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

By the Bomb’s Early Light

by Paul Boyer

The Bomb had a fallout beyond the physical destruction it wrought. Whatever lessons were learned came at a terrible price. The book examines its impact on the American psyche and policy-making from the trivial to the sublime.

Origin of the Checkered Flag: A Search for Racing’s Holy Grail

by Fred R. Egloff

Ask ten people were the checkered flag used in racing comes from and you’ll get eleven answers. Get the straight dope here.

Lotus 49: The Story of a Legend

by Michael Oliver

Designed for the 1967 F1 season, the Lotus 49 established itself as a dominant car in the hands of some of the greatest drivers of the day in a period when the whole grid ran the same engine.

Motor Sport Greats in Conversation

by Simon Taylor

Put a good meal and an even better drink in front of someone and chances are they’ll loosen right up. Twenty-four luminaries from the racing world let their guard down a bit and talk about this and that and the other.

Agriculture, Furniture & Marmalade: Southern African Motorsport Heroes

by Greg Mills

Name three South African race drivers. Can’t do it? Tsk, tsk. The title may be too funky for its own good but the subtitle is unambiguous. You’ll be surprised at the African Connection.

Sports Car Racing in the South: Texas to Florida 1959–1960

by Willem Oosthoek

From European exotica to hopped-up Corvettes and from gentlemen racers with pockets bulging from oil money to hardscrabble amateurs, the 1950s racing scene in the US was colorful. It is also a largely, and undeservedly, overlooked subject—until now.

Izod IndyCar Series 2013 Historical Record Book

by Tim Sullivan

Seems like an eminently useful book. Hard data as provided by the official record keeper. You’ll think this is a book you ought to have. Well . . . read the review first!

Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic: How Fixing Broken BMWs Helped Make Me Whole

by Rob Siegel

Want to buy, fix, drive cool cars? And live to talk about it? Siegel has and does, and he hasn’t lost his sense of humor. Or his wife. Clearly a man from whom to learn! Even if you don’t have a BMW.

Pacific Crucible, War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942

by Ian W. Toll

Well-trodden ground, to be sure, but Toll gives a good introduction and also incorporates recent scholarship that sheds more light on both parties to the conflict.

A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing

by Paul Sheldon, Richard Page, Duncan Rabagliati

You might not think so but you can read these books cover to cover. There is plenty of narrative but it is really the data—from practice times to chassis numbers—that make these now 15 volumes the go-to, must-have resource.

Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History

by Anne Mitchell Whisnant

It took over 50 years to build and while the road connecting Shenandoah National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park may be one of scenic beauty, the story behind it is anything but.

Graveyard of the Atlantic, Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast

by David Stick

The watery graves of some 600 ships aren’t just recorded as dry stats but told here with the pace of a fiction book. If you know water you know what a mighty force it is. If you don’t, just read the book.