On the grid -- six in the hunt for Motorsports Book of the Year prize

BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2012

Books about Porsches, E-type Jaguars and Audis and the McLaren racing team are on the shortlist for the new Motorsports Book of the Year category of the British Sports Book Awards 2012. 

Today The Sports Bookshelf outlines the six shortlisted titles as the build-up to the announcement of the winners in all categories continues. These will be revealed at a black tie dinner at The Savoy Hotel in London next Monday, May 21, when Nick Hornby will also be presented with an award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sports Writing’ some 20 years on from the publication of ‘Fever Pitch’.

The winners from the 10 categories will then be entered into an online public vote to find the overall British Sports Book of the Year. Each winning title will be promoted in a media and retail campaign in the run-up to Father’s Day. The public vote will held on the official website – www.britishsportsbookawards.co.uk – the overall winner will be announced on June 11.

Look out for a run-down of the contenders in the Illustrated Book of the Year and the Best Publicity Campaign.

Follow these links for a detailed review of the other shortlists:

Autobiography/Biography of the Year
Cricket Book of the Year
Football Book of the Year
Golf Book of the Year
Horse Racing Book of the Year
New Writer of the Year
Rugby Book of the Year

The full shortlist

These are the contenders for Motorsports Book of the Year

1 - Ultimate E-type - The Competition Cars

Author: Philip Porter
Published by: Porter Press International

E-types kick started the careers of many Grand Prix drivers, including Jackie Stewart. They beat the Ferrari 250 GTOs, designed specifically for racing, and AC Cobras. Ultimate E-type tells the story, quotes more than 200 significant players, and traces the lives of the most important E-types.  With numerous unseen period photographs and original Jaguar reports, the glory years of the 60s are told as never before. Author Philip Porter is a lifelong E-type enthusiast who has written about the cars for more than 30 years and owns two fine examples: the oldest E-type in existence (the fixed-head coupe registered 9600HP) and a roadster that appeared in the film The Italian Job.

2 - Porsche at Le Mans: Sixty Years of Porsche Participation in the World's Greatest Motor Race

Author: Glen Smale
Published by: Haynes Publishing

Porsche has become synonymous with Le Mans, having competed in every running of the famous 24-hour sports car race since 1951. The streamlined 356 model entered in 1951 finished in 20th place, beating the coveted record for the shortest time spent in the pits. Since that memorable debut, Porsche has won outright at Le Mans 16 times, with a record series of seven consecutive victories from 1981 to 1987. This beautifully designed and extensively illustrated book provides the definitive history.  Award-winning author Glen Smale has a special interest in Porsche. His books for Haynes include Porsche 917: The Definitive History, Porsche: The Carrera Dynasty and Jaguar E-type: Portrait of a Design Icon.

3 - McLaren - the Wins

Authors: David Tremayne and William Taylor
Published by: Coterie Press

Only by counting McLaren’s victories since its inception in 1964 can you truly appreciate the depth of the marque's footprint in motorsport.  McLaren has been victorious in Formula 1, Formula 2, Formula 3, Formula A/5000, Indycars, Can-Am and Interserie sportscars as well as at the Le Mans 24-hour race. This landmark book painstakingly records all of McLaren’s contemporary victories from 1964 until 2011. Produced with the full co-operation and endorsement of the McLaren Group, McLaren - The Wins is beautifully laid out, with period photography and race results depicting every one of the 636 wins, up to and including the 2011 Chinese GP, spanning six momentous decades.

4 - Audi R8 (WSC Giants)

Author: Ian Wagstaff
Published by: Veloce Publishing

Before 1999 Audi did not have a sportscar in its range, let alone had raced one. Yet between 2000 and 2006 the Audi R8 won 63 of the 80 races in which it competed including five out of six Le Mans 24-hours, making it the most successful long-distance racing car of all time. The latest in Veloce's WSC Giants series, this book charts those races and describes the development of the R8, as well as profiling the 35 drivers who raced it between 2000 and 2006. Illustrated in colour throughout with many previously unpublished photos, the book features individual chassis details and results, plus observations from engineers, team managers and drivers connected with the car that transformed Audi.

5 - Driven by Desire: The Desiré Wilson story

Author: Alan Wilson
Published by: Veloce Publishing

The story of the driver rated by many as the best woman ever to race cars, and the most capable ever to have driven in Formula One. Her 50-year career began at the age of five in South Africa before she moved to Holland, England and then the USA, before her life in the sport gained new momentum at the famous Goodwood Revival historic race events. This fascinating story shows how a woman fought her way to the top of motorsport against the odds, from a five-year-old girl racing 60mph micro-midgets in South Africa, to the first and only woman ever to win a Formula One race.  Desiré Wilson was a winner bettered by very few of her male rivals.

6 - Driving on the Edge: The Art and Science of Race Driving

Author: Michael Krumm
Published by: Icon Publishing

Driving on the Edge is the definitive handbook on all aspects of competition driving for racing drivers, from novices to professionals, to engineers, track day participants and individuals who simply want to learn about the complexities and secrets of performance driving. Michael Krumm is a Formula Ford, Formula 3 and All-Japan Super GT Champion who is currently competing very successfully in the FIA GT1 World Championship. At 41 years of age, he has driven every type of racing car from Formula Ford to modern Formula 1 machines, and has analysed every facet of his own driving over 26 years of racing to develop his own skill set.

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Zoning in on where motor racing takes the mind

Sebastian Vettel’s timing could not have been better.  With the Formula One drivers’ championship still open to four contenders as the cars lined up on the grid for the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, Vettel produced the perfect drive at the perfect moment.

With pre-race points leader Fernando Alonso unable to finish in the first four, which would have denied Vettel the title, the 23-year-old German became the youngest F1 champion, his victory putting him in front for the only time in the championship.

By consensus, he drove a superb race.  But did he find himself in the zone? 

It is not a phrase often recognised as carrying profound meaning.  Indeed, in most sports it would convey nothing more than a sense of focus or concentration, a basic prerequisite to success.

In motor racing, however, to be in the zone is to reach an almost mystical place, or a state of mind in any event, in which the driver and car effectively become one entity, the occupant of the cockpit as much part of the machine as the vehicle is an extension of its pilot.

It is a phenomenon that first prompted wide discussion after Ayrton Senna described his qualifying laps for the Monaco Grand Prix in 1988 and spoke about something akin to an out-of-body experience, in which his McLaren-Honda car went faster and faster until the Brazilian began to believe he was above the car, looking down at himself at the wheel.

It transpired he was not the first to have encountered such feelings during a race or qualifying but it was only after Senna had vocalised the experience in such startling terms that others admitted that they too had known disturbing moments similar to the one Senna described.

The phenomenon is explored by the motor racing writer Clyde Brolin in a book entitled Overdrive: Formula 1 in the Zone, in which more than 100 interviewees -- not all of them racing drivers -- explain what they understand the phrase to mean and how their experiences compare with Senna’s.

Senna risked ridicule with his public admission, or at least the murmured suspicion that he was slightly bonkers.  Yet many of those quizzed by Brolin could recall moments in their cars when normal conscious thought processes gave way to something else.

Jenson Button, for example, said that he sometimes would drive a qualifying lap in which he could later remember not a single detail, whereas normally he would be able to replay the lap in his mind in exact detail. Usually, the laps in question were especially quick.

And Vettel described moments when everything about the way the car was set up was perfect but that there was something extra. “That’s the magic and it can make a big difference… it is the best feeling in driving. You are always fighting to reach this.”

Brolin touches on a number of possible explanations, or theories about explanations, for the phenomenon, from the neurological and the technical to the astro-physical or spiritual.
He does not attempt to resolve the question by offering his own answer.  Then again, so far there really isn’t one.

Overdrive: Formula 1 in the Zone.  Click on the link to reach the Amazon website for details on how to buy.

For more books on motor racing, visit The Sports Bookshelf Shop.

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Ecclestone invites Bower spotlight

Tom Bower, famous for unearthing dark secrets in the corridors of politics and business, is turning his attention to sport for the second time in his career.

The renowned investigative journalist, who won a William Hill Sports Book of the Year award for Broken Dreams, his study of corruption in football, has been working on an authorised biography of Formula One motor racing supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

The UK and Commonwealth rights to No Angel: The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone have been bought by Faber, who plan to publish in March 2011 to coincide with the start of the 2011 F1 season.
Bower, 64, has earned a fearsome reputation for doggedly uncovering every aspect of his subjects’ lives, favourable or otherwise. He focused his attentions on spies and Nazis in the early part of his literary career before finding fame with his exposé of Robert Maxwell, the now disgraced and deceased former owner of the Daily Mirror.
He went on to get his teeth into former Lonhro businessman Tiny Rowland and Mohamed al-Fayed before moving on to tackle Virgin boss Richard Branson, the controversial New Labour sponsor Geoffrey Robinson, then-chancellor Gordon Brown and another fallen newspaper tycoon, Conrad Black.
But if Bower seems entirely the wrong man to tackle a project to which the subject has given his full approval, do not be fooled.
When Ecclestone, who will be 80 later this month, gave Bower the go-ahead to speak to friends and business contacts, the author warned him not to expect a frothy tribute.  "I’ll accept your facilities, but if I find evidence of wrongdoing or hear any criticism, it will be published,” Bower told him.
Ecclestone replied “Tom, I’m no angel” and instructed everyone in his circle to “tell him the truth, good or bad.”
We should expect, then, that every story in Ecclestone’s journey from used car salesman to billionaire F1 boss -- his personal highs and lows, his marriages, his deals in Downing Street and his successes and failures on the track -- will be told in unpolished rawness.
If it makes Ecclestone look less than saintly at times, Bower’s subject is clearly prepared.  Indeed, as a figure who has not exactly shied away from notoriety, he may well enjoy seeing himself portrayed in that way.

Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football won the William Hill prize in 2003.

More books by Tom Bower

More books on Bernie Ecclestone

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