Daniel S. (Dan) Pierce is associate professor and chair of the department of history at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He is the author of two books, The Great Smokies: From Natural Habitat to National Park (University of Tennessee Press, 2000) and Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) and numerous articles on the history of the Great Smoky Mountains, Appalachian history, moonshining, and NASCAR.
He first became interested in the history of NASCAR in 1994 when his best friend Don Good (now a professor of education at East Tennessee State University) convinced him to go to the night race at Bristol. That's all it took to make him a lifelong fan and began a long journey of research that resulted in Real NASCAR.
Dan grew up in Asheville, and in addition to NASCAR, enjoys his family (wife Lydia and four children), hiking and trout fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains, and Lexington-style barbeque.
