Book Review: Against Death and Time by Brock Yates
Positives
Negatives
When I recently picked up a copy of Brock Yates’ “Against Death and Time” although I knew it had very little F1 content, it was still one of the many books scribbled on my long reading list of older books which I’ve never got around to completing. I figure there’s nothing better than to make […]
When I recently picked up a copy of Brock Yates’ “Against Death and Time” although I knew it had very little F1 content, it was still one of the many books scribbled on my long reading list of older books which I’ve never got around to completing. I figure there’s nothing better than to make a serious overdue effort to finally get through some of these books during COVID lockdown. On paper, Yates’ book looked promising and I was hoping to get a some historic insights from such a knowledgeable motorsports writer. In the end, it’s slightly underwhelming with an overstylised fusion of narrative fiction and motorsport facts.
The book is basically a look at 3 major motorsport tragedies circa 1955 – the death of in Indianaoplis, horrific crowd accident at Le Mans with the Mercedes cars and the death of moviestar James Dean in a car accident in his Porsche.
Brock Yates (who passed in 2016) was a well known US motorsport commentator and author of “Enzo Ferrari“, the biography that has been long touted to be made into a movie to be directed by Michael Mann with Enzo rumoured to be played by Hugh Jackman.
Yates uses a first person fictional lead and narrative to explore US open wheel racing in the mid-1950’s, the drivers and the eventual fatal crash of the ‘Mad Russian’ Bill Vukovich at the 1955 Indy 500. The first half of the book is spent on US Indy racing, so if that’s your interest – you may like this but there are only fleeting references to overseas Grand Prix drivers like Ascari, Fangio, Moss, Hawthorn. The narrator then jumps to the infamous Le Mans crowd accident in that same year and then onto the death of James Dean at the wheel of his Porsche Spyder.
Personally I found this writing style difficult to follow even though it merges with actual historical detail.
The photo collection is probably the redeeming feature of the book – there are some excellent B&W on track archival photos at Indy, Le Mans and of James Dean’s Porsche and the factual captions are in a more traditional style of a motorsport book.
If I’m honest, I really struggled to enjoy this book – that said, historic Indycar fans might find some of the content more appealing.
The next book on my reading list is Maurice Hamilton’s Alain Prost biography, which I’m expecting will be more up to expectations.
The next book review post though will take a look at the new revised edition of the William Taylor’s excellent McLaren the Cars.
Wow Factor/money shot: Lots of car wreckage photos – James Dean’s Porsche Spyder, Pierre Levegh’s smouldering Mercedes 300 SLR at Le Mans and Bill Vukovich’s Hopkins Special
Suitable for: Only historic Indy diehards.
