Bookshelf

| browse books |
books
 

| book details |

Indy: The Race and Ritual of the Indianapolis 500, Second Edition

By (author) Terry Reed

| on special |

normal price: R 511.95

Price: R 460.95


| book description |

In a nation that worships the automobile for the freedom, style, and status that it confers, the Indianapolis 500, run on or near Memorial Day eighty-seven times, is an annual rite of passage celebrating Americans' love affair with speed. Indy recounts the drivers (677 men and 3 women) who have gone to Indianapolis in the past ninety-five years to live their dreams, staking their lives on the outcome. It highlights the faces in the crowd: hardworking Americans, tinhorn celebrities, hookers, movie stars, gate-crashers, and five American presidents. Terry Reed focuses his narrative on the track's four quarter-mile-long turns, each the site of triumphs (including those of such multiple winners as Billy Vukovich, A. J. Foyt, and Helio Castroneves); grisly deaths (at least sixty-six, including three unrelated men of the same unusual last name who died in the same turn but in different decades); and bizarre heroics (like the sans souci French driver who downed champagne throughout the 1913 Indy 500 and still won). Reed also examines Indy's confluence of racing and aeronautics (World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker once owned the track) and the impact upon the event of such forces as segregation, gender politics, food, fads, publicity stunts, world-class partying, and tasteless pop culture. Indy takes readers on an entertaining, full-throttle ride through the history of one of the world's most famous races and one of America's most hallowed rituals. It is the definitive account of the crown jewel of American motorsports.

| product details |



Normally shipped | Available from overseas. Usually dispatched in 14 days
Publisher | Potomac Books Inc
Published date | 1 Mar 2005
Language |
Format | Paperback / softback
Pages | 258
Dimensions | 254 x 178 x 0mm (L x W x H)
Weight | 454g
ISBN | 978-1-5748-8907-9
Readership Age |
BISAC |


| other options |



Normally shipped | Publisher Out of Stock. No orders accepted at this time
Readership Age |



| your trolley |

To view the items in your trolley please sign in.

| sign in |

| specials |

Broken Country: AMAZON'S BOOK OF THE YEAR - THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER

Clare Leslie Hall
Paperback / softback
320 pages
was: R 395.95
now: R 355.95
Usually dispatched in 6-12 days

An epic love story with the pulse of a thriller that asks: what would you risk for a second chance at first love?

Theory & Practice

Michelle de Kretser
Hardback
192 pages
was: R 415.95
now: R 373.95
Available from overseas. Dispatched in aprox 4-8 weeks as local supplier is out of stock


Exiles: Times book of the month 'Stanley Kubrick meets MR James'

Mason Coile
Paperback / softback
224 pages
was: R 520.95
now: R 468.95
Forthcoming

A terrifying locked-room mystery set in a remote outpost on Mars.

The Correspondent

Virginia Evans
Hardback
288 pages
was: R 552.95
now: R 497.95
Available from overseas. Usually dispatched in 14 days