Archive for Author 'Donald Capps', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

Hot Rod Mavericks: The Builders, Racers, and Rebels Who Revolutionized Hot Rodding

by Tony Thacker

If hot rods leave you cold, realize that the influence of the five dozen folks presented in this excellent book touches every aspect of automotive activity, up into current times.

Formula One The Circuits: Then and Now

by Frank Hopkinson

Some race tracks survive for long times but not usually in the exact same layout. Here, vintage images are juxtaposed with modern ones to show those changes, often enough brought about by safety concerns and the ever-rising capabilities of race cars.

Alfa Romeo Cars in Motorsport since 1945

by Peter Collins

Since 1913, Alfa Romeo has competed successfully in many types of motorsport, both as a a constructor and an engine supplier. Containing more photos than pages, this book looks at everything that happened since 1945.

The Formula

How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World’s Fastest-Growing Sport

by Robinson & Clegg

Attendance at F1 events is rising. It wasn’t always thus, so why now? 2023 set a record with 6.15 million spectators. The F1 spin doctors tell you one story, this book another.

American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15

by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson

Why is this the gun we hear about all the time, and in the worst of circumstances? Who is the fellow who invented it and why? And how did a strictly military tool get into civilian hands? In calm and precise language, the authors report all the factors behind both the ingenuity and the mayhem

Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator

by Keith Houston

Do you love your pocket calculator? You should, but maybe you don’t know why. This witty and scholarly (do those words really go together?) book is as much mathematical as social history.

The Put-in-Bay Road Races, 1952–1963

by Carl Goodwin

What is old is new again. For years now vintage sports car drivers have congregated here for reunions celebrating what is now called “the island’s rich road racing history” but that in period barely made the news. This book unravels the history.

The Bomber Mafia

by Malcom Gladwell

Planning to watch the movie Oppenheimer? A nuclear bomb!? Why had other military strategies not broken Japan’s ability to fight? Because no matter what the strategists of the Bomber Mafia thought, pinpoint hits from high altitude were not achievable in those days.

Bomber

by Len Deighton

This is a novel but the level of research and attention to detail Deighton brought to bear could have easily yielded a nonfiction analysis of one fateful day and night in 1943 pinning German air defenses and RAF Bomber Command against each other.

Formula 1 Drive to Survive: The Unofficial Companion

by Stuart Codling

Hindsight is everything . . . this Netflix docuseries is created at the end of a racing season and so can orchestrate its storytelling to punch up certain themes whose outcomes are already known. This book provides much-needed context and will probably achieve the same goal: create more F1 fans.

Caesars Palace Grand Prix

by Randall Cannon

Las Vegas may be popular with gamblers but it wasn’t with racing drivers. The circuit was boring and flat as a parking lot, in fact it was a parking lot. And run counter-clockwise, and, oh, that heat. There is always talk of bringing racing back to Vegas—and this time without the Mob! The Mob?