At Goodwood Revival the sale of 50 special signed copies of Brian Redman’s award-winning memoir Daring Drivers, Deadly Tracks raised £2,500 for the Henry Hope-Frost Just Giving Appeal. Each copy was signed by Brian himself and the Duke of Richmond, and the books were donated by Evro Publishing. 

Henry Hope-Frost, the freelance motor racing journalist and commentator, was tragically killed in a road accident on 8 March 2018. The Just Giving page has been set up in memory of Henry and to provide financial support for his wife and three young sons, aged three, six and 12. So far over £110,000 has been raised.

The Perfect Car, the biography of Formula 1 designer John Barnard, written by Nick Skeens, has now been published.

The reviews are beginning to roll in. Octane describes the book as: “A great insight into this driven, fractious and brilliant race-car designer, and you’ll even become an expert in the carbon-fibre structures that Barnard pioneered.” The view of Motor Sport is, “A widely researched and very readable insight into one of the great, under-rated, F1 designers.”

A launch with media and old colleagues took place at the RAC in London on 21 June and is seen in the two accompanying photos. In the one below, John shares a joke with aerospace engineer Arthur Webb, who was one of his key allies in the design and construction of his pioneering carbon-fibre monocoque for the original McLaren MP4 of 1981.

 

 

At Brooklands Museum on Tuesday 24 April 2018 Evro Publishing launched Karl Ludvigsen’s magnificent new two-volume book Reid Railton: Man of Speed in the company of some special guests and the awe-inspiring Napier-Railton, pictured above.

Richard Noble OBE, Land Speed Record holder of 1983–97 and project director of supersonic cars Thrust SSC and Bloodhound SSC, attended and said: ‘I can only describe this book as absolutely magnificent. Karl Ludvigsen charts the life and times of Reid Railton in extraordinary detail and the confidence and scale of his research and knowledge is nothing short of astounding. As land speed record enthusiasts we know all about the Campbells and Segraves, but very little about Cobb and almost nothing about Railton, the engineer in the margins of history who made so many of the great British records possible. Not any more. This very special book for every motor racing enthusiast gets pride of place in my library. It is a brilliant read.’

Pictured above at a photo call are, from left, Allan Winn (recently retired as Director of Brooklands Museum), Mark Hughes (Evro’s Publishing Director), Simon Loxley (the book’s designer), Ronald Ayres MBE (Chief Aerodynamicist for Bloodhound SSC and writer of the book’s foreword), Eric Verdon-Roe (Evro’s Chairman), Sally Joslin (Reid Railton’s daughter) and, last but certainly not least, Karl Ludvigsen (author).

Sally Joslin, who flew over from her home in Boston, Massachusetts for the occasion, discusses one of her father’s finest creations with Allan Winn. The Napier-Railton was built for John Cobb and famously is the perpetual holder of the Brooklands Outer Circuit lap record of 143.33mph.

Members of the Railton Owners Club brought along road cars for the occasion. Such was the allure of Reid Railton’s name that it was used for prestigious sporting cars made near Brooklands, at Cobham, from 1933 to 1940.

During the evening Karl Ludvigsen gave an illustrated talk about the unique life of  engineering genius Reid Railton to a full-house audience of over 200. The image on which Karl is commenting in our picture above shows Reid in the cockpit of the Railton Special, the Land Speed Record car he designed for John Cobb. Cobb set a new record of 350.2mph in 1938 and in subsequent years went faster still, reaching 369.74mph in 1939 and 394.196mph in 1947. 

Proceedings concluded with Karl and Sally signing books.

 

David Hobbs’s visit to Britain from his Florida home for the launch of his book Hobbo: Motor Racer, Motor Mouth included talks at the RAC on London's Pall Mall and the Brooklands Museum (pictured) at the end of March. 

David is one of motor racing’s most remarkable all-rounders. In a 31-year driving career he raced in almost every imaginable category: endurance sports racers, touring cars, Formula 1, Formula 5000, Indycars, IMSA, Trans-Am, Can-Am and even NASCAR – he has done the lot. And on top of that he has been a television commentator in America for nearly 40 years, bringing wit and wisdom to the screen, latterly as part of NBC’s Formula 1 team.

 

David Hobbs has been honoured by the Road Racing Drivers Club with the 2018 Phil Hill Award. RRDC president Bobby Rahal made the presentation at the annual RRDC members’ dinner on 24 January prior to the running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The Phil Hill Award has been presented annually since 1993 to the person who the RRDC feels has rendered outstanding service to road racing.

“Phil Hill represented everything that was great about the American spirit internationally,” said Rahal. “He was the first U.S. Formula 1 champion and multi-time winner of Le Mans. He was a gentleman in the finest sense of the word.

“We think the Phil Hill Award represents something that’s very special in motorsport. And David Hobbs clearly lives up to that example. He is indeed a worthy recipient of the Phil Hill Award.”

As Hobbs was stuck at home suffering flu, fellow NBC Sports commentator Leigh Diffey and Andrew Marriott, co-author of Hobbs’s new book, Hobbo, to be published by Evro in March, accepted the award on his behalf. In the photo Diffey (centre) and Marriott (right) are pictured with Bobby Rahal.

“I didn’t start the book, that’s why I call it a ‘book rescue’,” said Marriott. "It was about two-thirds done when I started it. David kept re-remembering things, and every time he’d remember something it was different from the time he remembered it before.

“It has been a labour of love, this book. It has been an endurance writing it, it hasn’t been a sprint. It’s got the most fabulous pictures in it and some pretty good stories. I think everyone will enjoy reading it.”

During 2017 Dorna, the organisers of MotoGP, have been celebrating 25 years of organising world championship motorcycle racing. To mark the occasion, they asked Evro Publishing to produce a special book.

The book, Racing Together, was launched at Valencia on the weekend of the final round of the 2017 championship with an all-star cast of riders. Holding their copies of the book in the photo (from left) are Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez, Andrea Dovizioso and Johann Zarco.

Containing stories by top journalists and a wealth of historical photographs, the book will make a great Christmas gift for all fans of motorcycle racing.

Reid Railton: Man of Speed by Karl Ludvigsen will be published in November as a two-volume set in a slipcase retailing for £125. Ludvigsen, one of the world’s foremost automotive historians, tells Railton’s personal and professional story in superb detail and fascinating depth, with special focus on the engineer’s unique insights — amounting to genius — and his technical accomplishments.

Railton created an extraordinary range of cars. He rose to renown during the 1930s as chief engineer at Thomson & Taylor, Brooklands-based racing-car builders. There he realised the dreams of that era’s top men of speed, including Tim Birkin, Malcolm Campbell, Whitney Straight, John Cobb, Raymond Mays and Goldie Gardner. His great cars powered them all to sensational racing and record-breaking success.

“I’ve always considered Reid Railton’s land-speed-record car for John Cobb to be the best-engineered automobile for its purpose ever created,” says Karl, who is pictured with the car. “Forty years ago I first wrote about the life and career of Reid Railton, during which I had the pleasure of speaking with him. Now I’ve been honoured by the chance to take a deep dive into Railton’s creations, motivations and inspirations, thanks to the respect of his daughter Sally for her father’s achievements. It’s been the joy of a lifetime to research and write about the amazing scope and depth of Reid Railton’s career as a creative engineer. Now I’m even more convinced of the merits of Cobb’s Railton, the first car to reach 400 mph as long ago as 1947.”

Other important Railton achievements covered in depth are the Blue Bird cars for Sir Malcolm Campbell, the famous 24-litre Napier-Railton (holder of the all-time lap record at Brooklands), design of the ERA, and his Crusader boat for John Cobb, who exceeded 200mph in it on Loch Ness in 1952 moments before crashing fatally.

Brain Redman, whose acclaimed memoir was published by Evro last year, was one of four motor racing greats to be inducted into the Motor Sport Hall of Fame during a star-studded awards ceremony on 7 June.

More than 20,000 enthusiasts voted for their favourites. The other winners were Nigel Mansell in the ‘Formula 1’ category, Roger Penske in the ‘US Racing’ category and the late Barry Sheene in the ‘Motorcycle’ category.

“This means a great deal,” said Redman. “It’s a great honour and I’m delighted. I drove an awful lot of sports cars, and had a tremendous relationship with Chevron and Lola. The GT40 was one of my favourites, too, then I had two great years with Porsche. I have super memories of sharing with Jacky Ickx – I think he was the best of all those I raced against.”

Derek Bell, an inductee in 2016, helped to decide the shortlist for Redman’s ‘Sports Car Racing’ category and the other names on it included Vic Elford, Phil Hill, Pedro Rodríguez and Jo Siffert. Redman won the Targa Florio, Spa 1,000Km, Nürburgring 1,000Km, Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours in a long and varied career, and beat the likes of Mario Andretti in Formula 5000.

It is with enormous sadness that we learned of the death of John Surtees CBE on Friday 10 March.

John played a vital part in the gestation of Evro Publishing. When we reached agreement with him in late 2013 to publish John Surtees: My Incredible Life on Two and Four Wheels, we were such a fledgling company that we had yet to release our first book. John made that leap of faith with us and threw himself into the project with total commitment, just as he did in every other aspect of his distinguished life.

The book went from start to finish in only six months – incredibly rapid by the norms of book publishing. Mike Nicks, the well-known journalist, worked with John and together they did a wonderful job not only in creating a most readable text but also in pulling together a fabulous selection of photographs, including many from John’s own collection that had never been published before.

A few months after publication, the book won the RAC’s inaugural Motoring Book of the Year Award. John was there to collect the handsome silver trophy and his delight was a joy to experience. Our photo shows him that evening with the Evro team – Eric Verdon-Roe (holding book), Jeremy Vaughan (left) and Mark Hughes (right).

John’s legacy lives on through the Henry Surtees Foundation, to which all royalties from sales of the book have gone – and will continue to go for as long as John’s fans, and indeed motor-sport enthusiasts generally, keep buying his wonderful book.

Our condolences at this sad time go to John’s wife Jane and his daughters Leonora and Edwina.

David Hobbs’s recollections of his six decades in motor racing will be published by Evro early in 2018. It will be a fascinating book by a great racer who not only had a long, successful and hugely varied career but always tells a good yarn.

Called Hobbo: Men, Motors and Microphones, David’s memoir covers his racing life from 1960, when he made his début at Snetterton driving his mother’s Morris Oxford, right up to work today as a Formula 1 TV commentator for NBC. He raced in the Le Mans 24 Hours 20 times between 1962 and 1989, finishing third overall with a Gulf Ford GT40 in 1969 in the wake of that year’s legendary battle for the lead. Much of his success came in North America, where he was Formula 5000 champion in 1971 and Trans-Am champion in 1983 – and he also raced in the Indy 500 and NASCAR. On top of that, he raced in Formula 1, driving BRM, Lola, Honda and McLaren cars between 1967 and 1974.

US-based David is pictured with Evro Chairman Eric Verdon-Roe on a recent UK visit, and in 1968 racing his all-time favourite car, the Ford GT40, in the 1968 Nürburgring 1,000Kms with his friend – and fellow Evro author! – Brian Redman.