Fuel and Guts: The Birth of Top Fuel Drag Racing [Hardcover]

Tom Madigan (Author), Dave McClelland (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2007

This is the story of how Top Fuel drag racing started, told by those who lived it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Road & Track, November 2007

“If you want an insider’s view with detailed, first-person accounts from the independent-thinking, innovative mechanical wizards who turned drag racing into an extreme sport, reading this book is pure heaven. You can almost smell the nitro.”

   
Car Craft, December 2007

“As you read the book it becomes evident that the author isn’t just a reporter – he is also a racer. His years of drag racing experience combined with his own eyewitness accounts of the postwar drag racing boom lends credence to an already well-written book. If you are a drag racer, this is a must-read. If you are a street-machine enthusiast, it might make you a drag racer.”

                                                                                                                                                

Drag News Magazine, September 2007

“Fuel & Guts tells the intimate stories that take you back in time and show you how it all started.”
                                                                                                                     

Hemmings Motor News, December 2007

“It’s comprehensive, anecdotal and occasionally profane, very much in keeping with the outrageous subject matter.”

 

Nitrogeezers.com, September 2007

"Must have for anyone interested in the history of Drag Racing.”
                     
DragRaceCentral.com, Dec. 12, 2007

“This book is wonderful from start to finish and it will make a great addition to any drag racing fans collection.”

 

Book Description

This is the story of how Top Fuel drag racing started, told by those who lived it. An insider from the beginning, author Tom Madigan draws on interviews with builders and racers like Mickey Thompson, Tony Nancy, Tommy Ivo, and Tom McEwen, to name just a few. Their words, and those of others such as engine builder Ed Pink and chassis builder Kent Fuller, give readers a real sense of a lost, and truly thrilling, world--the California of the 50s and 60s, where it all began.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Motorbooks; 1st edition (August 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760326975
• ISBN-13: 978-0760326978
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #816,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Straight from the racer's mouth, September 10, 2007

By 

Neville J. Taylor (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fuel and Guts: The Birth of Top Fuel Drag Racing (Hardcover)

While the book is not written in a chronological format, it does give a truly unique observation of the beginnings and growth of the sport. By using interviews from the men that were there from the beginning,from the legend of the first drag race with Vic Edelbrock Snr. and Tom Cobb. To the shared memories of such luminaries as Don Garlits, Tom McEwen, Don Prudhomme, Tommy Ivo, Ed Pink, the elusive Floyd Lippencotte Jr,Ed "the Camfather" Iskenderian, and a host of others. You are told of the dangers and developments made in the quest to go faster and quicker down the quarter mile. The photography in itself is a treasure trove for any enthusiast of the sixties era.This book rates as one of the best books ever written on the subject. It is a must have in any drag racing fans collection.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars and now a word from the editor, February 5, 2008

By 

James M. Michels (Mpls, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fuel and Guts: The Birth of Top Fuel Drag Racing (Hardcover)

This was one of the first projects I worked on when I joined the Motorbooks staff. A rather cranky guy named Tom Madigan called me on my first morning, looking for some photographs he had sent with a book proposal about a year earlier. I told him I hadn't been a Motorbooks employee back then, but I'd be happy to see if I could locate the missing pix. When I found them, I immediately took them to my new boss, explained the situation, made him look at the photos, and asked if they weren't some of the coolest old drag racing pictures he'd ever seen. Then, I called Tom back and told him I'd found the photos and could send them back right away, but I'd prefer to keep them because I wanted to do a book with him. Thus began a long, sometimes tedious, but ultimately insanely rewarding journey.

Those of you who have read the first edition (the second edition is being printed as I write this) might have noticed that Kent Fuller's name is mispelled pretty much throughout the book as "Ken Fuller." That was my doing. Before you start thinking I'm an idiot, turn to page 181 in the book and look at the cowl of Roland Leong's "Hawaiian" dragster. What does it say? That's right, it says "Ken." I saw this just before we sent the proofs to the printer. Now, I know that Kent Fuller's name is Kent Fuller, but there it was, right on Roland's car: Ken. I panicked. I thought I must have been wrong all these years. I looked in Dr. Bob Post's seminal book on Top Fuel racing, High Performance, and it reaffirmed what I had thought I knew to be true. Why, though, would Roland have painted the wrong spelling on his car? I called Tom, but he was out of his office. So I made an executive decision. The wrong one, it turned out. Okay, now that you know the whole story, you can go ahead and tell me I'm an idiot. (As an aside to this story, I saw Roland at a book signing Autobooks/Aerobooks in Los Angeles had for Fuel & Guts. I immediately informed him of the trouble he'd caused me. To this day, he maintains that he really thought it was Ken, not Kent. No, Roland wouldn't do anything like mispell somebody's name to get a rise out of the guy, would he? Not Roland! Who, by the way, is one of the nicest people I've ever met. Which either says something about him or the rest of the folk I've encountered in my life.)

So, the basic point I'm making here is that Fuel & Guts is an oral history. There are occasional mistakes, people misremember things (I mean, most of the people in the book are approaching their 200th birthday, for crying out loud), people have axes to grind or they just want to poke fun at their peers -- it's everything a good oral history should be, and it'll give you a really good idea of what it was like to create a brand new form of motorsport. If you couldn't be there yourself, reading these stories is the next best thing. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of making this book, from working with Tom Madigan to meeting a few of the drag-racing heroes of my youth. It was a labor of love, and, judging from all the nice reviews, it sure has paid off. Thanks to all of you for making it possible. Now quit reading this stuff and buy the book. You'll like it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great read for racing fans, January 22, 2008

By 

sally wood (galva,IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fuel and Guts: The Birth of Top Fuel Drag Racing (Hardcover)

I got this book for my husband for xmas. He reads it almost nightly and is always reading me exerpts from the true stories of drag racing's legends. The pictures are awesome too.THANKS FOR A GREAT BOOK. HE LOVES IT!!!