Weekends of Glory
By Martin Rudow
The second volume in author Rudow’s self-published series recounting the history of Northwest Sports Car Racing, Weekends of Glory, chronicles the period between 1962 and 1970 in America’s Pacific Northwest. Despite its geographically limited topicality, the first offering, Long Straights and Hairpin Turns, sold out its print run, and Rudow hopes a similar fate awaits his latest volume.
The same lovingly careful attention to detail continues, with tales of competition from a wide variety of tracks in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. The two circuits most people will remember are Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington, just south of Seattle, and Westwood, in the Coquitlam district half an hour east of Vancouver, B.C. These two challenging tracks nestled magnificently into their naturally forested habitats and both hosted the USRRC, Formula 5000, and the Trans-Am during their heyday.
As in Long Straights, Rudow’s inclusion of thumbnail profiles for many of the drivers and their cars allows readers to visualize the complete picture of what it was like to go road racing in the Pacific Northwest four decades ago. Consequently, it’s difficult to imagine anyone who buys this book being disappointed.
Available for $69.95 directly from the publisher, www.rspubs.com, or at better bookstores.
