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Quote by Brock Yates

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Brock Yates
Brock Yates

Brock Yates was an American journalist renowned for his profound insights into the car culture and his contributions to automotive magazine editing. His career began at 'Car and Driver' magazine, where he served in various roles for nearly four decades. Yates was beloved by readers for his unique style and passion for automotive performance. more

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“The appeal of the Riverside 500 was based on that overall spectacle of witnessing a mob of brightly colored, bellowing automobiles gamboling over the countryside like a herd of runaway steers. Stock car roadracing is in fact like a mechanical stampede, and we personally think it's maybe the neatest form of motor racing known to man. It's definitely the greatest spectacle in roadracing.”

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Book:NASCAR Off the Record
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“To be sure, [NASCAR] stars were initially ex-bootleggers for the most part drawn from that talent pool in the Carolinas hills: "good ol' boys" as they referred to themselves. That's exactly how they would be described in the press that slowly became enamored with their raucous life style. That has all changed, with the drivers of today polished and clean-cut athletes who are expected to behave like commercial puppets in public.”

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Author:Brock Yates
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“Why the hell not run a race across the United States? A balls-out, shoot-the-moon, f***-the-establishment rumble from New York to Los Angeles to prove what we had been harping about for years, for example, that good drivers in good automobiles could employ the American Interstate system the same way the Germans were using their Autobahns? Yes, make high-speed travel by car a reality! Truth and justice affirmed by an overtly illegal act.”

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Author:Brock Yates
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“Some critics of racing witlessly claim that spectators only attend to see someone die. This is utter and complete nonsense. I have been at numerous races where death is present. When a driver dies, the crowd symbolically dies, too. They come to see action at the brink: ultimate risk taking and the display of skill and bravery embodied in the sport's immortals like Nuvolari, Foyt, and thousands of others who operate at the ragged edge.”

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Author:Brock Yates
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“There was a day when you could identify a NASCAR Ford, Chevrolet, or Dodge and they actually looked like "stock cars." Now they are pod machines, slick on the outside but still powered by the same Neanderthal carbureted pushrod V-8s that have been under their hoods for half a century. If this is real auto racing, then the WWF ought to be part of the Olympics.”

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Author:Brock Yates
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