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Customer Reviews (12)

Insightful and a great read
This book could be read by a die hard racing fan or just a regular joe. Dr. Olvey is an amazing individual and along with Dr. Terry Trammel revolutionized medical help, facilities, and response for the entire world. His single minded focus towards the care of a driver is unbelievable. He and Terry are truely the most important people that have been involved in the sport of auto racing in the last 100 years.

fascinating book
as a huge fan of open wheel racing this book is great you learn about the accident side of racing and how they deal with it i think anybody who is a racing fan should read this book

Excellent Inside Scoop
As someone who has followed open-wheel racing for a long time, I had heard about this book. I just got through it and was amazed as to the coverage and insight in the book. There are some really sad stories, but I was also laughing some as well (you AJ Foyt fans will love the "cooler" story!)

Excellent book and an easy read. A bit "graphic" though, so be careful with kids.

Excellent Read
This is almost certainly the best book ever written about motor sport safety and the tremendous advances made in the last 30 years. Olvey and Trammel not only raised the bar but in reality invented a whole new concept

Interesting read
If you followed Indycar anywhere from the 70s to the late 90s you will remember most of the sad stories in this book.However it is very interesting to read first hand how safety has increased in our favorite sport over the years.Dr. Olvey gives great accounts of the highs and lows of his career as an Indycar doctor. ... Read more

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Excited fans line city streets and crowd grandstands as sports cars roar across the circuit. From short races, where every second is critical, to grueling 24-hour endurance races, drivers push their cars to the limit, and excitement hangs in the air with the smell of gas and burning rubber. Fans love to see a finely tuned Porsche or Ferrari hug the pavement as it takes a turn at top speed. In this book, you will discover: how the sport began in Le Mans, France; how the sport evolved into two main classes of racing sports cars - Grand Touring cars and prototypes; and where you can find the greatest race tracks in the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A book for the true enthusiast
Ian Bamsey has written a great many books on auto racing.He is extremely knowlegeable and with this book he has presented in depth his knowledge of the sports-racing prototype.

For those interested in this type of car and its history this book will provide a great many insights.Particularly revealing to me was the information regarding the development of aerodynamics in regard to racing cars and the actual function of many of the small details one sees on these cars.Without delving deeply into the mathematics associated, Mr. Bamsey provides a detailed synopsis.He also goes into detail regarding the development of construction techniques, drive trains, and suspension and braking systems and how the changing rules over the years encouraged development in different directions.He provides very interesting insights into the compromises the constructors have had to make and how they arrived at solutions to complex problems.

I would recommend this book highly for the enthusiast who wants to understand the development of sports-prototype racing without becoming enmeshed in details of interest only to the person actually involved in designing and building these cars.It is easily readable, well organized, and informative.A great read for the LeMans or endurance racing enthusiast.

Best Regards,
Bob ... Read more

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Best-selling novelist Robert Daley was a European stringer for the New York Times in the 1950s and 1960s. He covered Grand Prix racing and was simultaneously seduced and appalled by a sport in which the driver mortality rate would sometimes reach 50 percent annually. It was an era of daring, dashing drivers piloting incredibly powerful race cars around fast and legendary circuits with only primitive safety equipment to spare them disaster. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Good book with a lot of pics and good text to read
This book contains a lot of interesting and good pics about the 'gold age' of F1. It has also a text to read, not just some comments under each photo.

The book is divided in chapters, focused on the different aspects of GP: "the driver", "the car", "the race" and so on.

Personally I prefer "Cars at Speed", written by Robert Daley also, as it's a better read, more focused on text than this one.

Anyway this is a good book for any motorsport fan, even more if it's interested on that age.

Regards

Worth the price of admission
I was in my early teens in the years covered in this book and the participants covered were heroes to me. I came across this title reading an obit for Phil Hill and went to Amazon to see what the general consensus was on the book. I read the reviews and ordered it and I agree wholeheartedly that it deserves five stars. This being an opinion from someone who was familiar with the drivers and the era covered in the book so the nostalgia factor influenced this review. YMMV.

Inside the High Stakes Game that was F1
Being born in 1982, I wasn't around for this era of Grand Prix racing.Sure, I'd heard the stories about how dangerous a period it was and how drivers put it all on the line every time they got in a car.However, this book made it clear just how dangerous Grand Prix racing - and all motorsport for that matter, was.The driver biographies are certainly not full length, but they provide a snapshot of what was going through the driver's minds when they were racing.I enjoyed Phil Hill's comments, especially the statements talking about Enzo Ferrari.

Above all, this is a picture book.That is not a negative to the book though, it is the main feature. The photographs were all taken by the author through the course of his covering F1 during that era as a writer/photographer.

Very interesting book.
This is one of those books that I read cover to cover within hours of receiving it. It tells the amazing story of early Grand Prix racing. After reading it, it really had me wondering why anybody would have been a driver back then. Too many drivers died while racing, and this book has these stories in photographs. In the book, Daley's articles on Alfonso de Portago and Wolfgang von Trips are excellent.

I really enjoy this book and would recommend it to anybody who is a fan of the old Grand Prix era.

An Often Cruel Sport It Was
I picked up an original copy of Daley's book, The Cruel Sport, many years ago. The 1st edition was a milestone in motorsports writing, for it without reservation addressed racing's rather dirty little secret- drivers were needlessly dying at the wheel of fragile cars at incredibly unsafe tracks that in turn were run by owners / organizations that were too oftencriminally negligent when it came to basic safety precautions. Scores of drivers, both then and now in well-earned retirement (if lucky enough to have survived), talked about how dangerous the sport was, but there was no concensus among drivers as to how to proceed. Circuit owners more often than not did not want to discuss their role in improving track safety. Long after the printing of Daley's original book, drivers were still paying the ultimate price for someone else's shortsightedness- Jochen Rindt, Roger Williamson, Tom Pryce, Jim Clark, Bruce McLaren, etc. Those drivers that did champion for change (Stewart, Rindt, Bonnier, G. Hill, etc) were often ridiculed for their efforts. The current crop of safer drivers and fans (remember LeMans '55!!) have these pioneers, and Daley, as the author of The Cruel Sport, to thank for their willingness to expose what was going on.Far from a reprint, the new edition is sufficiently revamped and updated to make it an entirely new read. Daley's photos still hold up well against the best of the big-time professionals of his era.If you love F-1 from the 1960s, this is an essential book for your library; in no way will you be disappointed.As the author of many titles unrelated to motorsports, you'll also be impressed with Daley's enormous talent for painting a picture with words- if only more motorsports writers were half as talented.To think these 3 1/2 decades later, there is still no similar work in motorsports literature. ... Read more

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Fame to Infamy: Race, Sport, and the Fall from Grace follows the paths of sports figures who were embraced by the general populace but who, through a variety of circumstances, real or imagined, found themselves falling out of favor with the public. The contributors focus on the roles played by athletes, the media, and fans in describing how once-esteemed popular figures find themselves scorned by the same public that at one time viewed them as heroic, laudable, or otherwise respectable.

The book examines a wide range of sports and eras, and includes essays on Barry Bonds, Kirby Puckett, Mike Tyson, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, Branch Rickey, Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jim Brown, as well as an afterword by noted scholar Jack Lule and an introduction by the editors. Fame to Infamy is an interdisciplinary volume encompassing numerous approaches in tracing the evolution of each subjectÂ's reputation and shifting public image.

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When Bristol's racetrack opened in 1961, tickets were often given away to fill the 18,000 seats. Over the years, Bristol Motor Speedway has grown to 160,000 seats and legendary status among race fans. There is a fascination

with the unforgettable moments that take place at the track, including rivalries that are hard to miss when you can watch all the action around the half-mile track no matter where you are seated. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great book for all racing fans
This book tells the history of Bristol Motor Speedway and was very interesting.There are lots of great pictures from crashes and of the speedway being built and the changes that have occured since it was first started.Every race fan will appreciate this book and want it for their collection of race memorabilia.

A sports writer view of this book
Being a local sports columnist, I have had the chance to cover events at BMS in the past. This book does showcase the awesome power of the sport of NASCAR through vivid pictures, but also brings to life the history of the track, and more importantly, the history and lives of those who have sacrificed to make this sport one of the biggest and most popular of any sport in the country. As a NASCAR fan, you owe it to yourself to own a copy of this book, but anyone interested in how BMS has helped change the cultural aspect of a community will enjoy it. There is more to racing than the death-defying crashes, and in these pages the reader feels the speed, the cars, and the people that have helped make it all happen in Bristol.

a must-have for race fans
Living in eastern Tennessee near the Bristol Motor Speedway you can't help but be interested in racing and racing culture. Ok, I admit it, I've been to a race and it is loud, fast, and exciting. By collecting images and vignettes of races at the BMS from its earliest days, Haskins and McGee have done a service to all race fans. While I'm not as interested in the history of the track, I love the pictures of the crashes in chapter 3. Cool. Catch up on the history of racing and regional flavor of the Speedway with this helpful pictorial guide. ... Read more

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"The great cars, drivers and races from the top motor-sporting nations form the theme of this spectacular new series of magnificently illustrated volumes. Each country boasts its bloodlines, companies, engineers, executives and enthusiasts whose powerful competitive spirit and dauntless courage drives them to dominate in motor racing.

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Customer Reviews (2)

sports car racing in camera 1970-79
I bought this book after thoroughly enjoying the previous decade's edition, and enjoyed this one just the same. Fantastic photos with great captions. The one thing I did notice was an astonishing emphasis on ferrari and porsche, who did dominate during these years. A very good read.

Great Reference
Terrific book.Very complete and thorough.

It covers racing from a global perspective.The writing and the photos are excellent.All the teams that competed in a particular year are listed.

A great reference that auto racing enthusiast should have in their library. ... Read more

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Anthony Pritchard’s authoritative book describes 50 iconic cars from the history of sports car racing, from the 1923 Lorraine-Dietrich through to the 2003 Bentley Speed 8. As the extraordinary annual British pilgrimage to Le Mans demonstrates, sports car racing has myriad enthusiastic fans who will relish the blend of meticulous research, informed analysis, dramatic photographs, and cutaway diagrams. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great book
A great book, with many informations about 50 best racing cars off all time. Really indispensable for fans.

Not my favorite racing title
I bought this book after reading a review.It is decent, but not my favorite title, some very notable cars are oddly missing from this book.Given what I know now, I probably would not buy it again, but that said, I will not sell it either. ... Read more