Good motor sport fiction?
#1
Posted 15 May 2007 - 03:00
It seems to me, though, that there must be SOME good (or goodish) motor sport fiction, and I'm nominate three for starters.
A book for teenagers, it starts at a pre-war Around-the-houses race meeting at Albany, Western Australia (and I was amazed to read about it in a novel!), and concludes at Brooklands. One of the characters is recognisably derived from larger-than-life Western Australian motor sportsman Aub Melrose.
I don't think Hawthorn wrote this, but his ghostwriter is unknown. One of two books for kids featuring the teenage Carlatti and his adventures in mid-50s GP racing.
A modern day thriller which revolves around a scandal in the 1909 Peking to London race. The race is imaginary, of course, but the racing background is pretty good.
None were going to win the Nobel Prize, but all were a pretty reasonable read, and you don't cringe at the author's motor sport technicalities.
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#2
Posted 15 May 2007 - 03:42
http://www.archivecl....com/watch.html
#3
Posted 15 May 2007 - 05:07
http://www.lastopenr...nzios/books.htm
Cheers,
Kurt
#4
Posted 15 May 2007 - 06:24
Thunder Road (1952), not the same as the movie I am told.
Dirt Track Summer (1961).
Drag Strip (1959), which I've read and enjoyed. It dealt with racial tensions in a southern California town as well as the characters trying to legitimize their hot rodding ways.
I've read a couple auto racing short stories that Gault did for the Saturday Evening Post in the early 1950s. Seemed to come out around the Indy 500 time (like right now, May). So he was an accomplished journeyman writer.
I'd love to find Thunder Road and Dirt Track Summer. They were reprinted for a number of years after they were first published.
I'd also like to find the hot rodding series of juvenile fiction by Henry Gregor Felsen. Got Street Rod for 50 cents recently which made me a very happy camper.
#6
Posted 15 May 2007 - 08:46
#7
Posted 15 May 2007 - 10:49
Originally posted by Sharman
The best motor sport fiction must surely be written in homologation declarations!
Seriously though, Evan Green's Dust and Glory gets my vote, if only for the quite-believable portrayals of the main protagonists... mostly Gelignite Jack Murray...
#8
Posted 15 May 2007 - 11:40
Funny, no matter how often this topic comes up, there's always a new title or author added to the list. Looks like I'll be doing some more shopping.
Bruce Moxon
#9
Posted 15 May 2007 - 12:01
ciao,
Stirling
#10
Posted 15 May 2007 - 14:31
#11
Posted 15 May 2007 - 15:00
My immediate thought when I saw it was "Brockbank". It must be the layout of the drawing that reminded me of a couple of his classics (one where the passenger in a Rolls Royce is striking a match on the roof of another car as they pass, and another where a Bentley is about to run down a Citroen). I don't think it was Brockbank, but I would be curious to find out just who the artist was.
#12
Posted 15 May 2007 - 15:13
http://bearalley.blo...4/reg-gray.html
ciao,
Stirling
#13
Posted 15 May 2007 - 15:19
#14
Posted 15 May 2007 - 18:51
#15
Posted 15 May 2007 - 19:03