From the chop shops of East Bakersfield to the drag strips and deserts of California and Utah, David Perry captures the American obsession with speed, thrills, and cars in this collection of photographs. Greasers, gearheads, drag strip beatniks, rockabilly queens, and hopped-up machines of all kinds are featured in these evocative images. Tracing the cult of cars from the tattooed and goateed hipsters of San Francisco to the no-frills land-speed racers of the Bonneville Salt Flats and the dry lake beds of El Mirage, Hot Rod exposes the underbelly of a growing obsession that is creeping up on the nation in snakeskin boots. Barry Gifford adds an original novelette in which Danny and his paramour Yolanda find themselves in a zone somewhere between the San Joaquin Valley and the Gates of Hell - an eerie ballad that seizes the rebellious spirit of the images.