In 1894, when the motley assortment of steam and petrol-powered vehicles lined up at the start of the trial from Paris to Rouen, motor-racing's colourful history was launched. Many of the pioneering events were death-defying, trans-continental marathons, in which the competitors were obliged to negotiate basic dirt tracks, muddy bogs, fast-flowing rivers, over-zealous policemen and a seemingly ednless supply of stray dogs. Barely contained in this new hardback edition are 80+ bizarre, brilliant and bonkers stories from over a century of motor racing. They include the Frenchman who drove 25 miles in reverse; the Grand Prix where the leading drivers were so far ahead that they stopped for a meal in the pits; the Le Mans 24-hour race won by a car patched up with chewing gum; and the driver who drunk six bottles of champagne on the way to winning the Indianapolis 500. Word count: 45,000
Motor Racing's Strangest Races - Extraordinary But True S...
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About the Author
Sports writer Geoff Tibballs is the author of several bestselling titles in the Strangest... series, on a range of sports including motor-racing and the Olympics. He also wrote Great Sporting Scandals published by Robson.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By AK
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
I agree with the other reviewer that this is not a book of serious scholarship on motorsports, its history or development. Yet I find his judgement of it overall unduly harsh. The book is not of the kind to be read from cover to cover and in that sense it is not a page turner. It does have plenty of amusing vignettes from the world of motorsports and I feel that it deserves 4 stars in the way it succeeds at its stated goal - to provide the interested reader with some lighthearted trivia (entertainment) on the sport.
And some of the stories are truly too bizzare to be made up - the Tripoli Grand Prix of 1933 being but one example - and definitely come into the trivia section of knowledge someone interested in motorsport will likely want to acquire. I find it is a decent read, too - much above the standards of the Sun - but a piece of brilliant prose it is not (nor should a reader expect this, given the title and topic).
It covers the period from 1894 to 2006 and while most stories come from the world of Grand Prix racing (F1 from 1950 on), there are others from endurance events such as the 24 hours of Le Mans, the Paris to Peking, etc. as well as some more left field events such as the 2006 Indian Autorickshaw Challenge.
And some of the stories are truly too bizzare to be made up - the Tripoli Grand Prix of 1933 being but one example - and definitely come into the trivia section of knowledge someone interested in motorsport will likely want to acquire. I find it is a decent read, too - much above the standards of the Sun - but a piece of brilliant prose it is not (nor should a reader expect this, given the title and topic).
It covers the period from 1894 to 2006 and while most stories come from the world of Grand Prix racing (F1 from 1950 on), there are others from endurance events such as the 24 hours of Le Mans, the Paris to Peking, etc. as well as some more left field events such as the 2006 Indian Autorickshaw Challenge.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you're looking for an insightful, well written book which takes you into the weird world of early motor racing you won't find it here.
It's divided into short chronological chapters, each of which delivers an amusing anecdote about the whacky exploits of those daft early Grand Prix drivers. Though there are many potentially useful facts buried in here for the serious historian, the whole thing is written like a series of sidebars for The Sun. It's a trivial and frothy approach which I find tedious and unengaging. It might amuse your average 14 year old car nut for half an hour, but that's about all you can say.
It's divided into short chronological chapters, each of which delivers an amusing anecdote about the whacky exploits of those daft early Grand Prix drivers. Though there are many potentially useful facts buried in here for the serious historian, the whole thing is written like a series of sidebars for The Sun. It's a trivial and frothy approach which I find tedious and unengaging. It might amuse your average 14 year old car nut for half an hour, but that's about all you can say.
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