Nothing irritates me more when I meet someone within the sport than when they don’t know anything about the history. Generally these are the people who fell ass-end into it (believe it or not it does happen). It boggles my mind how you can come into something like this and not know anything about where the sport came from.

The reason I bring this up is I finished this book about the Alabama Gang last night. If you don’t know the Alabama Gang consisted of Bobby Allison, Donnie Allison, Davey Allison, Hut Stricklin, Red Farmer and Neil Bonnett (you could make the argument for a few others). It was a good book, with a lot of good information about the Allison’s and the rest of the gang. They really epitomize what the sport was built on.

For me it has always been really important to see things from the ground up. I want to know why things are the way they are and with NASCAR that involves finding out about who made what we now see.

Last year TNT did a great series of profiles on some of the sports greats including Bobby Allison, David Pearson and Junior Johnson called Pride of NASCAR. These guys are the greatest personalities the sport has and probably will ever see.

I was in Phoenix years ago for a race and out in the midway Harry Gant was sitting in a trailer to sign autographs. There unfortunately was none of that going on as fans walked past a very dejected looking Gant. My family and I were excited to see him; we got pictures with him and he signed autographs, it was a thrill. I know for him though it had to be a little hurtful that the fans who had given him so much had forgotten about him so quickly. And he is not alone. Bud Moore in the Pride of NASCAR series tells how he and David Pearson went to Las Vegas earlier that year and only one of the inspectators came up to talk to them.

There are hundreds of books out today about drivers, team owners and general history that contain tons of information about this great sport. In addition just this year ESPN put out a series of videos about the history, the greatest drivers and the greatest races. If you haven’t seen them you should.

NASCAR has such a rich and colorful history dating back to the late 1940s. So many great drivers, owners and mechanics helped to build the struggling Saturday night events into a multi-million dollar industry. I guess what I am trying to say is, if you truly love this sport, get to know stock car racing before it was NASCAR and respect those who came before.

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