{"id":26206,"date":"2016-04-15T14:56:31","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T21:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=26206"},"modified":"2016-04-15T14:56:31","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T21:56:31","slug":"life-in-the-past-lane-book-covers-racing-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/life-in-the-past-lane-book-covers-racing-history\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLife in the Past Lane\u201d Book Covers Racing History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RJ117<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Verdegan\u2019s first book\u2014Life in the Past Lane\u2014is a collection of stories from drivers and promoters involved in stock car racing in Northeast Wisconsin between 1950 and 1980. \u201cI tried to paint a picture of the colorful rivalries that the drivers had back in the old days,\u201d Verdegan recently told Racing Junk.<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/a>
Joe Verdegan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Verdegan never raced himself, but he worked as an announcer and PR agent for tracks in the Green Bay, Wis., area. He said that his grandfather was a flagman, his mother was a trophy queen and his grandmother was a scorer. His second cousin\u2014Scott Hansen\u2014drove NASCAR truck and won a lot of races.<\/p>\n

Joe had been penning a racing column for the Green Bay Press Gazette for 20 years and he decided to put a book together. \u201cNo one ever chronicled racing in this area, so I guess I was the guy to do it,\u201d he laughed. \u201cBasically, it\u2019s like every chapter is kind of like its own short story and the drivers talk about how they got into racing, about the rivalries back then and about their histories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
One of the driver\u2019s featured in the book<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many stories found in Life in the Past Lane take place in the \u201850s and \u201860s when racing was very different. \u201cBack then, the biggest thing was that everyone built their own stuff, which was mainly coupes or wing modifieds,\u201d Verdegan pointed out. \u201cThere was a lot of ingenuity; everyone knew how to weld and they got real creative. Everyone learned on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verdegan says one of the biggest differences between the past and present is that, years ago, everyone \u201clearned on the fly\u201d because they had to. \u201cToday, with the advent of the Internet, everyone shares knowledge and there aren\u2019t many secrets anymore in terms of technology and set ups,\u201d he suggested. \u201cAnd today, everyone buys mostly everything; you\u2019re hard pressed to find somebody that builds anything on their own today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some modern racers would agree with the thinking of the older drivers along those lines and some would argue that more building goes on today. Whatever side you\u2019re on, Verdegan\u2019s book is a good read and a great way to understand how things were in the earlier days of local stock car racing.<\/p>\n

The author says he is currently one-third through his second book, due out in 2016. Kaukauna: Where the Big One’s Run will tell the story of Wisconsin International Raceway in the town of Kaukauna. In 2017, he plans to write a follow-up to the first book. \u201cIt will be like Volume 2 of Life in the Past Lane,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will pick up at 1980 and continue to the present time and cover all the changes in area tracks, both dirt, and asphalt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Verdegan\u2019s first book\u2014Life in the Past Lane\u2014is a collection of stories from drivers and promoters involved in stock car racing in Northeast Wisconsin between 1950 and 1980.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":26209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[4346,4345,994,4344,304],"class_list":["post-26206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-product-reviews","tag-life-in-the-past-lane-book-covers-racing-history","tag-book-review","tag-gunner","tag-joe-verdegan","tag-john-gunnell"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/RJ117-Photo-03-e1460757327986.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-6OG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26210,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26206\/revisions\/26210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}