Book Reviews

Williams – The legendary story of Frank Williams and his F1 team in their own words

Author: Maurice Hamilton
Published: Ebury Publishing, London
ISBN: 978-0-0919-3267-1

It’s five years since Williams won a Formula 1 Grand Prix, so recent converts to F1 would be forgiven for failing to appreciate the significance of this, one of the sport’s most illustrious teams. But it’s not just newcomers who will find enlightenment in this comprehensive new history from Observer and BBC Five Live correspondent, Maurice Hamilton.

The story of Williams, right from Frank Williams’ short-lived driving exploits in the early 1960s to midway through the 2009 season, is told through the words of those who were there – drivers, team personnel, friends and family members among them, and including the central players of Williams himself and Patrick Head. Hamilton threads the individual anecdotes together with a concise narrative that drops in helpful background notes. He also provides the detail that the protagonists cannot remember, are unwilling to divulge, or, in the case of Ayrton Senna and Piers Courage for example, are sadly unable to relate first hand.

There are some fantastic stories here, such as the build-up to the 1988 British Grand Prix, when the team made a short-notice decision after qualifying to abandon the troublesome active suspension for a conventional setup, designing and building new front dampers overnight to fit to the FW12 for the morning warm-up next day. Or when Max Mosley – then still with March – sold Frank Williams a 1975 car for the 1977 season, claiming it was a ’76 model; the truth was only revealed when subsequent repair work uncovered the distinctive orange paint of Vittorio Brambilla’s 1975 Beta Tools livery!

Beyond racing, this is also a human story, and the sections dealing with the deaths of Courage and Senna, and Frank Williams’s 1986 road accident are particularly moving. It all adds up to a captivating read, and goes straight to the top of the charts as PMW’s favorite motorsport book of 2009.

Review by Graham Heeps
December 8, 2009

Audi Quattro – The Rally History

Authors: John Davenport (words), Reinhard Klein (McKlein Photography, images)
Published: McKlein Publishing, Cologne
ISBN-13: 978-3-927458-42-0.

With its dramatic abstract boards this book demands attention from very first glance. A second glance registers historical authority in the names of John Davenport and foreword writer Walter Röhrl and immediately we are off down the stony tracks and convoluted tarmac of a ‘rally-by-rally history’ all the way from 1978 to 1999.

For those who are still entranced by that bumpy but ultimately dominant ride to change the face of World Rallying, we are taken all the way from the first experiments with the humble Iltis truck transmission and an apparently innocuous request in open session of an unsuspecting BPICA (FISA) to change the rules to allow four-wheel drive in international rallying; all the way to exotic heights like Pikes Peak and multiple Championships and beyond.

The Dual German/English text is measured and economical but still provides a complete, focused insider’s narrative well worthy of the stunning photographic background to every significant event along the way. The tone is reverential but frank, even blunt at times and Reinhard Klein’s archive images are like pulling back the window blinds and being there.

At about 2.5kg and 30cm x 32cm x 2cm this is not one for the Metro or even the door pocket of the car. Instead it is both entertainment and archive. Try an evening at the coffee table with something stronger and voicemail engaged. It repays.

Review by James Martin
November 5, 2009

Driving with the Devil

Author: Neal Thompson
Published (paperback): Three Rivers Press, New York
ISBN: 1-4000-8226-1

Driving with the Devil – originally published in 2006 and now available in paperback – is the perfect antidote to the relentless commercialism of modern NASCAR. Beginning and ending in the modest Atlanta office of Raymond Parks, the sport’s first team owner, the book tells the story of how he and a colorful cast of drivers, mechanics, promoters and general hustlers shaped stock car racing out of the illegal – not to mention highly dangerous – business of liquor-running in 1930s America.

NASCAR came to be known as Bill France Sr’s baby, but, backed by impressive research, including first-hand accounts and extensive use of primary sources (he even moved his family to North Carolina to write the book), Thompson debunks what he sees as a conscious rewriting of history. He tells the story of what really happened before, during and immediately after France “founded” NASCAR, 60 yeas ago, and champions the role of bootlegging in creating the first “stock” race cars and drivers. The tone is measured but the amazing stories Thompson relates ensure that the reader’s attention is held from start to finish.

There are complex personal relationships here too, particularly that between sometime best friends, Parks and France. Relations between the two suffered when France appropriated NASCAR for himself and set it on the road to its current status as a multibillion dollar behemoth, but an encouraging footnote to the tale is that since the publication of Driving with the Devil, NASCAR has at last moved to recognize Parks’ contribution to the sport’s birth. For sure, Thompson’s work played a part in championing Parks’ cause, and it has recently been announced that the now-94-year-old has donated some of the trophies and memorabilia from his office to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which is due to open in Charlotte, NC in May 2010.

Review by Graham Heeps
September 3, 2009