NASCAR’S Greatest Race

By Rick Houston, £24, cartechbooks.com, ISBN 978 1 61325 285 7 A 218-page hardback about a single race? Thankfully, there’s a lot more to it than that. Author Houston’s journalistic career hinged on reporting on the 1992 Hooters 500 – the last in the 34-year career of the legendary Richard Petty – at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, so he hurled himself into it, keen to make his mark. He was lucky to be rewarded with one of the most dramatic races in motor sport history.

If you’re a newcomer to NASCAR, the érst few chapters may be a bit baffling, but thankfully the colourful personalities of the likes of Petty, Junior Johnson and Dale Earnhardt grab your attention early on.

It’s a world away from the clean-living, Pr-patrolled sphere of modern motor racing, replete with foul mouths, feuds and ésticuffs. If you love motor sport in general, you’d be silly to overlook this tale.