John Havick

When John Havick's grandfather sold his car to local boy and aspiring racecar driver Johnny Beauchamp, the young Havick went to see how the car performed. Falling in love with the sport, he kept scrapbooks of newspaper articles and programs tracking the triumphs and defeats of Beauchamp, Tiny Lund, and many other successful racers from the town of Harlan, Iowa. Then he went away to high school and college, leaving his childhood hobby behind but never forgetting it. After a career teaching public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, he revived his interest in the sport and decided to tackle one of its longtime controversies: who really won the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959? The result of years of research and scores of interviews, The Ghosts of NASCAR tells the whole story.

The Ghosts of NASCAR was named by BookAuthority one of the 22 Best Motorsport eBooks of All Time. In addition, it was chosen by the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association as the second best motorsport book published in 2013. The Journal of American Culture gave the book an exceptionally positive review, calling it "a rollicking ride back to the roots of stock car racing in the Midwest."

John Havick lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia.