New Race was an exciting line-up which featured Detroit legends Ron Asheton (Stooges) on guitar, Dennis Thompson (MC5) on the drums together with 3 ex Radio Birdman players, Deniz on guitar, Rob Younger on vocals and Warwick Gilbert on bass. They played a set of songs derived from The Stooges, MC5, Radio Birdman, the members current bands and one new song written jointly for the tour, Columbia. Chris Masuak guested at some shows, creating a monstrous three guitar version of the MC5's Looking At You.

Miscommunications and financial troubles later poisoned the waters for years to come, especially between Ron Asheton and tour/album financier Michael McMartin. Asheton released cassettes of shows to French label Revenge for the First to Pay album. The irony of the name of both the company and the album was not lost on Ron. Fortunately this did not affect relations between most of the band members, most of whom remain close friends to this day.

Of course, the Revenge releases feature the original vocal, which is felt by many to be superior in feeling and intensity to the overdubbed version. Never happy with his vocals, Rob had redone these in the studio for the album though the rest of it is truly live.

Because of renewed historical interest, The First and the Last has been recently reissued by Total Energy Records in the USA.