Books

BOOKS

MOTOCOURSE 1978-79

Barry Coleman

published by Hazleton Securities, Ltd.

Richmond, Surrey, England

U S. distribution by Motorbooks International, Osceola, Wise., 54020. $22.95 90 x 120 in. 2OS pp.

Motocourse is a road-racing annual. published in England and devoted to world championships and various national titles.

The work may find ready-made favor at this magazine because it’s edited by Barry Coleman, author of the Mike Hailwood and Kenny Roberts articles published in CW recently. The U.S. report was done by Tony Swan, CW graduate, and several of the U.S. photographers for Motocourse are also CW contributors. Obviously, we like their work.

Which entitles us to say that this annual isn't perfect. Mechanonuts will be disappointed in the specification tables and charts, for example. The bikes ridden by Roberts. Sheene. Hansford. Cecotto et aU are listed in the charts but only the barest facts are there. Ear more attention is paid to the brand names of spark plugs, oil. and the like than to the actual machines. The past season saw all manner of claims pro and con the RG500 Suzuki vs the YZR500 Yamaha, the Kawasaki KR350 vs the Morbidelli. But none of this gets much space. Surely this is the place to discuss technical devices like the Yamaha variable exhaust valve, but it isn't included. There's an article about tires but it doesn't tell us laymen what we want to know; what was the result of the Goodyear-Michelin war?>

Next, the number of pages is generous, as it should be for the price. But many of the pages appear to have been included to puff the book out. as in various tributes and personality profiles. Then there are complete results of all the races you probably didn't know took place, complete meaning the lap-by-lap finishing positions. Okay, it’s nice to have all this data at home on the shelf, just in case. But given the choice of a cutaway drawing of the RG500 or the lap charts from the New Zealand Sidecar Championship, we’d take the drawing. So why is this annual a book no racing fan can do without?

Because Barry Coleman understands racing and the men who do it. It’s capsule history. Each race meeting throughout the year is described so well, with such insight and clarity, that the riders and tuners and factory planners and officials come alive, bit by bit. Each race we understand them more, and appreciate them more. By the closing stages the racing fan will be reading so fast the pages blur . . . all to be told again what we already knew; who won which race and what title. You're not a racing fan? Read this book and you will be. —Allan Girdler