Trackside

NASCAR racing, once considered no more than a regional circuit of moonshiners pounding around low-country dirt tracks in a cloud of red dust and cliché, has somehow become America's fastest-growing spectator sport. With 75 million ardent fans, it is a sports entertainment empire built at the very crossroads of pop culture, corporate commerce, and American mythology – a platinum-plated, V-8 hero machine…

In March 2016, British indie singer-songwriter Billy Bragg and his American counterpart Joe Henry boarded a Los Angeles-bound train at Chicago’s Union Station, guitars in hand, looking to reconnect with the culture of American railroad travel and the music it inspired. Winding along more than 2700 miles of track over four days, the pair recorded classic railroad songs in waiting rooms and at trackside while the train stopped to pick up passengers.