Larry Edsall's blog

Need to do some last-minute shopping for the motorsports fan on your list? Or perhaps you’re the motorsports fan and want to drop some last-minute hints to your friends and relatives and co-workers. Here is a list of recently published books about auto racing that I’ve enjoyed reviewing and that I think you’ll enjoy reading: Fast Lines: Memorable Moments in Motorsports

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500, which was the greatest American race decades before Ken Squier tried to claim that title for Bill France’s sedan show. Indeed, decades before there even was a Daytona 500, the Indy 500 was the greatest race and not just in America but on the entire planet. That no longer is true, but we’ll ignore that for now as we celebrate the history of the race and of a race track that has modernized nicely while clinging so tightly to its own history that it still has a brick-paved finish line.

The Indianapolis 500 celebrates its centennial this year. This is not a story about Indy, though it is about the cars that used to race there.

PHOENIX -- I suspect that if I gave you six guesses, or for that matter, sixty six guesses, you still wouldn’t guess what Danica Patrick is doing today, Monday, January 17, 2011. Is she testing an Indy car? Nope. How about shooting another music video or Sports Illustrated swim suit photo? Nope and nope.

Classic cars aren’t the only reason you’ll want to be at the Barrett-Jackson collector car auction the week of January 17 in Scottsdale, Arizona. On Wednesday, January 19, from 10 a.m. until noon, “Women Who Have the Need for Speed” will be the subject of a panel discussion in the 500-seat “garage area” at Barrett-Jackson. The panelists are:

News earlier this month of the death of Tom Walkinshaw immediately brought memories to mind: Le Mans 1989 and the Fast Masters racing series of 1993.

In addition to writing books, I review books others have written. So far this year, I’ve read two dozen new automotive or motorsports titles. With the holidays approaching quickly, I want to share some gift-buying ideas for the car guy or gal on your shopping list.

It’s been as much a part of American motorsports as Richard Petty or the small-block Chevy V8. It’s the Goodyear blimp, circling up there a couple of thousand feet above the racetracks (and above other sports venues), providing an aerial platform for a television camera so we can get a bird’s-eye perspective of the action.

Let’s say we want to sculpt the Mt. Rushmore of American motorsports: Who do we include? On the one hand, there are the people who built the tracks and organized the races, people such as Big Bill France, Wally Parks, Tony Hulman (in Hulman’s case, it was a re-built of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) and… and here I have a problem as to the fourth and final member of this quartet.