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A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem and the Birth of the Indy 500
Simon & Schuster
May 2011
On Sale: May 3, 2011
288 pages ISBN: 1439149046 EAN: 9781439149041 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Sports
One hundred years ago, 40 cars lined up for the
first Indianapolis 500. We are still waiting to find out who
won. The Indy 500 was created to showcase the controversial new
sport of automobile racing, which was sweeping the country.
Daring young men were driving automobiles at the astonishing
speed of 75 miles per hour, testing themselves and their
vehicles. It was indeed a young man’s game: with no seat
belts, hard helmets or roll bars, the dangers were enormous.
When the Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened in 1909, seven
people were killed, some of them spectators. Oil-slicked
surfaces, clouds of smoke, exploding tires, and flying grit
all made driving extremely hazardous, especially with the
open-cockpit, windshield-less vehicles. Most drivers rode
with a mechanic, who pumped oil manually while watching for
cars attempting to pass. Drivers sometimes threw wrenches or
bolts at each other during the race in order to gain an
advantage. The night before an event, the racers would take
up a collection for the next day’s new widows. Bookmakers
offered bets not only on who might win but who might
survive. Not all the participants in that first Indy 500
lived to see the checkered flag. Although the 1911 Indy 500 judges declared Ray Harroun,
driving a Marmon Wasp, the official winner, there is reason
to doubt that result. The timekeeping equipment failed, and
the judges had to run for their lives when a driver lost
control and his car spun wildly toward their stand. It took
officials two days to determine the results, and Speedway
authorities ordered the records to be destroyed. But Blood and Smoke is about more than a race, even a race
as fabled as the Indianapolis 500. It is the story of
America at the dawn of the automobile age, 29.99 a country
in love with speed, danger, and spectacle. It is a story,
too, about the young men who would risk their lives for
money and glory, the sportsmen whose antics would thrill and
outrage Americans in those long-ago days when the automobile
was still brand new.
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