Description
Signed by the author.
From the co-author of Australian Motorcycle Heroes 1949-1989 and the author of The Aussies & 2 NZ Blokes
Foreword by Australia’s 1969 world 250 champion Kel Carruthers Hard-cover 480-page book with more than 300 photographs, the majority previously unpublished Background on 40 Australians who raced in Europe from 1948 to 1960
The Story:
Which sport saw the first Australians compete behind the Iron Curtain? In the 1950s which profession allowed a welder from Prahran and a toolmaker from Belfield to earn 15 times their regular weekly wage?
Welcome to the gypsy world of the Continental Circus private entrants – warts and all – with the joys, camaraderie, heartache, laughs and low acts. It was a time when rider usually had to be truck driver, mechanic, cook and start-money negotiator as well. And management help? You wish! In the 1950s, it was considered un-Australian to push your own barrow.
Travel with the young men criss-crossing a still rebuilding Europe, racing for a living – some on the road with their mates, others with their new brides. Drift a Manx Norton flat out with Bob Brown at Spa-Francorchamps. Learn the Isle of Man Mountain section with Maurie Quincey. Take on race organisers over starting money with Jack Ahearn and Keith Campbell. Cure an electrical problem with your teeth and mend a broken gear linkage with fencing wire. Cross the mine fields into East Germany, where one wrong move could put you in a gulag. Experience the highs, lows and scary hospitals – stories even the men who lived them reckon people would not believe.
The product of eight years’ research and writing, Circus Life goes far deeper than the typical ‘who won what and when’. It puts you on the grid at long forgotten public-road circuits like St Wendel and Hedemora; in the van trundling across Europe in high summer and behind the Iron Curtain on the oil-stained roads of Brno.
Book Details:
Publisher Code: 9780646534251
Author: Don Cox
Published: 2012
Pages: 480
Dimension: 245x320mm
Hard Bound, colour and b/w illustrations
Additional Information
Condition Sync Code: |
1000 |
Author: |
Don Cox |
Book Title: |
Circus Life - Australian Motorcycle Racers In Europe In The 1950s |
Language: |
English |
Sync Category Code: |
261186 |