American journalist & author
The harsh reality is that America moves on four wheels, powered by conventional internal-combustion engines. At this point, while the elite media (excluding Newsweek) trumpet the benefits of hybrids and Ford and Toyota plan to lead the nation into a low-powered, high-mileage hybrid Utopia, the multitudes remain loyal to the gas-guzzling family bus in the driveway.
BROCK YATES
"Whatever Shall We Do, Scarlett?", Car and Driver, Jan. 2006
A written regulation in NASCAR is about as reliable as an Egyptian immigration law.
BROCK YATES
NASCAR Off the Record
Some guy once told me that skydiving is like cutting your throat and seeing if you can get to the doctor before you bleed to death.
BROCK YATES
Sunday Driver
A strange offshoot of the illegal liquor business was the creation of a class of expert drivers--daredevils who could navigate the backcountry roads of the Piedmont with amazing skill. Their favored vehicles were lightweight Ford coupes with hot-rodded V-8 engines--many built up by Atlanta engine genius Red Vogt--and stiffened rear springs to permit the transport of up to 180 gallons of white liquor, carried in either Mason jars or aluminum cans. The best drivers could make five or six trips a week. At $40 a run, they made big money, which permitted them a Sunday rumble with their rivals on roughed-out ovals in the backcountry. Thirty or 40 of the trippers often lined up to do battle. There being no formal admission, the drivers passed their leather football helmets through the crowd, collecting nickels and dimes that would be added to the pot, sweetened by private bets between the competitors.
BROCK YATES
NASCAR Off the Record
They still talk about the night that Augie Pabst, a fresh-faced heir to the brewing fortune, drove a rented Falcon into the swimming pool of the Mark Thomas Inn in Monterey, California. His reviews were so good that he repeated the act at a Howard Johnson's outside Denver.
BROCK YATES
Sunday Driver
Many peg the '60s as the pinnacle of unrest in America when in fact it was the following decade that saw the nation on the edge of chaos, both politically and culturally. In retrospect it remains a singularly powerful testimony to the rigid fabric of the nation that it not only stayed strong throughout the madness of that decade, but in the '80s saw a revival of the national spirit and a collapse of the Russian empire. Political leaders of all persuasions are given credit for both our successes and failures, but it is the elemental strength of our system and the diverse fibre of the population that saved the day, as has been the case in all periods of national crisis.
BROCK YATES
introduction, Sunday Driver
Racing is bulging at the seams with pure nutball characters, men who can drink more, screw more, fight more, laugh more, joke more, than practically any collection of people in the world.
BROCK YATES
NASCAR Off the Record
Unlike conventional jocks, who tend to sell aluminum siding and give canned speeches to parochial-school athletic banquets in the off-season, race drivers never shuck their image when they leave the stadium. They are supposed to be zany, nomadic soldiers of fortune who are involved in wild endeavors during every waking moment.
BROCK YATES
Sunday Driver