Formula III Racing In North America
By Harry Reynolds
This is the book a small band of believers has been grousing about for years, a scholarly history of a squirrelly subject: the wonderfully wacky world of cantankerous little 500-cc formula racing cars. Author Reynolds provides the definitive North American version of C.A.N. May’s classic Formula 3 A Record of 500-cc Racing, taking off stateside in 1951, the final year in which May covered racing in England and on the Continent.
It overflows with hundreds of photos, many heretofore unpublished, of the spindly single-seaters, an almost equal number of race results sheets, ancient adverts, esoteric marque info, and medieval maps of long-forgotten race courses (like Palm Beach Shores, Reno, Vineland, Paramount Ranch and a place called “Riverside” on which Sports Cars Illustrated had labeled Turn 6 as: “blind man’s bend”).
Most people know that Stirling Moss, Peter Collins and other young British lions cut their teeth on Cooper FIII cars, and this volume will remind readers that stateside shoes like John Fitch, Bruce Kessler, Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Phil Walters, and Sherwood Johnson all apprenticed in these one-cylinder “thumpers” as well. Reynolds skillfully knits together a intriguing tapestry of a very singular type of racing car that had its own set of prophets, saints, sinners, promoters, and detractors. It’s a year-by-year unrolling of a semi-sacred scroll that many thought long lost, and a fine read for anyone sincerely interested in the sport.
Available for US$39.95 at bookstores or directly from publisher Iconografix at (800) 289-3504 or www.iconografix.com
