HOT CORNER

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here. One exception: No products will be endorsed.

What: “Tales from the Daytona 500”

Author: Jim Hawkins

Publisher: Sports Publishing L.L.C.

Price: $19.95

With the Daytona 500 and the start of a new Nextel Cup championship stock car season less than a month away, books about NASCAR arrive almost daily. Sometimes two a day.

One of the easier to read, yet informative and interesting, is Hawkins’ collection of tales from covering what he calls “Redneck High Holy Days” for the Oakland (Mich.) Press. In 184 pages, he offers vignettes of everything from the first race in 1958, the one it took three days to determine that Lee Petty was the winner, to the tragic day in 2001 when Dale Earnhardt, the Intimidator, was killed on the final turn of the final lap.

Hawkins has his favorite Earnhardt story. It involves Rick Mast, after he was spun out and wrecked by Earnhardt. Wrote Hawkins:

“When Mast arrived at the track the following week for the next race, Mast was greeted by the strange sight of a man bent over from the waist, with his hands touching his toes -- and his butt stuck up in the air.

“ ‘Go on and kick it,’ Earnhardt announced. ‘I know you wanted to.’ ”

Like the author, the book is humorous. He tells of Ernie Irvan, who was known as “Swervin’ Irvan,” because of his erratic driving.

“I like that name,” Irvan told Hawkins. “It beats ‘Bonehead,’ which they named me one time.”

Hawkins calls his effort “A collection of the Greatest Daytona 500 Stories Ever Told.” It might be. If not, it comes close.