Forza Amon! A Biography Of Chris Amon (Eoin Young)

Author: Eoin Young, ISBN: 9781869504823, Published in 2003, Hardback, 239 pages, like new condition

"One of the most skilful and natural drivers ever to grace Formula One": Thus writes Sir Jackie Stewart, three-times motor-racing world champion, in his foreword to Eoin Young's biography of Christopher Arthur Amon.

Yet, for all his undeniable talent behind the wheel, Amon didn't win a single worldchampionship Grand Prix. His bad luck was legendary. As one of his fellow drivers purportedly quipped: 'If Chris Amon quit racing and took up undertaking, people would stop dying.'

The youngest of New Zealand motor-racing's 'big three' - driver-engineer Bruce McLaren and 1967 world champion Denny Hulme made up the trio - Amon wove his special brand of motoring magic in the years before saturation TV coverage could assure him hero status at home. Many New Zealanders are still surprised to learn that for three seasons in the late 1960s, one of their own led the Ferrari team, today synonymous with superchampion Michael Schumacher.

Seasons followed with March, Matra, Tecno, his own Amon project and Ensign, punctuated by CanAm, sports-car and Formula Two events and the popular Tasman Series. Finally, after a decade of spooking the world's finest drivers, Amon quit the track for the family farm near Bulls.

Forza Amon! - the title echoes the passionate cries of the tifosi, Ferrari's enthusiastic supporters, as they urged on their Kiwi idol - is a tale of heroic persistence in the face of relentless ill fortune. Learning how tantalisingly close to prevailing Amon came, readers will find themselves willing him on to that break-through win that may just have launched him to the very top.