Tom Fudge: NASCAR is the second-most popular sport on television in America today. That's a fact that surprises a lot of people because unless you've been properly introduced to the sport, you don't really get it. To be perfectly honest, I have to include myself in the ranks of the uninitiated. On some given weekend day, I'll mistakenly flip my TV to a channel carrying a NASCAR event. I see cars going 'round and 'round in a circle. Once I see what it is, I hit the channel changer again.
Liz Clarke was probably like that before she got a job as a sportswriter for the Charlotte Observer and someone said, “Congratulations, you're covering NASCAR.”
Not an insubstantial assignment in Charlotte, which is the Mecca of the NASCAR creed. Since that time, Liz has actually become a NASCAR fan, and she's written a book called One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation.
Guest
- Liz Clarke, is a sportswriter for The Washington Post , and author of the new book One Helluva Ride: How NASCAR Swept the Nation .
