MY LIFE IN THE PITS

NASCAR is fast, loud, exciting, exhilarating, and the fastest-growing sport in America. Now, a former sports reporter and the author of What Southern Women Know enters this "man's world" of blinding speed and thundering engines to offer a fascinating, funny, poignant, and remarkable look at the racers, their fans, their cars, and their lives from a woman's point of view.

My Life in the Pits

Ronda Rich came to Winston Cup racing as a skeptical young journalist working on a story about the sport's emerging dynasty, the Elliotts. Once there, like so many others she found it hard to leave, becoming addicted to the spellbinding thrill of high velocity and the smell of gasoline. Behind the scenes at race tracks like Talladega and Daytona, she rubbed shoulders with the colorful and unforgettable stars who drive fast for love and glory: the charismatic Richard Petty, the gifted and mercurial Tim Richmond, Bobby and Davey Allison, Alan Kulwicki, Darrell and Michael Waltrip, Richard Childress, and the Intimidator himself, Dale Earnhardt, to name but a few. What she expected was a world of big egos and macho posturing; what she discovered was a close-knit family with its roots firmly planted in America's heartland -- a devoted brotherhood united by friendship, love, loss, and triumph.

In what is perhaps the most extraordinary and revealing book ever written on the subject, Rich puts us behind the steering wheels of NASCAR's fastest machines and into the hearts and minds of those who drive them. We follow her into the high-tech garages and private jets and onto the tracks where legends are born ... and sometimes destroyed in the squeal of tires and chilling shriek of twisted metal. With her we share the agony of racing wives and experience the courageous culture of the NASCAR circuit. And we share her heartbreak on that dark day in Daytona when thousands witnessed the horrific crash that cost Dale Earnhardt, the Man in Black, his life.

Along with Rich's vivid and enthralling first-person accounts, My Life in the Pits contains fascinating insights on racing and life from the cream of the NASCAR crop. It is the ultimate inside look at the world of professional speed, a book no fan should be without -- an eye-opening, often hilarious, and always moving and unforgettable tribute to the people, the competition, and the unparalleled passion that makes this singular sport everything it is.

Now a professional marketing consultant, Ronda Rich blazed trails as one of America's first female sports reporters. She covered NASCAR Winston Cup racing for Gannett newspapers, and served as a Winston Cup Series publicist for five years. The author of What Southern Women Know and a popular speaker, Rich has appeared on more than three dozen television shows, including The View, where she was interviewed by Barbara Walters.