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Motor-racing’s Strangest Races
Geoff Tibballs
London: Robson, 2001
Call No.: English 796.7209 TIB-[REC]

If your forward gear is stuck, and you are left with only your reverse gear, how do you move ‘forward’? Simple. Just turn your car around and drive in reverse.

Incredible? Not really, if you were as determined as Fernand Charron during the Tour de France in 1899. At the last lap, his forward gear broke down, but he turned his car around and continued in reverse. The distance however was too overwhelming, and he gave up eventually.

These funny things didn’t just happen in the distant past. In 1993, the motoring community was affected by nostalgia. So, a race between cars and the train, Orient Express, was organised to emulate the famous Bentley Boys who challenged the Blue Train during the 1920s, while at the same time enjoying champagne en route. It was not the first car that reached which won, because the driver confessed to skipping a race stop for a lunch appointment elsewhere.

There is something green to find in motor-racing’s history too. The World Solar Challenge, inaugurated in 1987, is held every three years and continues today. It is a salute to the possibilities of solar power, and the engineering feats of green technology. As the British shows, it is not that easy to drive on just sunlight. They suffered much embarrassment in the competitions, such as in the 1993 race when a British laboratory engineer could not even start off!

A much earlier ‘green’ race took place in 1902, called the ‘Alcohol Race’, where cars were supposed to race purely on alcohol. Most cheated, unknown to the organisers, who happily declared the race a success. It was economics though, rather than the environment that inspired the race.

And there are more incidents than the above to read in the book if you want a good tickle.

Memoirs can be daunting if you have no background of the personality, or worst still don’t know who’s who. General books could induce sleep, if you just don’t have enough interest in the subject. However, the witty narration in Motor-racing’s Strangest Races will put you at ease, while teaching you something as well!

Motor-racing’s Strangest Races also does not leave out the dirt behind scandals involving popular modern-day racing legends like Schumacher. You certainly wouldn’t feel cheated reading this book.