Barney Oldfield was arguably the greatest racer there ever was, by being aggressive and daring, to a point. In the beginning of auto racing, as in any type of racing, if you wanted to be a racer, all you needed was the mode of movement. Automobile racers were usually wealthy at the start, due to the high cost of autos, and had a sense of adventure, or recklessness, bourne in them. Fearsome drivers paved the way with their financial cohorts, the men fronting cash for race courses or tracks, and would more often than not, pay the full price of racing, with their lives.

This very, very detailed book starts out explaining the start of organized racing, and that it was often unstable and elitest, and explains the decision between the meandering courses in Europe, and the circle or oval tracks in North America. Then goes into the creep of politics and rivalry, and the interruption due to war.

Of course, there are the cars and the men and their companies, including manufacturers long gone. The designs and specs are interspersed, oftentimes distracting and distressing the read. The usual technical specs would normally fit in a box on the side, or edge of the text, but for his book, Robert Dick uses it as part of the language, as a generality to the reader, such as "square" or "blue" might be used to describe simple objects. At about the halfway mark, this reviewer was skimming the cubic inch and torque measurements, in order to keep the rhythm going, and the history fresh.

Pictures are frequent, though more would be pleasurable. A reader would still be satiated by the feast of knowledge, and knowing men risked their lives to go faster, and in the end, helped make better, safer cars for everyone. ( )

This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. ( )

This was an interesting read but I'm not sure how much I took away from it. A basic telling of the dawn of auto racing and how it developed internationally, the book became very pedantic with tons of racing facts - perhaps if I was more of a fan of the era's exploits I would have garnered more from it. I do love history, but I think for my level of readership this book was a bit much. I loved the photography but would have liked more and no, I'm not looking for a graphic novel, I just found myself skimming the literary content in anticipation of the photos. Kudos for the research and I'm sure it fills a niche otherwise missing or sparse. ( )

Bearing in mind that I am just an avid reader with a healthy interest in speedway racing, more particularly midget cars and TQs, I had difficulty with this book. I loved the illustrations and photos/daguerros and I wanted for more, but I did not love the writing. I could not string the story together in the way that Mr. Dick had done in his presentation. For me there was much that was disjointed and much that was left unexplained or unembellished when it could have profited from some sort of embellishment. It felt to me like an unedited doctoral thesis and might just as well have been a collection of lists and data.
I do not wish to be critical of the work that Mr. Dick has done or of his skills in researching for it. I am criticizing the editing from a readers point of view. I somehow wished for more about the men like Gordon Bennett, Louis Chevrolet, Ettore Bugatti, Enzo Ferrari, etc, and I wished for more engine and chassis information. This might have been better as a series of books. However, I still want it and it is a valuable addition to my collection of speedway books. ( )

This book was all I was anticipating it to be from a review I read in Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car magazine. The book very thoroughly covers the early 20th century history of auto racing in Europe and America, and the exchange of technology between race car builders on both continents. Events are well covered and relevent statistics of cars and events are given. The story of technical advances is the real subject of this book. Tha development of multi-cylinder engines, overhead camshafts, and the move from 4 cylinder engines to 6 cylinder engines to the then dominant straight 8 and how and why some ideas were succesful and others failed is what this book is really about. A very exciting history of an exciting time in racing history. The book is well footnoted and appended with information about the machines and the men who made their story so interesting so long after their passing. ( )