Speed Duel

Author: Samuel Hawley
Publisher: Firefly Books
ISBN: 1770880070
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
The quest for the land speed record in the 1960s and the epic rivalry between two dynamic American drivers, Art Arfons and Craig Breedlove. "Interesting and complex. . . .The best job I've seen done on the subject so far." -- Craig Breedlove Until the 1950s, the land speed record (LSR) was held by a series of European gentlemen racers such as British driver John Cobb, who hit 394 miles per hour in 1947. That record held for more than a decade, until the car culture swept the U.S. Hot-rodders and drag racers built and souped up racers using car engines, piston aircraft engines and, eventually, jet engines. For this determined and dedicated group, the LSR was no longer an honor to be held by rich aristocrats with industrial backing -- it was brought stateside. In the summer of 1960, the contest moved into overdrive, with eight men contending for the record on Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats. Some men died in horrific crashes, others prudently retired, and by mid-decade only two men were left driving: Art Arfons and Craig Breedlove. By 1965, Arfons and Breedlove had walked away from some of the most spectacular wipeouts in motor sport history and pushed the record up to 400, then 500, then 600 miles per hour. Speed Duel is the fast-paced history of their rivalry. Despite the abundant heart-stopping action, Speed Duel is foremost a human drama. Says author Samuel Hawley, "It is a quintessential American tale in the tradition of The Right Stuff, except that it is not about extraordinary men doing great things in a huge government program. It's about ordinary men doing extraordinary things in their back yards."

Ultimate Speed

Author: Samuel Hawley
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1641600233
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 387

Book Description
An L.A. hot-rodder with a high school education, a family to support, and almost no money, Craig Breedlove set out in the late 1950s to do something big: harness the thrust of a jet in a car. With a growing obsession that would cost him his marriage, he started building in his dad's garage. The car's name was Spirit of America. Through perseverance and endless hard work, Craig completed Spirit and broke the land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats, setting a new mark of 407 mph in 1963. He went on to be the first person to drive 500 and 600 mph, breaking the land speed record five times. In the early 1970s he turned to rockets and set an acceleration record at Bonneville that stands to this day. He built a jet car in the 1990s, Spirit of America–Sonic Arrow, to go head to head against Britain's ThrustSSC to be the first to Mach 1. Craig's subsequent crash at 675 mph remains the fastest in history. Even today, at the age of eighty, he is going strong with plans for yet another Spirit of America racer. The ultimate goal: 1,000 mph. Ultimate Speed is the authorized biography of Craig Breedlove, with a foreword by Craig himself. A candid revelation of one of motorsports' most interesting figures, the book is based primarily on countless hours of interviews with Craig and dozens of people connected to his life.

Go Like Hell

Author: Albert J. Baime
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0618822194
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
By the early 1960s, the Ford Motor Company, built to bring automobile transportation to the masses, was falling behind. Young Henry Ford II, who had taken the reins of his grandfather's company with little business experience to speak of, knew he had to do something to shake things up. Baby boomers were taking to the road in droves, looking for speed not safety, style not comfort. Meanwhile, Enzo Ferrari, whose cars epitomized style, lorded it over the European racing scene. He crafted beautiful sports cars, "science fiction on wheels," but was also called "the Assassin" because so many drivers perished while racing them.Go Like Helltells the remarkable story of how Henry Ford II, with the help of a young visionary named Lee Iacocca and a former racing champion turned engineer, Carroll Shelby, concocted a scheme to reinvent the Ford company. They would enter the high-stakes world of European car racing, where an adventurous few threw safety and sanity to the wind. They would design, build, and race a car that could beat Ferrari at his own game at the most prestigious and brutal race in the world, something no American car had ever done.Go Like Helltransports readers to a risk-filled, glorious time in this brilliant portrait of a rivalry between two industrialists, the cars they built, and the "pilots" who would drive them to victory, or doom.

Quest for Speed

Author: Barry John
Publisher: Evro Publishing Limited
ISBN: 9781910505595
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
As Land Speed Record historian David Tremayne states in his foreword, "Quest for Speed is a wonderful book that celebrates passion." In a remarkable first book, Barry John has celebrated his life-long passion for the quest for speed by writing, illustrating and designing this fascinating history of record-breaking on land. Along with his informed and detailed text, his beautiful artwork shows all significant record-breakers in their immense variety, each illustrated in profile and accompanied by a cameo portrait of its driver. From the start of it all in the late 19th century to today's challengers seeking to reach "the last frontier," 1,000mph, the story that unfolds will enthrall not only enthusiasts for the subject but anyone appreciative of innovative engineering and brave human endeavour.

America's Man in Korea

Author: George Clayton Foulk
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739120989
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
America's Man in Korea is the story of America's initial involvement in Korea as told through the private family letters of U.S. Navy ensign George Clayton Foulk, Washington's representative in Seoul in the mid-1880s. "The Hermit Kingdom," as Korea was known, was no ordinary diplomatic posting at this time. Emerging from centuries of self-imposed isolation, Korea was struggling to establish itself as an independent nation amid the imperial rivalries of China, Japan, England, and Russia; anti-foreign violence remained a simmering threat; the Korean government was a hotbed of intrigue and factional strife, its monarch King Kojong casting about for help. Foulk, fluent in Korean and the foremost western expert on the country, was an astute observer of this country's transformation. In his private letters, published here for the first time, Foulk recounts his struggle to represent the U.S. and to help Korea in the face of State Department indifference.

THE FASTEST HUMAN

Author: Charles William Paddock
Publisher: Ron Childress
ISBN:
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Book Description
Charley Paddock wrote this book in 1933, telling his personal stories of what it was like to be (The First) "The Fastest Man on Earth". All the wonderful insights he shares of being an Olympic gold medal winner, for breaking many world records and traveling around the world, rubbing elbows with Kings & Queens, Presidents, Movie Stars and more!... ...He was truly was the "Rock Star of his Era!" He also fought in World War I & WW-II... Being killed in a (Mysterious) plane crash, at the age of 42. When the guys are running down the beach, at the beginning of the [1981] film 'Chariots of Fire', Charles Paddock is who they are thinking of!

Inside the Hermit Kingdom

Author: George Clayton Foulk
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739120965
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Book Description
Navy ensign George Foulk made a 900-mile journey through southern Korea during which he kept a detailed record of everything he observed and experienced. This travel diary, part of the George Clayton Foulk collection in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, has been almost entirely overlooked by scholars and yet is of inestimable value. First, it is an account of a trip no Westerner had ever undertaken before or would ever experience again: a long-distance sedan chair journey in the manner of a Choson-dynasty government official. Containing his private thoughts, penned in the heat of the moment, Foulk's diary is immediate, raw, and honest, laying bare his experience. It gives readers is a superbly descriptive and perceptive record of Korea. Inside the Hermit Kingdom stands unique as a firsthand account of the kingdom of Choson in its pristine condition, before the intrusion of the outside world.

The Imjin War

Author: Samuel Hawley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780992078621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 684

Book Description
In May of 1592, Japanese dictator Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent a 158,800-man army of invasion from Kyushu to Pusan on Korea's southern tip. His objective: to conquer Korea, then China, then the whole of Asia. The resulting seven years of fighting, known in Korea as "imjin waeran," the "Imjin invasion," after the year of the water dragon in which it began, dwarfed contemporary conflicts in Europe and was one of the most devastating wars to grip East Asia in the past thousand years. THE IMJIN WAR is the most comprehensive account ever published in English of this cataclysmic event, so little known in the West. It begins with the political and cultural background of Korea, Japan and China, explores the diplomatic impasse that led to the war, describes every major incident and battle from 1592 to 1598 and introduces a fascinating cast of characters along the way. There is Hideyoshi, hosting garden parties as his armies march toward Beijing; Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin, emerging from a prison cell to take on the Japanese navy with just thirteen ships; Chinese commander Zhao Chengxun, suffering defeat after promising to "scatter the Japanese to the four winds"; the courtesan Chu Non-gae, luring a samurai warrior into her arms and jumping into the Nam River with him locked in her embrace. One nation fighting to expand, another to survive. Shockwaves extending across China and beyond. THE IMJIN WAR is an epic tale of grand perspective and intimate detail of an upheaval that would shape East Asia for centuries to come.

I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die

Author: Sarah J. Robinson
Publisher: WaterBrook
ISBN: 0593193539
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

American Sports [4 volumes]

Author: Murry R. Nelson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313397538
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 1678

Book Description
America loves sports. This book examines and details the proof of this fascination seen throughout American society—in our literature, film, and music; our clothing and food; and the iconography of the nation. This momentous four-volume work examines and details the cultural aspects of sport and how sport pervasively reflects—and affects—myriad aspects of American society from the early 1900s to the present day. Written in a straightforward, readable manner, the entries cover both historical and contemporary aspects of sport and American culture. Unlike purely historical encyclopedias on sports, the contributions within these volumes cover related subject matter such as poetry, novels, music, films, plays, television shows, art and artists, mythologies, artifacts, and people. While this encyclopedia set is ideal for general readers who need information on the diverse aspects of sport in American culture for research purposes or are merely reading for enjoyment, the detailed nature of the entries will also prove useful as an initial source for scholars of sport and American culture. Each entry provides a number of both print and online resources for further investigation of the topic.