- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Motorbooks International (29 Oct 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0760320640
- ISBN-13: 978-0760320648
- Product Dimensions: 25.7 x 25.4 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 851,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Grand National series is challenging, unique, and thoroughly baffling to outsiders. To have any chance whatsoever of becoming Number 1, a rider must be so rounded that over a single season he must be able to find his way around dirt tracks of four varying lengths, shapes, and speeds, plus paved road circuits like Daytona. Not only must contestants be able to dictate their demands to what amounts to five different dirt and road model motorcycles, but these bikes, though finely tuned, cannot be one-off factory specials, but supposedly based around stock machines, the type of Harley-Davidsons, Hondas, Kawasakis, Yamahas that anyone may buy.
About the Author
Joe Scalzo's four decades of racing passion have taken him around the world and resulted in 13 books, thousands of magazine and newspaper features, and a wide reader following as one of the sport's most original and insightful chroniclers. He lives and works in Southern California.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
All right, Nixon, you asked for it. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
All right, Nixon, you asked for it. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
This book is fabulous , if you liked the film On Any Sunday then you will love this book, Bart Markel, Gary Nixon, Bud Ekins, Mert Lawwill, Malcolm Smith, Dave Aldana and more all feature in this book, some fabulous photographs with a brief write up on each.
Recommended.
Recommended.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A very poor attempt at telling the Grand National story
20 Mar 2006
Format:Hardcover
Scalzo's folksy attempt at writing is sophomoric and juvenile...His constant use of the so called jargon of the time is comedic at best and a disservice to the individuals that actually participated in this era of motorcycle racing history. For example, No one ever referred to Triumphs and BSA's as "Lime Juicers" as Scalzo maintains. He has also peppered the book with photos taken after the true "Grand National" period was over. I suppose using photos from modern day flat tracking was easier for him but I think he should have taken the extra time and effort and come up with photos strictly from the period he was supposedly documenting. Even the cover photo was taken long after the "Grand National" period was over. Take a pass on this book as it is not worth the money.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Such, Such Were the Days
2 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover
At best this book is loosely organized, with racers coming into and out and into the text again without a whole lot of respect for chronological order. It's also written in a breezy, slightly stream-of-consciousness way that seems to be a deliberate attempt to avoid a pedantic history of the Grand National races.
It's a little off-putting at first, but give it a chance. Part of the time dislocation problem in the book is because of the nature of the Grand Nationals: there were five separate types of racing (albeit mostly dirt track-types) with overlapping racers and accounts. By the time I finished the book I was absorbed by Scalzo's accounts of the fights--oral, fist, track, and political--that tuners, riders, factories, and sponsors carried on in these races. And how about the plain gutsy riding of these masters of the craft? These racers were a wild combination of courage, skill, persistence, and exceedingly high pain tolerance, all for a sport that's never been popular in the U.S. and that for the most part paid poorly in the Golden Era.
Memorable is Gary Nixon's wrestling with his bike at 180 mph at Daytona in a strong wind, working loose the screws in his forearm's metal plate. Or Dick Mann's crash and horrifying "hospital" stay at some fly-blown midwestern dirt track.
The names that are resurrected in this book bring back memories to me. A teen in the early 70s and interested in motorcycles even before, it was great fun for me to read of these racers once again. The book also brings out the melancholy side to motorcycle racing; the riders who died or who were badly injured and left out to twist in the wind. I still remember Cal Rayborn's death. The Grand Nationals: they asked so much of the racers, and gave so little.
And yet Mulder and Markel and Resweber raced. Clearly fame and material goodies were not the main reasons they raced.
Interestingly, the last picture in the book is a color photo of the abandoned and closed Ascot Park, home of steeplechase and Number 1 plate legends. How could such a track go to waste, and later be paved over for some miserable commercial park? Scalzo's book brings back much of the bittersweet history and memory of the golden days of American motorcycle racing, "the days that are no more." Warts and all, this book is a worthy read and chockablock with great pictures, even those pictures not strictly of the era.
It's a little off-putting at first, but give it a chance. Part of the time dislocation problem in the book is because of the nature of the Grand Nationals: there were five separate types of racing (albeit mostly dirt track-types) with overlapping racers and accounts. By the time I finished the book I was absorbed by Scalzo's accounts of the fights--oral, fist, track, and political--that tuners, riders, factories, and sponsors carried on in these races. And how about the plain gutsy riding of these masters of the craft? These racers were a wild combination of courage, skill, persistence, and exceedingly high pain tolerance, all for a sport that's never been popular in the U.S. and that for the most part paid poorly in the Golden Era.
Memorable is Gary Nixon's wrestling with his bike at 180 mph at Daytona in a strong wind, working loose the screws in his forearm's metal plate. Or Dick Mann's crash and horrifying "hospital" stay at some fly-blown midwestern dirt track.
The names that are resurrected in this book bring back memories to me. A teen in the early 70s and interested in motorcycles even before, it was great fun for me to read of these racers once again. The book also brings out the melancholy side to motorcycle racing; the riders who died or who were badly injured and left out to twist in the wind. I still remember Cal Rayborn's death. The Grand Nationals: they asked so much of the racers, and gave so little.
And yet Mulder and Markel and Resweber raced. Clearly fame and material goodies were not the main reasons they raced.
Interestingly, the last picture in the book is a color photo of the abandoned and closed Ascot Park, home of steeplechase and Number 1 plate legends. How could such a track go to waste, and later be paved over for some miserable commercial park? Scalzo's book brings back much of the bittersweet history and memory of the golden days of American motorcycle racing, "the days that are no more." Warts and all, this book is a worthy read and chockablock with great pictures, even those pictures not strictly of the era.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Nice pix, but.........
16 Sep 2008
Format:Hardcover
I'm afraid I have to agree with Mr. Noble and pvjim- the pictures are pretty cool but the text is not. Neither I nor anyone I know in the sport of motorcycle racing has ever heard the term "lime juicers"- Scalzo must have simply made this up. The story line jumps around and is hard to follow chronologically and the part about the Honda RS750 is simply completely wrong. I'm glad I bought the book for the pictures and because there is so little in print on the subject, but there are so many mistakes in grammar, spelling and historical accurracy that I could not in good conscience use this book as a source for any other article or book. Still, if you are 8 years old, the pictures are cool!
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