cover image REBEL WITH A CAUSE: A Season with NASCAR Star Tony Stewart

REBEL WITH A CAUSE: A Season with NASCAR Star Tony Stewart

Monte Dutton, . . Brassey's, $15.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-1-57488-280-3

Dutton (At Speed) blazes through Tony Stewart's "sophomore" 2000 Winston Cup season, when the NASCAR superstar won a spectacular six sanctioned events, more races than any other driver. Dutton's glimpses of this brash, hard-talking young driver will please fans looking for a successor to Dale Earnhardt. Dutton looks at Stewart's team of handlers, pre-race strategizing and reaction to on-track incidents. He also examines infield personalities, their sponsors and the sport-racing press. Dutton does a good job of capturing Stewart's rebellious personality; in 1999, Nike, having garnered an endorsement from the star, sent him a script to recite at the press conference—which Stewart crumpled up and threw in the trash. Dutton also chronicles the superstar's tiffs, both on and off the track, with Jeff Gordon and other drivers. The book consists of 40 short pieces from the author's "NASCAR This Week" syndicated newspaper column; unfortunately, this reporting, which focuses on one set of NASCAR venues in the mid-South, isn't enough to provide readers with a coherent picture of the complex mechanics, culture and social context of racing, as Dutton did in his previous book. There is some asphalt-level action, but mostly these pieces only hint at the forces underlying NASCAR racing's strong hold on rural white America. B&w photos. (June 1)

Forecast:Dutton's column appears in more than 500 newspapers nationwide, so fans will recognize his name. On the other hand, since readers of that column are already familiar with this material, they may not bother buying the book.