The Ghosts of NASCAR: The Harlan Boys and the First Daytona 500

"A rollicking ride back to the roots of stock car racing in the Midwest." —Journal of American Culture

Named by BookAuthority one of the 22 Best Motorsport eBooks of All Time

Chosen by the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association as the second best motorsport book published in 2013

Who won the first Daytona 500? Fans still debate whether it was midwestern champion Johnny Beauchamp, declared the victor at the finish line, or longtime NASCAR driver Lee Petty, declared the official winner a few days after the race. Author John Havick interviewed scores of people, analyzed film of the race, and pored over newspaper accounts of the event. He uses this information and his deep knowledge of the sport as it worked then to determine what probably happened. But he also tells a much bigger story: the story of how Johnny Beauchamp—and his Harlan, Iowa, compatriots, Dale Swanson and Tiny Lund—ended up in Florida driving in the 1959 Daytona race.

The Ghosts of NASCAR details how the Harlan Boys turned to racing cars to have fun and to escape the limited opportunities for poor boys in rural southwestern Iowa. As auto racing became more popular in the 1950s, Swanson, Lund, and Beauchamp battled dozens of rivals and came to dominate the sport in the Midwest. By the later part of the decade, the three men were ready to take on the competition in the South's growing NASCAR circuit. One of the top mechanics of the day, Swanson literally wrote the book on race cars at Chevrolet's clandestine racing shop in Atlanta, Georgia, while Beauchamp and Lund proved themselves worthy competitors. It all came to a head on the brand-new Daytona track in 1959.

© 2023 Tantor Media (Audiobook): 9798350849943

Release date

Audiobook: 10 October 2023