This Introduction appears in the book, American Scene

Some years ago as a rookie writer, I discovered something: every person has a story.

Through thick and thin, year in and year out, that discovery has served me well. For the past twenty years as a motorsports writer, I have met many interesting people, and I’ve always felt my job was to tell their story.

I never planned on writing this book. Along the way I wrote a bunch of short stories, and now they’ve wound up in a book. At the time they were written, I was so busy meeting deadlines I paid no thought to the idea of publishing them in collected form.

But one day not long ago I realized that I had put a lot of stories behind me. The years had swept past and my friends were getting gray hair and my kids were growing up and maybe it was time to go back and review some of the old stuff again.

Ultimately, I suppose I wanted to preserve my work. Every artist probably holds some deep-seated fear their work will be forgotten, and I’m no different. Few people keep old newspapers and magazines; a book is a more permanent.

As an avid reader, I delight in finding old titles from my favorite authors. Maybe a reader will find this book on the dusty shelf of a used book store twenty years from today and smile. That possibility is why I said yes to this book.

Writing can be wonderful and exciting and painful and lonely, sometimes even in the same story. Even in the same paragraph. But other than romance and friendship and fatherhood and a loyal old dog, I haven’t found anything more emotionally rewarding.

Writing is a tremendous rush. I hope to do it for a long time, and I want very much to do it well. This volume is the best I could do.

So far.

Dave Argabright