Like any giant enterprise, the NASCAR we see today is very different from the regional race series launched by a visionary Bill France in the late 1940s. Few writers are as intimately aware of that history as Car and Driver's Brock Yates. From the 1950s, he recalls the intimate nature of the sport's early years, when he would see the entire Petty family working together, Richard wrenching on the car while his father cooked for the family on a barbecue grill. In 1979, Yates was reporting from the pits for ABC at the Daytona 500 when the infamous fight erupted between Cale Yarborough and the Allison boys. His perspective spans nearly 50 years, and his wry observations are always sure to incite both cheers and jeers. NASCAR Off the Record is a pithy, opinionated, hilarious, and compelling collection of some of the greatest NASCAR stories of all time, as told by a man who was present at the scene.