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Lone Wolf
Winner2007 AARWBA
"Book of the Year" Award
LONE WOLF
"This one is different.
Back in 2006, when writer Dave Argabright and sprint car champion Doug Wolfgang agreed to do a book together, the racing world stood to attention. It was widely known that the two were at the very top of their trades. The result did not disappoint.
As readers we are immediately immersed in the rich and compelling evolution of the sport—the cutdowns and supermodifieds of the 1960s, the enduring configuration of a sprinter in place by the early ’70s, the increasingly pivotal role of the Knoxville Nationals, and the meteoric success of Ted Johnson’s World of Outlaws.
The story is filled with captivating descriptions of the Kinsers, Swindells, Rick Ferkel, all the characters who made it happen. We come to know their personalities and often testy interactions as they made a living turning the wheel, crisscrossing the country from track to dusty track. It was grueling and dangerous stuff, made possible by promoters—often of a carny stripe—and crusty car owners, some using their race cars as an expression of their own testosterone. There was the time Lealand McSpadden was fired from his ride when he was flipping the car, 20 feet in the air.
Along the way, we come to understand how Doug’s own incredible career played out. How he worked his way out of the weekend tracks in South Dakota into sprint car racing’s national ranks, only to be met with a double tragedy at Knoxville Raceway involving two of his close friends. How he managed to enter and exit various teams, sometimes graciously, sometimes impetuously. How he kept his focus on winning prodigiously through a series of appalling accidents himself. And, finally, having survived, how he became comfortable with retirement, building Wolfweld sprint cars in his shop back in Sioux Falls.
However, the real gift of Lone Wolf quietly unfolds throughout the book. It becomes clear to the reader that Argabright and Wolfgang are two stars aligned and are in fact really good friends. Something special is happening.
Knowing Doug so well, Argabright is able to reveal the depth of the man, his sense of humanity, gentleness and even humor, unusual within the insane world of dirt tracking. A million fans who watched him perform surely dreamed of being Doug Wolfgang. In this book a fan can almost become Doug Wolfgang.
Take for example Doug’s early struggle with poor vision, only to crash so hard in the late 1970s that his eyesight self-corrected. He celebrated the incident not by saying how much it improved his driving but how much it pleased him to be able to pick out his wife in the grandstand while traveling by at a ridiculous speed. And there is such insight into Doug’s mind on how he could just groove on the badass tracks—the bigger and faster the better—but still be “scared to absolute death” by driving Bob Trostle’s 1420-pound sprinter at the notorious Devil’s Bowl in Texas.
Beneath all the daring self-confidence, talent, and fame we find a modest man with a strong moral code. The reader will actually squirm with Doug as car owner Bob Weikert “was putting on the boat,” boasting loudly about how they are going to decimate the competition. And you could feel Doug struggle through the excruciatingly painful burn debridement following his fiery crash at Lakeside Speedway. All the while, over and over in his mind he questioned whether he should step up and sue to defray some of his recovery expenses and point out safety issues, trying to improve the sport. Somehow, he found the courage to get through it all and to return to racing and winning.
Yes, Lone Wolf is something different, something unforgettable. It is, in fact, one of the greatest short track books ever written."
Lew Boyd - Coastal 181
Foreword by Steve Kinser
Hardcover, 5-3/8 by 8-3/8 inches, 352 pages
32 pages of color and b/w photographs
List price $32.50, direct price $29.95