Review
Real Road Racing is well illustrated with pages of rare turn-of-the-century photography and is a treat for any enthusiast of racing history. -- Vintage Racecar Journal, Oct 1999
...All of the roads used are still busy thoroughfares and after reading Real Road Racing, it is easy to visualize Terrible Teddy Tetzlaff screaming down Wilshire Boulevard in his big Fiat at full throttle. -- Shav Glick, LA Times, Dec 1999
Real Road racing is the kind of effort that should be encouraged. The authors have done a fine job on a previously neglected subject at a very reasonable price. -- Vintage Motorsport, Sep/Oct 1999
Product Description
This is the first book dedicated to these events and contains race details, descriptions, and over 150 astounding vintage photographs and maps.
Extensive use of contemporary news reports highlight the text and add a degree of color that would be otherwise unattainable. Remember, in the teens, there were no radios or television to assist in reporting. Written language was thus more colorful and descriptive. The authors have made great use of this throughout the work.
Modern Santa Monica residents may well shudder at the thought of speeding racers attracting crowds of nearly 100,000 people to their town. But through the success of these races, Santa Monica was able to stave off annexation into the big nasty conglomeration that has become Los Angeles. Real Road Racing chronicles the growth of Santa Monica, auto racing as a sport, and the political aspects of the speed game that many attribute only to the modern era.
To describe this as a softcover book does the work a gross injustice. Artist Neil Nissing has taken an old 1913 race photograph and colorized it. He then added multiple design elements to help set the period of these events. The cover is indeed flexible, but it has edge flaps for all peripheral text, and is fully laminated. There are 153 photographs, numerous maps, and 140 pages.
