Book Review

"Stand On It: The Living, Loving, Brawling Exploits of Stroker Ace".

I bought this tired, dog-eared book from the Rotary Book Exchange opposite Marion, for 50 cents. I bought it because I have a vague memory of the cheesy old Burt Reynolds movie "Stroker Ace" and assumed it was the novel of the film.

It is not.

It is in fact the book that the movie was *very loosely* based on. It's about 10 years older than the film, and was known in its day as one of the pre-eminent American comedy novels. Written by 'Stroker Ace' (real author uncredited) it's a first-person walk through the later years of a former F1 driver, then Indy driver, who moves to NASCAR for some easy pickings before he retires. And that's about it. The book follows him around, a fish very much in-water, guiding the unfamiliar reader through his world. It also contains some of the greatest passages about motor racing i've ever read. Stroker doesn't spare the jargon, he just writes it as it comes to him, and the result is the realest sounding stuff around. For my money (all 50 cents of it) this is one of the classic motor racing books. Yes, it's a comedy, but that doesn't stop it from being a classic.

P.S. We are also told that the racing didn't stop when the chequered flag fell, and that when off-track, for the NASCAR driver rent-a-cars were the weapon of choice. But there's a great chapter towards the end of the book, when Stroker goes to the Bahamas to race in a Formula Vee event and all he can get at the airport is a 4-cyl Vauxhall Viva (a HB Torana, for the uninitiated). The section in which Stroker attempts to drift it is particularly good.