Learned Turkey: Stardust International Raceway – Motorsports Meets The Mob In Vegas, 1965-1971


Learned Turkey: Stardust International Raceway – Motorsports Meets The Mob In Vegas, 1965-1971

When one combines the topics of 1960s motorsports, politics, the mafia, and the formation of what we now know as modern Las Vegas into one 492 page book, a reader’s expectations are going to be high. Mine were exceptionally high when I flipped the first few pages of the Randall Cannon and Michael Gerry McFarland Books release, “Stardust International Raceway – Motorsports Meets The Mob In Vegas, 1965-1971”. The books is exhaustively researched, is amazingly thorough in its story telling, and does a masterful job of weaving the racing that we wanted to learn about into the politics and mafia craziness that permeated the 1960s in Vegas. It is a book that was not only a fantastic read but also one that will live on my shelf as a reference material going forward.

Stardust International Raceway is a track that we have written about, showed in video, and depicted here on BangShift over the years but it was a place that, until now, I knew very little about. Like so many things in Las Vegas, what seems to be simple story is anything but. There are 100 different layers to this one that involve everyone from a syndicate of mobsters in the middle of the country to Howard Hughes, Stirling Moss, and the NHRA.

Where the book really shines for me is in its story telling of how hot rodders got racing started in Las Vegas. As innocent and pure as freshly driven snow, these kids just wanted to race and through the most humble of beginnings they did just that. Eventually they managed to get the city of Henderson to help them “build” and actual track and that’s where the seemingly endless series of weird complications, false starts, failed events, successful events, and shady dealings start. This is not necessarily a sad story but it is one that will have you wincing more than a couple of times in the book. Not for the mobsters or the gamblers but for the guys who just freaking wanted to race.

Stardust International Raceway was a a place that had seemingly everything going for it on the surface but was never able to get over the hump. It was built and from the moment it was first opened the place was in a sort of sad decline that it would never get a reprieve from. That being said, the competition that happened there was bad ass. United States Sports Car championship competition, NHRA National Open drag racing, and the biggies were the Can-Am races with the world’s best road racers in the world’s craziest machines. In the book you’ll get round by round results from the drags and near lap by lap results from the road races. The work that went into making this volume had to have been staggering and we as readers get all the benefits of that labor.

BangShift Rating: BUY THE BOOK!

Stardust International Raceway: Motorsports Meets The Mob in Vegas, 1965-1971

By Randall Cannon and Michael Gerry

492 pages

Publisher: McFarland – McFarlandBooks.com

Where to buy: McFarlandBooks.com


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