STOCK CAR RACING

Being written

STOCK CAR RACING. A popular Dubuque area sport, stock car racing suffered after the closing of the Dubuque Sports Bowl in 1968. The season that year opened in May with 32 cars entered for the first program. Gary Trieweiler, high point man, was to be driving a Hudson coupe with a modified Chrysler engine. Other entries included late model Fords and Chevrolets with at least one '66 Mustang convertible. The game Total, an audience participation game in which fans could share in the proze money by picking the first five cars in the feature race, was to be played. (1)

It revived quickly with the construction of a modern track at the Dubuque County Fairgrounds in 1969. (2)

The thrill of the sport has attracted a growing number of female observers and participants. In 1960 press credentials for women reporting on NASCAR read, "No Women Allowed in the Pits." Times had changed when Rhonda Rich who worked as a sportswriter and publicist for corporate sponsors and drivers on the Winston Cup circuit wrote My Life in the Pits, the first book about racing from the female point of view. In 2000, NASCAR reported $1.2 billion was spent by fans on merchandise and of that women were estimated to have spent 60%. It was estimated that by 2003 women accounted for nearly 48% of the audience. (3)

Women held loyalty to the drivers as well as the companies that sponsored them. Debbie Lunsford-Love, a Georgia stock-car driver, stated that NASCAR drivers seemed real people with real families who came with them to the track and could be seen in-person. (4)

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Source:

1. "Stock Races Race Saturday," Telegraph-Herald, May 17, 1968, p. 18

2. Lagerstrom, Hal, " Sports," Telegraph Herald, April 12, 1970, p. 52

3. O'Briant, "A Woman's View," Telegraph Herald, January 16, 2003, p. 14

4. Ibid.