Monday, December 01, 2008

The Driver

On January 8, 2008, we saw Alexander Roy on the Late Show with David Letterman. He is the author of The Driver - My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World.

I went through the 1970's fascinated by cars. I read Car and Driver Magazine religiously. During this period, the magazine wrote repeatedly about the Cannonball Run. The Cannonball Run was an unofficial automobile race run four times in the 1970s from New York City to Redondo Beach, a Los Angeles suburb. During the Letterman segment, they talked about this race and it brought back a rush of memories. I was intrigued, ordered the book and add it to my stack of books to read.

I read the book in November. I enjoyed it, but with all of the good books in the world, it is not one that I recommend highly. About 200 pages into the 300 page book, I was ready to be finished; then, the last 100 pages pulled me back into the book. This last section covers Roy's attempts to establish a record for driving from New York to Los Angeles.

Although I am not interested in doing it for speed, the book actually got me thinking about trying to drive one way from Los Angeles to New York or Boston. This is something that I am thinking about adding to my goals for the next ten to fifteen years.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks so much for your kind words.
    Best Regards,
    Alex Roy

    ReplyDelete