Live Free, Drive Fast: Behind the Scenes at the New Hampshire International Speedway, by Allen Lessels
Live Free, Drive Fast: Behind the Scenes at the New Hampshire International Speedway, by Allen Lessels
Twice each year, 101,000 auto racing fans pack the speedway to watch the likes of Stewart and Newman, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. do battle on the one-mile racetrack .Those fans include people like best-selling author Janet Evanovich. Evanovich, an NHIS regular, has written a dozen books with bounty hunter Stephanie Plum as the hero and now has started a new series with NASCAR as the setting.
This year hundreds of thousands of race fans will attend the largest sporting event in New England. It’s not in Foxborough or Boston Massachusetts. It is seventy-five miles north in Loudon, New Hampshire.
Two races are held at the New Hampshire International Speedway: the Lenox Industrial Tools 300 on July 1 and the Sylvania 300 on September 16.
A well-known New England journalist has penned an inside look at the raceway, drivers, fans and the magnitude that goes with producing such a huge event in 2005.
Twice each year, 101,000 auto racing fans pack the speedway to watch the likes of Stewart and Newman, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. do battle on the one-mile racetrack.
Those fans include people like best-selling author Janet Evanovich. Evanovich, an NHIS regular, has written a dozen books with bounty hunter Stephanie Plum as the hero and now has started a new series with NASCAR as the setting.
The foreword is by NASCAR veteran and local favorite Ricky Craven: “For me stepping onto pit road at NHIS is like the Celtics stepping onto the old parquet floor at the Garden,” Craven writes. “This is home: The place I know best. . . . I’ve always had the winds at my back at New Hampshire. . . . ”
Boy, would I like to go “point-counterpoint” with Mr. Smith. I am the author of “Year of the Hangman: George Washington’s Campaign Against the iroquois” (Westholme 2005).
The review was going fine until the last line. One has to remember the Six Nations of Iroquois were not some kind of eighteenth century Sierra Club.
Washington’s orders to Sullivan never said (as I recall) to “extirpate” the Iroquois. In fact, the primary mission was to “not merely overrun but destroy” their towns and cornfields.” this was done for three reasons.
One: After more than two years of brutal raids by pro-British Iroquois warriors against lightly defended American frontier communities, it was an effort to “chastise” or “scourge (punish) those of the Six Nations as were hostile to the United States.” The mission was also to “countenance (encourage) the friendly ones”! Nowhere did Washington order, nor at any time did Sullivan’s army engage in, the massacre or indiscriminate killing of Indian men, women and children.
Two: The raid was intended to give the pro-British Iroquois an opportunity to revert to neutrality and show their sincerity by befriending the U.S. and turning away from the Crown.
Three: Another mission, overlooked by many historians, much less historical novelists, was to force the British pay a heavy financial and logistical price for enlisting Indian allies to wage a war of terror against American frontier communities, by forcing them to support their Iroquois surrogates with an already strained supply system.
Glenn
Mr. Williams,
Thanks for your comments. I’ve ordered your book and look forward to reading it.
My novel is written from the Seneca point of view.
Some of my sources:
“Sullivan’s orders were to destroy totally the villages of the Iroquois …” Anthony F.C. Wallace, “The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca.”
Washington would “‘extirpate them from the Country.’ They were to call him ‘Town Destroyer’.” . . . (Sullivan) received formal instructions for his expedition from Washington: ‘The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements…”
Washington wrote to Lafayette on July 4, 1779 about the need to extirpate the Iroquois. From “Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, Selected letters..” is this from Washington Sept. 30, 1779: “By my last advices from Genl. Sullivan of the 9th. Instt. I am led to conclude that ere this he has completed the entire destruction of the whole country of the Six Nations, excepting so much of it as is inhabited by the Oneidas who have always lived in amity with us.” (And dozens of Oneida braves served directly under Lafayette).
Yours,
James Herbert Smith
I thoroughly enjoyed Wah-say-lan … its an engaging read. I’m a native of the Finger Lakes region making it even better. And I learned a lot of the history of the Senecas and the Six Nations even after studying it in grade school so many decades ago.
My particular interest is in the Senecas perspective of the giving land which is mentioned often. I’m interested as I begin writing a sequel to my first novel, Twisted Vines, which takes place in the Finger Lake vineyards. In my second book I’m hoping to reflect on the Native American heritage of the vineyard lands.
My congratulations to James Herbert Smith on bringing the history of the Senecas to life, from their perspective.
Frankly, the book is a better read than I expected … and many contemporary writers could learn from James on how to write a sensuous scene. (But, what happened to that island in Canandaigua Lake?)
Many thanks, Art Maurer