The sport that freed every man
Tom Wolfe’s “The Last American Hero” captures the beauty and symbolism of what it meant to be a NASCAR driver in the mid 1960s. Wolfe uses the amazing Junior Johnson to help compare and strengthen his symbolism that this sport is truly something this world has never seen. Though it takes almost eleven pages for Wolfe to dive in and begin discussing Junior Johnson, he makes sure to show his life beyond racing. He is able to portray how Johnson also sold and created moonshine despite it being illegal at the time. Johnson opened a pathway to get this sport known across the world which essentially made it more common forcing it to lose its spark it once had in North Carolina. Junior Johnson, in Wolfe’s eyes, is the last hero America would ever see.
The role of the writer played a significant role within Tom Wolfe’s piece. Wolfe acted as the voice of the southerner and really was that liberal voice that he felt was missing at the time. Wolfe’s main objective was to try and expose one culture to another. The South at the time had never really seen a sport just like this: “Here was a sport not using any abstract devices, any bat and ball, but the same automobile that was changing a man’s own life, his own symbol of liberation…” (Wolfe 1965, pg. 29). This idea of NASCAR driving as a symbol of liberation is the main theme we see throughout the entirety of the piece. This was during a time of post war freedom, meaning that people had much more money which they could use to place bets or attend NASCAR events. This sport brought people from all around the world together to enjoy a sport in which all it required was “a taste for speed, and the guts” (Wolfe 1965, pg. 29).
In order to illustrate the story of the upcoming sport, Wolfe relied heavily on the use of dialogue as well as sensory details. He very often throughout his piece shares very vivid conversations he encountered with Johnson even if they don’t seem to play a major role in the overall picture. Sensory details and game descriptions are what bring this piece to life for me. Wolfe explains in vast detail every new setting in which he encounters allowing the reader to relate on an emotional level with this piece. For example when discussing Anderson’s store Wolfe describes it as so, “Out front there are two gasoline pumps under an overhanging roof. Inside there are a lot of things like a soda-pop cooler filled with ice, Coca-Colas, Nehi Drinks, Dr.Pepper, Double Cola…” (Wolfe 1965, pg. 47). Through the use of these descriptions, Wolfe is able to create an outside world to just NASCAR driving. He uses this style, that is not often seen in sports writing, to convey what it would be like for those in the South or other places around the world who have never gotten to experience the environment of racing.
Racing in 1965 was far much more than just a sport. It truly represented a symbol of liberation from all the previous troubles of the world and allowed a man to be just who he is. Which is exactly why Junior Johnson was able to be such an amazing racer while also being who he wanted to be outside of his sport by selling and developing moonshine. Illustrating what makes this sport far different than every other typical sport.
