never write, like “What is that person really like?” “What is Bill Elliott like?” or “What is Dale Earnhardt really like?” It’s odd how you never write those stories.
Also I was acutely aware of how rapidly the sport was growing and changing in obvious ways, the closing of several small tracks, the move west to new markets but also the change in the basic driver. The drivers were getting younger, they were from all over the country, they had a certain polish, ya know PR training was new and ya know some of this is easy to admire NASCAR for and really applaud their growth. Some of it made me sad. And so I just felt this overwhelming need to capture all of this before it kind of went away, before it was lost forever. And my, I hope this is not to vague, but my idea was to start the book in 1992 with the first night race at Charlotte. It was the first night race I recall seeing in person when it just knocked my socks off. And then I talked to some smart people and they said “No, no, no, you have to start where the sport starts. You have to start in the dirt.” And I thought “Oh god that’s going to bore people, I won’t get them through that to get to the part that I know.” But I think that was right.
I tried to cover a ton of history really in a compressed way and ya know certainly the book doesn’t stand up as this definitive history of NASCAR. I mean, I skip tons of champions. I ignore big chunks of the sport’s history but it was my version of the sport’s history in that it was to me what was important. To me what was important was the individualism of the people who ran moonshine and then raced stock cars, and the power of Bill France Jr., the unbelievable power that he had, and the warmth of Richard Petty. To me those are the three themes of the first thirty years of stock car racing. So I took some liberties in focusing on that.
Me: Which I think is really great because when people ask you “why do you like NASCAR?” It’s hard to say, because everyone always says “isn’t it just them driving around in circles?” And I’m like, “It’s so much more than that.” It really is the personalities of the drivers that make it so interesting and figuring who your favorite is based off of personality traits or how they interact with the other drivers.
Liz: Yes, I totally agree. And so, I can certainly understand why people change the channel as fast as they can when they see it. If you can’ tell, if you don’t know who’s in the cars, it is just kind of cars going around. It’s hard to explain to people that the people stand for something and that fans feel this connection.
Me: That’s what I liked about Richard Petty’s introduction in your book, which I thought was really cool that you got The King to write an introduction to your book. That’s awesome.
Liz: Oh, I was honored. I was so honored. So you liked that?
Me: Yea, and I liked how he said that if you’ve never been to a NASCAR race you should just go and then, ya know, you watch the cars, pick one out that you’re going to focus on for the race. And then as you keep watching you’ll learn more and then you’ll figure out ok, maybe I want this other driver, and you’ll figure out which one you like and then it can grow into something more. You have to kind of just pick one and go with it. Which is really true, that’s what I did. I started out with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and then I found out about all of these other drivers. I was like “Hey, Carl Edwards is really cool,” and I like the way he handles himself. You broaden your horizons as you keep watching. So, speaking of personalities, do you think that there is less personality in the drivers or different characters? Or do you think it’s about the same?
Liz: Based on what we can see as viewers, whether you’re watching on TV or listening on the scanners whatever, to me there’s definitely less personality. I’m not convinced the drivers themselves are less interesting, but there latitude for expressing themselves is so narrow now, they’re so scrutinized, ya know primarily by their sponsors who are paying the bills. They have to be the corporate pitchman all the time. Ya know, NASCAR probably gets and probably deserves some criticism for muzzling drivers’ personalities, with being very quick to fine and penalize for expressions. I mean, the one that just rankled me to death was when Dale Jr. was so excited after the win at Talladega. Ya know the “it don’t mean shit because my daddy won here ten times” or something. And ya know that use of “shit” wasn’t offensive. The vernacular [was used as a] huge compliment to his dad.
Me: Yea, that got me too. It was like, the moment he said it, it didn’t even phase me, you’re just so happy for him you’re not thinking about what he’s saying. Not the word he used at that particular moment.
Liz: Exactly. Yea, because the whole spirit was: I’m nothing compared to my dad. I mean what a great thing to say. He is something, he is emerging. But it was just a great tribute and a great moment and it was so dour and lame of NASCAR to react to that. I just wish the drivers words and behaviors after winning were not so scripted. I mean I understand corporate money makes the sport go and that these people are in the sport not only because their logo is seen but because their company logo is said by the driver. But I would find any driver who wins a race and gets out of the car and mentions his sponsor before he expresses one authentic emotion. I mean lets have the emotion and then, ya now, fulfill your contract. It’s a long way of saying I don’t think the drivers are boring personalities and you can’t find an interesting guy in the garage with an interesting opinion. I just think they’re almost in a straight jacket about how they behave, whether it’s all the, what are those Gillette drivers? What are they called? (Me: The Young Guns) Yea, Whether it’s all the Young Guns have to shave, ya know. Certainly decorum is called for but ya know and also the whole thing about being fearful of criticizing NASCAR or even questioning NASCAR. I was elated when Dale Jr. said on Sunday this track wasn’t ready to race; it was not a good move. Now that’s perceived as criticizing NASCAR. To me that’s a totally legitimate comment by a guy who was in the car and just got wiped out. I can’t believe more drivers didn’t say the same thing. I was thrilled that Denny Hamlin said it. To me it just bothered me to death that the broadcasters were not already discussing this on TV. Ya know, is this a good decision? You can talk about issues in the sport without slamming NASCAR.
Ya know but people, there’s this culture of you can’t question the Car of Tomorrow, you can’t question any, the length of the races, you can’t question the timing of the starts, ya know, whatever. The sport would be better, I mean Kyle Petty can do it, he can do it.
Me: Do you think there’s a fear amongst the drivers of retaliation from NASCAR? Is there a real, valid fear that if I say something they’re going to dock me points?
Liz: I think that that specter certainly was very palpable when I started covering this sport 15 years ago, 10 years ago. That was a real fear because there was so much more grey area in the application of the rule book. Getting through inspection was a real black box, I mean no one really knew quite what it took. And now I mean under Robin Pemberton and Gary Nelson before him, NASCAR has gotten quite specific and quite literal about what it takes to get through inspection, so there’s not that murkiness. It’s more above board; it’s more on the up and up. But that said, there’s still this vestige I think in the culture of, ya know, this is one man’s sport and he makes the rules and we can play by his rules or leave. That’s the way Bill France built it. It’s not so much the way they run it now but it has, that effect is still in the air.
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