Fearless: The Story of Racing Legend Louise Smith (review)

Would Alice Ramsey ever have predicted, as she and her Maxwell famously jolted across the continent in 1909, that the next generation of daredevil women drivers would be racing with the guys in something called NASCAR? Here Rosenstock introduces Louise Smith, a born leadfoot recruited as a sort of gimmick by NASCAR founder Bill France in the late 1940s. Unapprised of the meaning of a checkered flag, she continued to circle the track in her first race until someone thought to wave a red flag to stop her. Once infected with racing fever, she took the family car on a "vacation" to Daytona, where she raced, wrecked, and came home sans vehicle but with a lame lie for her husband about breaking down in Georgia—unfortunately, Noah Smith had already read about her escapade in the newspaper. A near-fatal collision with a stand of trees left her undeterred, and she racked up a lifetime record of thirty-eight wins. Rosenstock spins Smith's tale with appropriate zest, and Dawson's paintings, rendered in a palette and style reminiscent of mid-twentieth-century magazine photographs, impart a sense of high velocity by blurring the contours of speeding cars and hazing the roadways and tracks in clouds of kicked-up dust. A closing note offers additional information on Smith's career and lists sources for further investigation. Little girls itchin' for their chance to put the pedal to the metal will want to get behind the wheel with Louise Smith.