Book Review: Northeast American Sports Car Races

Veloce Publishing Ltd., 2010
ISNB 978-945842-54-3
$200.00 USD
Order Here

Review by Pete Vack

Terry O’Neil is a Brit consumed with racing history in the ex Colonies. He has previously written an excellent book about the Nassau Speedweeks. About this effort, Michael T. Lynch wrote, “O’Neil has performed a real service for the historian. The races were notoriously under-reported, either because the scribes didn’t have the budget to stay all week or were too hung over from the legendary parties held every night.” He ferreted out obscure race reports from the scant media reports, both local and international, and O’Neil interviewed a goodly number of people, one being Denise McCluggage, who also wrote the forward. O’Neil’s Nassau book records all that could safely be recorded and will probably be the final word on the subject.

O’Neil has now applied the same discipline to a much larger subject; postwar American sports car racing. Much too big of a bite, of course, so he narrowed it down to the years 1950 to 1959. Clearly 1959 was a watershed year for two critical reasons; the rear engine revolution and dawn of professionalism that would change the sport forever.

The 1950 date was a bit of a toss-up. The first SCCA sanctioned event was the 1948 Watkins Glen Grand Prix. The SCCA succeeded where the American Racing Club of America, which was well chronicled by Joel Finn in his book of the same name, left off. Very active before WWII, A.R.C.A. lost its leadership after the war and the newly formed SCCA picked up the pieces, along with a nucleus of A.R.C.A. members still ready to race. Still O’Neil realizes that there were few races prior to 1950, and that organized, well planned events did not really begin until 1950. Although the SCCA sanctioned the vast majority of the races, O’Neil also listed races held by other organizations such as USAC if within the relevant time and place.

O’Neil next nailed down the subject by geography. Should a book about SCCA racing n the Northeast exclude the Washington and Maryland regions? And what of Virginia? “I looked at the Regional boundaries…and had to set the southern boundaries somewhere, so where better than follow the historic Mason Dixon Line, which place Maryland [and Virginia] to the south,’ wrote O’Neil. So for those who are looking for the glory days of the President’s Cup and Marlboro, you’ll have to wait for O’Neil’s next opus on the Mid Atlantic states. And California? Already well documented by guys like Art Evans, the aforementioned Lynch and others.

All of which begs the question, what is the matter with the SCCA? Why aren’t they, or members thereof, writing and publishing the history of their club? What this reviewer and others have found is that the club archives are held by those who don’t have the time or motivation to create the kind of work such as O’Neil’s book. And they aren’t much help when asked for information or photos, either. Mind you, that is just our experiences but given that it took a determined Brit to accomplish the miracle that is this book, well…

And why did a Brit get into documenting American racing? O’Neil wrote that “ There is nothing worthwhile in Europe to write about that has not already been covered, whereas America had been neglected and I thought that it was an opportunity to record some history while there are still enough people around to remember the old days.” Right on Terry.

Then how did he do it? The Watkins Glen International Motor Racing and Research Center—the IMRRC—Mark Steigerwald and Bill Green in particular, were a big help. O’Neil said “I had the good fortune to find a few people who had taken photos and had bothered to keep them. Not all of them were the ‘professional standard’ that some readers may expect, but at least they are honest-to-goodness photos that have not been messed with, and that means a lot to me.”

We thought we might quibble about those photos, which do seem to be a bit below that “professional standard’. A quick thumbthrough may disappoint. But given the difficulties–copyrights, hoarding collectors, much material simply thrown away by uncaring relatives, and the cost of photo use from many collections, it makes the 475 photos—104 in color a real treasure. Many have never been published and are seen here for the first time. .

So, let’s roll the tape and see what’s in this 200 dollar, 432 page opus. It is of course chronological, and lays out each year providing the overall racing context. For example, the SCCA was not the only one to sanction sports car races, but after 1950 or so the regionals grew in size, number and expertise which enabled full blown racing events to be held with some competence. O’Neil provides this kind of color with every year.

Within each year there is a complete rundown of every event, using sources such as local newspapers, SCCA reports and programs, and car magazines. In almost every case there is a course diagram and complete race results by class and race number, and includes the winner’s time and average speed. This is a huge amount of data, and all data sheets are at the end of each chapter by year, rather than breaking up the written text and photos. To help sort this all out, O’Neil has provided an index by People, Organizations and Venues. Not exactly a computerized ‘find’ function but efficient and clear nonetheless.

Stats like these beg to be computerized, automatically cross referenced, and even a batting average of each driver could be calculated. So should very deserving works like these be available on a server only?

Well, yes, maybe. But it would be hard to organize, the photos would take forever to download, the text would have less of an impact and the hard (and heavy) permanence of a real book would be missing. Even though this reviewer makes great use of the Internet, I often grab Wimpffen’s “Time and Two Seats”, Georgano’s “Encyclopedia of Motorsports”, Defecherex’s “Watkins Glen 1948-1952”, and many other books for information, enjoyment, and today, for fact verification against dubious Internet sources. What might be a good idea is to set up a website with the stats only and sell the book via the site, thereby covering both bases.

O’Neil, of course considered all of this as well. “There are just too many reasons not to computerize it,” he wrote. Geography, time lines, a variation in clubs other than the SCCA and to be effective it would have to cover the entire country as many drivers went all over the map for events. “While I would dearly love to say that the idea would work, I have neither the resources or skills to successfully achieve such a project.”

Personally, I’ll take the book anyway, at almost any cost and we are very eager to see his next volume on the Mid Atlantic states. We assume that he’ll eventually cover the entire SCCA racing world for those magical years? We hope so
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