“My heroes have always been cowboys. And they still are, it seems.”
5. Will fans of our Ballad novels enjoy ST. DALE?
I have been pleased to see the overlap between racing fans and my readership. People I never knew were NASCAR fans have turned out to be long-time readers of my work: college librarians, booksellers, historians, teachers, poets. There are 70 million NASCAR fans. You might be amazed at the erudition and sophistication of NASCAR-fan readers, but nothing surprises me any more.
6. What was the most surprising thing you discovered as you researched this novel?
My original intention was to learn enough about stock car racing to write a credible novel. I did not expect to fall madly in love with the sport. I discovered that once racing made sense to me, I loved it. A NASCAR commercial asks: How bad have you got it? Oh, let me count the ways. Once I was stuck in the Chicago airport at race time; all the TV’s in the terminal were turned to baseball. So I called a friend on my cell phone and made her talk me through the race until my flight boarded. In June I was in England, on the computer in the basement of thousand-year-old Wroxley Abbey, checking the qualifying results for the Michigan race. My own favorite driver, 2002 Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton, had a run of bad luck in 2004. I haven’t cried this much over a guy since junior high school.
7. Did writing this book change you?
I have had so many wonderful adventures. If I have to pick just one, let me tell you about The Outlaws.
Last March I was invited to Young Harris College in the Georgia mountains to lecture on my Ballad novels. Hearing that I’d be in the area, the local high school asked if I would stay over the weekend and visit there on Monday because the high school English classes had been reading one of my Ballad novels. They put me up in a tourist cabin over the weekend. Saturday night I went dirt track racing with one of my long-time readers who turned out to be a motor sports journalist. On Sunday I settled in to watch the NASCAR race on television, only to discover that the satellite dish was out, the cabin phone was dead, and the mountains blocked the signal to my cell phone. I was in an information vacuum.
Monday morning at 9 A.M. I walked into the high school class to give my talk on Appalachian Literature to twenty-six bright and eager students-and to five Outlaws. Over in the corner sat five big tough-looking guys in black T-shirts and work boots, clearly not happy about having to listen to a lady author talk about books on a Monday morning.
I was so glad to see them!
I said to the class, “Before I start to tell you about frontier justice in Appalachia, I have a question, Who won yesterday at Darlington?”
The twenty-six eager students looked bewildered, and the Outlaws’ jaws dropped. Was I really asking what they thought I was asking? Finally the biggest, toughest one said, “Jimmie Johnson.”
I said, “Really? I thought Matt Kenseth might have pulled this one off. He qualified badly, but then he always does.”
“Naw. He got penalized for passing during a caution. Lost a lap.”
“How about Kasey Kahne?”
“Spun out. Finished thirteenth.”
After the Outlaws and I did three minutes of the racing report, I gave my lecture about The Ballad of Frankie Silver to twenty-six bright and eager students and five “disciples.” One of the Outlaws has written to me once a month ever since, and he always ends his letter with “I want to read your St. Dale book.” He’s getting the first copy.
8. What would you like to accomplish with ST. DALE?
I always want to change the world. This time I would like to rescue a wonderful sport from the casual bigotry of people who see the whole country as a theme park, and who assume that any pastime with Southern roots must be a bastion of ignorant rednecks. The drivers are smarter than you think-two of my favorites are Ryan Newman, who has a degree in engineering from Purdue, and Ward Burton, who funded a Wildlife Foundation. NASCAR fans are so numerous and geographically diverse as to defy stereotyping.
9. Will your next novel be in the vein of ST. DALE?
When the book first came out, I’d have said no, but NASCAR is very hard to get out of your system. I tried writing an historical novel and felt like I was doing a term paper on dairy products. Fortunately, just after Daytona I got a wonderful NASCAR-related idea about a pit crew, and by now I have made so many friends within the sport that I have a great deal of help in getting the details right in an insider’s look at racing.
Sharyn McCrumb
