Lost Race Tracks

Americans have raced on more than 6,000 racetracks, road courses and drag strips, at home and abroad, since an American Duryea and a German Benz met in the snow in Chicago in 1895. A few more than 1,200 still exist or are still used today. The rest have disappeared under shopping centers, airports and housing developments - or simply into the mists of time.Included here are the best remembered, the most important and the most interesting of those tracks, along with some that are remembered only by local historians. Come along for the ride and rediscover the heritage of automobile racing.

A look at the history of ten of Europe's great abandoned race circuits and seen as they are today in stunning photographs.

"Road racing has long-storied roots in North America that reach from coast to coast and to Canada. Some of the greatest drivers to ever compete raced wickedly fast machines, staged epic duels on winding strips of asphalt, and created history. This history left an enduring legacy that is revealed and celebrated in Lost Road Courses. Road racer and road racing expert Martin Rudow retraces road racing's glorious past and visits the defunct classic road courses across the United States and Canada."--Publisher's description.

Ring Lardner’s influence on American letters is arguably greater than that of any other American writer in the early part of the twentieth century. Lauded by critics and the public for his groundbreaking short stories, Lardner was also the country’s best-known journalist in the 1920s and early 1930s, when his voice was all but inescapable in American newspapers and magazines. Lardner’s trenchant, observant, sly, and cynical writing style, along with a deep understanding of human foibles, made his articles wonderfully readable and his words resonate to this day. Ron Rapoport has gathered the best of Lardner’s journalism from his earliest days at the South Bend Times through his years at the Chicago Tribune and his weekly column for the Bell Syndicate, which appeared in 150 newspapers and reached eight million readers. In these columns Lardner not only covered the great sporting events of the era—from Jack Dempsey’s fights to the World Series and even an America’s Cup—he also wrote about politics, war, and Prohibition, as well as parodies, poems, and penetrating observations on American life. The Lost Journalism of Ring Lardner reintroduces this journalistic giant and his work and shows Lardner to be the rarest of writers: a spot-on chronicler of his time and place who remains contemporary to subsequent generations.

The first organized, sanctioned American stock car race took place in 1908 on a road course around Briarcliff, New York--staged by one of America's early speed mavens, William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. A veteran of the early Ormond-Daytona Beach speed trials, Vanderbilt brought the Grand Prize races to Savannah, Georgia, the same year. What began as a rich man's sport eventually became the working man's sport, finding a home in the South with the infusion of moonshiners and their souped-up cars. Based in large part on statements of drivers, car owners and others garnered from archived newspaper articles, this history details the development of stock car racing into a megasport, chronicling each season through 1974. It examines the National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing's 1948 incorporation documents and how they differ from the agreements adopted at NASCAR's organization meeting two months earlier. The meeting's participants soon realized that their sport was actually owned by William H.G. "Bill" France, and its consequential growth turned his family into billionaires. The book traces the transition from dirt to asphalt to superspeedways, the painfully slow advance of safety measures and the shadowy economics of the sport.

For Polynesians, Tici, Teke, or Tiki is the sacred origin of all knowledge. In the Andes, Kon Tici means "Son of the Sun." What a remarkable coincidence! Kon Tici had the courage to live with a superb, unshakable ethic of peace. Along his breathtaking journey, he meets a young Polynesian woman, Hina of the Valley. Born with a noble heart, motivated by her tremendous respect for nature, self-reliant, and driven by constant love for her people, she matures quickly, and becomes a priestess second to none. Heirs of a Lost Race is the love story of Kon Tici and Hina of the Valley that should inspire, give a model of ethics, and provide hope and optimism. They are from different worlds, races, cultures and beliefs, leading to a breathtaking encounter. Within a microcosm of the South Pacific, forgotten values with universal reach are explored. Around the characters there is a constant powerful, spiritual and cosmic presence. The characters feel that presence, which adds a mysterious touch to their story and behavior.