The concept of the Southern white male relates to stock car racing from the 1960's to the 1990's because, "The rise and continuing important role of stock car racing in southern life also has much to do with the region's personality and historic isolation from the mainstream of American cultural life." (Raitz 8)  The racing community encompasses a culture of its own that is based on the participating fans and drivers of the sport.   From the beginning, stock car racing has been a phenomenon dominated by rural, white, southern males.  African Americans and females, although occasional participants, have never become racing icons.  This isolation from mainstream American cultural life is what Wilbur J. Cash calls the "savage ideal."  This theory states that Southerners stubbornly oppose new ideas and take pride in antiintellectualism (Roebuck and Hickson 84).  The perception of Southerner's proud resistance to progress, along with unavoidable connections to slavery, plays a part in the stereotype of the typical NASCAR community member as backward-thinking and therefore undesirable to mainstream America.  Meanwhile to the NASCAR insider, stock car racing reflects southern heritage and a romanticized version of the working class hero, the “Good Old Boy."  Though many roles of southerners exist across class, gender, and race lines, the two most important in the context of NASCAR are Good Old Boys and Rednecks because, "Stock car racing is without a doubt a sport for rednecks, not the southern gentility"  (Roebuck and Hickson 100).  The link between the Redneck and the Southern gentility is the Good Old Boy.  Changes in perceptions of Southern white masculinity have corresponded with increasing mainstream acceptance of the sport into American culture and as a result, the conflict between insiders' and outsiders' perceptions of NASCAR has calmed in more recent years.  Southern white masculinity is complex in the context of today's NASCAR because drivers and fans are hybrids of the Good Old Boy and the Redneck while the meanings of these titles have morphed.
 
 

    As the name implies, the Good Old Boy is linked to a sense of nostalgia. When viewed from within Southern culture the title is given positive connotations; however,  from outside of Southern culture, the term Good Old Boy can take on  negative connotations stemming from perceptions of resistance to mainstream culture and an overall backwardness. His image has become immortalized in popular literature and country music songs portraying the Southern Good Old Boy more positively as “blue collar, an outdoorsman, a patriot, something of a populist, basically conservative – a man’s man” (Parmley 1133). Stock car drivers, although only part of the equation of the NASCAR community, are the participants most stereotypically linked to the image of the Good Old Boy.  In the Petty era, "The King's" fans associated him with a man of yesteryear; one who was loyal to his roots, proud of his heritage, and a Southern gentleman in general.  Earnhardt was also known as a Good Old Boy as well, but his business savvy places him in a category that reflects the changes in NASCAR.
    The Good Old Boy as the blue-collar Southerner serves as a link between the Southern gentility and the Redneck.  Drivers “are folk heroes with whom the average southern male can identify” (Parmley 1133).  Even if this fan is not the ideal ethical and family man, he still  identifies with the driver on a number of other levels centered around the concept of the Good Old Boy.  For instance, the Good Old Boy image is closely linked to cars.  “Like the cowboy and his horse, the good old boy needs his car.  A good man knows cars and takes care of them” (Parmley 1133).  The concept of the Good Old Boy stands as the ideal man for the NASCAR fan as an inspiration and upholding Southern tradition.  From the inside of the NASCAR community, this heritage is admirable, but from the outside, it is scrutinized and more recently amalgamated with the concept of the Redneck.
 
 

    It is hard to say.  Today, the Southern Redneck is paradoxical in that he is simultaneously accepted and rejected by mainstream society.  The reason for this duality is the metamorphosis of the definition and perception of the Redneck over the past 30 years.  If the Redneck is seen as stock car racing's staple fan and part of every driver's heritage, then what the Redneck used to be, and what it is now defines the changes in NASCAR.  For Roebuck and Hickson, authors of The Southern Redneck, the Redneck is:

 
A rough, gut- and sex-centered roustabout who lives in a physical world; he wolfs down coarse, greasy food; he drinks large quantities of beer and cheap whiskey; he speaks in an idomatic, regional hick language punctuated with crude, obscene, and profane expressions; and he carouses, frolics, gambles and fights with his peers and cheap women in rough-hewn redneck bars affording loud country and Western music.  Arrogant, hostile, bigoted, chauvinistic, stubborn, and belligerant, these rustic machos are portrayed as quick to fight, especially if their sensibilities are inpugned in any way - for example, a denigration of their physical or sexual abilities or proclivities. (66)

    This representation is the Redneck of the early days of NASCAR and defines the fan of the Richard Petty era.  Originally, the term Redneck referred to the white manual laborers who worked in the fields along with freed slaves after Emancipation because of their sunburned necks.  Unlike the Good Old Boy, Redneck was a derogatory term used to draw attention to some lower-class whites' association with emancipated slaves.   Through time the meaning has evolved into Roebuck and Hickson's definition retaining some of its original stereotype.

    The concept of "redneck" has come to mean something much different today than it did when Petty circled the track.  In a review of the 2001 film Joe Dirt, which features David Spade as a Redneck, critic Mickey Stephens talks about the process of "middling" as a way of homogenizing alternative culture so that it becomes part of the mainstream. Ths modern Redneck exists as a hilarious caricature of its original sense: a mullet-wearing, beer-drinking, inbred buffoon.  The reason Changes in American culture during Petty's era rearranged American middle culture, thereby inscribing a new meaning for the concept of Redneck. "As the radicalism of the '60s and '70s was successfully incorporated into middle culture and became its 'politically correct' ideology, no radical edge, no counterculture, no alternative to the middle remained."  (Stephens).  After the 1960's and 1970's marginality in American culture dissipated bringing the idea of Redneck closer to mainstream America.

      While it commenced when Petty raced, the neutralization of the term Redneck took place mostly since Earnhardt reigned NASCAR.  Two examples which are representative of  the transformation in the concept of Redneck in the modern era of NASCAR are the television show Dukes of Hazzard and the comedy of Jeff Foxworthy.  According to Bay Woods the Dukes of Hazzard was amiss for both insiders and outsiders of the culture, and essentially a "redneck minstrel show" (1).  The second example comes in an essay by S. Renee Dechert and George H. Lewis entitled "Bulldozers and Dirt": Subcultures, the Redneck Underground, and the Drive-by Truckers, where the authors make the point that the meaning of the word Redneck has dissipated through overuse like in the case of Jeff Foxworthy and his "You Might Be a Redneck If..." jokes (2). Countless caricatures of Southern white males like these altered America's pop-culture lexicon and continue to do so like in the case of the film Joe Dirt.  The Redneck stands as a cartoonish character with muffled connotations today which is much different than the sunburned manual laborer of the past.
 
 

    The new Redneck image that persists today has acceptable and unacceptable connotations for American middle culture. This juxtaposition highlights the current tension within NASCAR as a cultural phenomenon whereas its roots in Southern heritage, particularly Southern white masculinity, prevent some Americans from entering into the culture of the sport. While mainstream society rejects the redneck for its negative connotations, it also accepts the concept of the Redneck as an outsider because "The middle [class] needs redneck culture to define itself in terms of what it is not and to flatter itself with the evidence of its progress" (Stephens).  In order to even consider participating in Redneck culture, and more generally NASCAR culture, the following must be taken into account:  "Rednecks may be funny, but they carry a kryptonite-like charge... in their raw form.  They must be processed correctly to become safe for middle culture consumption"  (Stephens).
This form of processing mentioned above boils the Redneck down to his admirable qualities.  For instance, work ethic, morality, and values are all central to the life of the self-proclaimed redneck, though an outsider to the culture might not agree.  "To insiders, the term redneck designates an honest, hard-working Southern white man distinguishable from "trash" (a good-for-nothing, lazy white man) and big shots (middle- and upper-class Southerners) who really do not work for a living" (Roebuck and Hickson 80).  The positive values of the Redneck shine through the muted negative connotations of the Southern white male and blend him with the Good Old Boy to define the modern day NASCAR community member.
 
 

    The realm of automobiles has traditionally been domniated by males.  Part of stock-car drivers’ characteristic appeal to devoted fans stems from their interest in such stereotypically male activities as hunting, fishing, and tinkering with cars.   Combining a fascination with technology and a competitive spirit, stock car racing, with its noise, dirt, powerful cars, and associations with beer-drinking, also has become a symbol of the southern way of life.  The very nature of car racing itself fosters "Discussion of races and drivers...wherever southern men gather to talk. (Raitz 5)  In terms of the purpose stock car racing serves for the culture as a whole, “It has become identified with the South, where it has served both as a sport and as a way for participants to leave rural poverty” (Parmley 1133-34).

    Stock car racing intially put athletes behind the wheel of showroom cars, a potentially viable option for the Southern Redneck.  The sport remained connected to this ideal until altered cars were permitted to enter races and newer cars with hulking engines made NASCAR a little less accessible to the common man.  Even so, the sport remains close to the working class in both participation and spectatorship because of its origins and concepts like the pit crew. The dirt and grime of the car mechanic of the “good old days” has been replaced by the “clean professionalism of a stock-car driver and crew” (Parmley 1133).  It is this extreme form of tinkering that makes these men become heroes to the NASCAR fan.  In races, the pit crew gets much more attention than athletic trainers and others who enable their clients to participate in other sports.  Pit crews even have their own fan websites and many fans take advantage of opportunities to interview members of the team. Drivers maintain close ties to their families and communities, often drawing members of their “pit crews” from the local population.
 
 

   The history of stock car racing included several women at its outset; however,"Racing in the early days was primarily oriented toward the image of man and machine against the elements" (Raitz 4).    In order to talk about the masculinity of the Southern redneck, his female counterpart must also be discussed.  Roebuck and Hickson make the distinction between the redneck woman and the woman redneck.  The redneck woman "walks a thin line between partial liberation and traditional submission"  (100).  She may play along with the male redneck's sexually charged banter, but remains virtuous in the end.  On the other hand, the woman  redneck, "challenges male rednecks on their own grounds and walks and talks like them"  (101).   Similarly, the “good old girl” possessing traits of “bluffness, camaraderie, loyalty, which make her more comfortable with men than women” (Parmley 1133).  She avoids being cast as a sex object and is likely to possess the same geniality of the good old boy, as well as the same ability to manipulate those around her.  It was women rednecks who initially broke into stock car racing when moonshiners were first taking up the sport, but by the time that Richard Petty drove, the field was dominated by males.  Then women took a  new role which more resembled the redneck woman where she sat in the stands with her husband and her family because NASCAR is a male world in its imagery, and women’s place is not in the pits, where violence can be “direct and graphic” (Parmley 1133).  see Fan Culture
 
 

    NASCAR stands out from other sports in its marked familial connections amongst athletes. The Earnhardt and Petty family trees represent racing dynasties, bringing to mind traditional Southern gentility.  Again the concept of NASCAR as a family sport for both participants and spectators changes the idea of the Redneck because "The media's commodification of rednecks has been accompanied by the upward mobility of traditionally redneck tastes and entertainments" (Stephens). As a result the redneck melds with the "Upper- and middle-class Southerners [who] place much stress on kinship ties and family lineage" (Roebuck & Hickson 70).  In the span of the careers of Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, the hybridity of the redneck and good ol' boy comes together for the perpetuation of the family name in the sport. The new reality of the redneck is evidenced by a quote in The Southern Redneck, "Actually, Southern working-class people have swelled the ranks of 'quality' Southerners (structural mobility) for years" (Genovese qtd. in Roebuck and Hickson 71)
 
 

Four Generations of Pettys

The Earnhardts