Sports Car Road Racing in Western Canada Tom Johnston #265/1200

Sports Car Road Racing in Western Canada by Tom Johnston Number 0265 of a 1200 copy limited print run. A beautiful 404-page coffee table book with 700 archival photos, 50 of them in colour, and interesting tidbits about tracks, many long gone, from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island. Motor sport is the biggest sport in the world and one of the most expensive entertainment undertakings ever devised by man. This book, compiled by a man who has been involved in professional and amateur racing for over 40 years, is an invaluable historical study of sports car road racing in Western Canada. The book principally covers the post World War II period but also reaches back to the first road race in Canadian history, at Winnipeg, in 1904 and forward to the Vancouver Molson Indy event one hundred years later. After racing at more than 50 facilities all over North America, Tom Johnston visited all of the Western Canadian active or abandoned road racing tracks that ever hosted events and also investigated numerous failed attempts to build more. Highlights of this book include the unlikely legacy of the large number of wartime training airports that became race tracks and a detailed look at the long tradition of amateur home built "specials" including several he built himself. He also treats us to amusing and insightful first-hand anecdotes from the colourful world of road racing. This is the definitive book on motor sport in Western Canada and is a must read for anyone who has been involved or is in any way interested in the sport. Tom Johnston, an engineer by training, spent nearly fifty years racing at most of the circuits he documents. He displays a thorough knowledge of the sport and the people involved. In 1998 he was inducted into the Canadian Mortorsport Hall of Fame. Of particular interest is the author's personal chronicle of his own racing, from his first Austin Healey Sprite and then a Lola imported from England in the 1960s to the cars he built and raced and the cars he continues to race. This personal account adds a dimension that brings the book alive.

There are pictures galore, many in colour, and the book covers everything from the circuits (Westwood, Edmonton International, Gimli) to the drivers (Bob McLean, Greg Moore) to the cars (Milligan AC Bristol, Gemini Formula Junior). The book has four parts: - Tracks that used to exist, the six operating now and 40 that never got off the drawing board; - Johnston's racing career; - Drivers and "other interesting personalities"; - Home-made racing cars, of which Johnston built several ("I tried to be nice -- I say some are marvels of engineering and ingenuity, others less so.") A highlight is coverage of Westwood Racing Circuit (1959-90), one of the most spectacularly-sited sports facilities in the world and, as Johnston puts it, "a fabulous, much loved track," to those of us who spent our Sundays there, worshipping at the outdoor cathedral of speed. To anyone who remembers Charlie Godecke airborne at Deers Leap in the Bert 'Get Your Rear Into Gear' Laakmann Porsche 911, this book will be a memory-laden treasure. Contents; THE START XII 1 An Overview of Sports Car Road Racing 2 How Did All This Start? 3 The Racing Book Project

LAP 1 / Tom Johnson Racing 4 Tom Johnston, Driver (1962-1973) 5 Tom Johnston, JM Cars (1972-1988) 6 Tom Johnston, Team Owner (1989-2003)

LAP 2 / Western Canadian Drivers and Other Personalities 7 Pre and During WW II (1900-1945) 8 Post War (1946-1989) 9 Current Era (1990 to Present)

LAP 3 / Sports Car Road Racing Tracks of Western Canada 10 Lost Race Tracks 11 Failed Attempts to Build New Tracks 12 Operating Race Tracks 13 Proposed New Tracks (as of 2003) 14 Legends and Mysteries 15 A Few Ovals

LAP 4 / Road Racing Specials of Western Canada 16 British Columbia Specials 17 Prairie Specials

THE FINISH Glossary Bibliography Index Hardcover with dust jacket: 389 pages Publisher: Granville Island Publishing BC (2004) first limited edition number 463 of 1200 Language: English ISBN-10: 155017438X ISBN-13: 978-1894694193 Product Dimensions: 3.2 x 22.9 x 28.6 cm Shipping Weight: 1.8 Kg Large heavy volume. Out of print As new condition Etransfer? will ship!