Description
Author: Leo Levine, Hardbound, 630 Pages, ISBN: 9781299996939, First Edition, 1968 - **Second-Hand book in excellent condition !
"THE DUST AND THE GLORY is a superbly researched and engagingly written book on one of the most important American automobile racing stories. It will be a primary source on the half-century of spectacular Ford racing accomplishments for a long time to come." — Ken W. Purdy
Henry Ford not only put America on wheels, he put it behind the wheel of a racing car. THE DUST AND THE GLORY is the story of how it all happened, the story of how automobile racing was born, and how it grew to be America's number one non-parimutuel spectator sport.
Here, in the picture-splashed pages of THE DUST AND THE GLORY, are:
The Great Races: the bad and the beautiful moments of the most celebrated runs, races and rallies in automotive history, from the early days of the Vanderbilt Cup, the Algonquin Hillclimb and the Cactus Derby to today's main events at Indianapolis, Sebring, Darlington, Daytona, the Nuerburgring, Le Mans and Monte Carlo.
The Great Cars: the roadsters and dragsters, the big cars, the stock cars, the hot rods and every kind of racing car that ever burned rubber, from Ford's own 999 to the Model A, the Fronty-Fords, flathead V8s, Mustangs, Falcons, Cortinas and Cobras to the cars of its great competitors — the fabulous Millers and Duesenbergs, the Stutz Blackhawk, the Bentleys and Chryslers, the Chevys, Pontiacs, and Oldsmobiles, the Porsches and Ferraris, the Chaparrals, and hundreds of other cars.
The Great Drivers: the men who put the fire and guts into the sport, from the legendary Barney Old-field, who first became famous with the Ford 999 and built his reputation behind its four enormous, gas-gulping, bellowing cylinders, to later greats such as Frank Kulick, Frank Lockhart, Juan Manuel Fangio, Johnny Mantz, the Galvez brothers, Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts, Fred Lorenzen, and Le Mans winners Dan Gurney and A.J.Foyt.
It's a fabulous story, told here by a man who has raced with the greats, a man whom insiders consider the most knowledgeable auto racing writer in the country today. Leo Levine chronicles not only the dramatic moments of glory and tragedy, but the day-to-day grind behind those moments : the frantic but disciplined hours at the drawing board, in the workshops, on the proving grounds and in the pits.
Leo Levine began his racing career in Europe, piloting factory-sponsored cars for Porsche, Abarth, NSU and BMW. He decided to quit one foggy day in 1960 when he was competing in the 1,000 Kilometers of the Nuerburgring in Germany.
"I thought I really had it hung out in this particular corner," he says, "and the next thing I knew Dan Gurney went around me on the outside, going about twenty miles an hour faster than me. It didn't take a genius to get the message."
He returned to America and launched a highly successful career as an auto racing columnist for the New York Herald Tribune and other leading newspapers. THE DUST AND THE GLORY is his first book.
