Review Detail

Auto racing is one of the biggest sports in America, be it Indy 500 type cars or home made racers. And those people who love the sport do so with a passion. Will Weaver is one of those racing fans, one who actually owns his own Modified race car. And this passion comes through in Saturday Night Dirt. It is a short, fast read about car owners, drivers, mechanics and track owners.

Saturday Night Dirt takes place in one Saturday. Mel Waters, seventeen, manages her dads race track, Headwaters Speedway in Minneapolis, which is on the verge of bankruptcy. They cant survive another rained out Saturday night. Her dad, Johnny, is a paraplegic because of a racing accident years before. George is the tracks maintenance guy, trying to keeping everything running with no money.

Trace Bonham, also seventeen, keeps telling his dad that his car isnt running right, but dad wont believe him. Beau Kim, sixteen, has his friends as his pit crew because he can barely afford the parts needed to keep his car together. Amber works at a grocery store, but Saturday night is her night to shine on the track.

Over the course of Saturday, these and other characters stories emerge. The novel is set in four time frames: noon, 3 PM, 6 PM and 8 PM. Within these, each character tells his or her story. While the situations vary, it is the living to race on Saturday night that comes out loud and clear. The final 8 PM section is all about the races, the action, spin outs, bumps, strategy. It brings to life the excitement of down home auto racing. If you are looking for an exciting beach read or a book to bring you to another world in which you smell the gasoline, hear the roar of the engine and the crash of metal, Saturday Night Dirt is the book to read.