WEEKEND HEROES 2.0 THE STORY BEFORE FORD VS FERRARI

It starts with the earliest events in April 1950 and goes all the way down to the very last of 1957, the 5th running of Paramount Ranch.

Oh sure there’s lots of photographs of cars and then there’s more cars, all decked out in their shiny paint jobs, a hundred or more windshields glaring in the sun, mechanics scrambling under hoods, under a car, somebody’s expensive piece of machinery off-loaded from a boat, for Hawaii’s International Speed Week.

But the photographs of people is what grabs the attention, so why bother with a caption when a photo tells it all; photos never seen before, never ever before published.

Count `em! Almost six hundred pix in full screaming color, and over three hundred in black and white.

The photo on page 17 must have been taken by one of their own.

Like a pride of lions sitting on the tarmac waiting for the sun to come out, waiting for the hunt; the photographers hailed and recognized in the book were a breed apart; in-your-face Paparazzi not.

Hanging off a snowfence, from a tree, they went and were everywhere click clicking away, paying attention, especially to detail, where the real dust and the gravel flew, catching a spectator unaware, the beautiful lady at Stockton in August 1952 …

“Second only to a time machine, this remarkable photographic record presents an amazingly vivid window into 1950s sports car racing in the American west. Tony Adriaensens has done a staggering job searching out the characters, researching the events, and collecting photographs to capture this amateur age of string backs and dusty apexes.  The imagery looks stunningly fresh making it easy to slip back and imagine you’re witnessing such young heroes as Phil Hill, Richie Ginther, Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby gunning hard in sporty foreign imports. Much more than a automotive book, this marvelous production through the wealth of rare photographs, brilliantly celebrates a unique era.”  Mick Walsh