SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Book Review: The Cruel Sport Grand Prix Racing 1959-1967 by Robert Daley

I just finished reading "The Cruel Sport" while on vacation last week (March 18-25). Being a history "romantic" that's into the human experience aspect, I most highly recommend this book. Originally published in the early '60s, The Cruel Sport is a conglomeration of newspaper article content written in the late '50s and early '60s. The author, then a newspaper reporter that covered motorsports, plied his trade as he followed the F1 series from race to race, from his first interviews in 1959 with Portago, until Bandini's death at Monaco '67. He interviewed and got to know most of the F1 drivers of that era — Moss, Hill, Brabham, Clark, Stewart, von Trips, Gurney, McLaren — as well as many of the team owners, including the Coopers and the enigmatic Enzo Ferrari. He also interviewed nearly all the drivers that died in that era — or should I say that most of the drivers he interviewed later died in crashes. The flavor and emotion of his experiences is brought forth well in this book.

His prose is very eloquent, and adds a dramatic yet somber aura to the stories. The photos are all his too, taken at races to support his articles. Some are very candid and intimate in how they capture the expressions and body language of those photographed, and the power and beauty of the cars. Almost all are in black and white, which fits well with the somber tone of the text.

I think this book really gives you a feel for what racing in that era was like. What really struck me was the author's epilogue, where he asserts that modern racing, with all its safety features, is antiseptic and sterile and thus lacking the element of danger no longer appeals to the author. The day after I finished reading The Cruel Sport, IRL driver and former motorsports journalist Paul Dana was killed in practice at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

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