'50 years' brings history to life
2011-06-01 08:30
BIG BLACK BOOK: The "little" version might have lots of names in it, but so does this history of Killarney racetrack. Image: LES STEPHENSON
Author: Les Stephenson
KILLARNEY: 50 Golden Racing Years 1960-2010
Written by Adrian Pheiffer, published by Richard Webb and Kari Evans Fell
R550
Gardeners dig them, home-improvers dream over them and anglers get hooked on them but when it comes to motorsport South African fans haven't had much choice for a local coffee-table book.
Until now.
This 400-page tome has been on the market for a few months now and I've taken my time to get through it. Well, you don't sit just down and read a coffee-table book all at one go like the latest crime novel from, say, Lee Child or Linda Fairstein – that's why they're called CTB's.
So I've flipped its pages many times in the past few weeks and smiled as memories from long ago of drivers and cars, incidents and their outcomes, long buried at the back of my memory, flashed back in full-colour on to my mental high-def screen.
It's also good that my long-time friend and media correspondent Adrian Pheiffer finally got to put all his notes and pictures into a book as he had for so long promised himself. Well done, Adrian…! What would you have done if I hadn't twisted your arm to get you on to your first computer, then the Internet and e-mail?
SEED GERMINATED
So, for those of you who haven't seen a copy, what's this black-bound heavyweight got inside? Well, pretty much everything and everybody who's been involved with Killarney since (and even before) its first race. After all Pheiffer, his wife Jutine (Cookie) and their three biking boys Earl, Roy and Dale (was Pheiffer a Roy Rogers fan, I wonder?) were there at some time through the past half-century.
His long-time friend Robin Emslie, in a profile on the author, points out that the young Pheiffer went with his dad Henry 'Fireworks' Pheiffer to the Grosvenor Grand Prix in Cape Town back in 1937 and the motorsport seed germinated. Pheiffer jnr. eventually became twice Western Province champion, raced in many classes and settled down to a) selling used cars as his dad had done and b) writing motorsport columns for the local news media.
Oh yeah, and still driving, while inventing the local kart-racing class and being PR for Killarney.
His book (for without him who could have compiled it?) is a fascinating collage of people and times though the last 150 page or so carry a series of paid-for profiles of people and companies; many older and probably more famous faces aren't there because they probably couldn't afford it.
Which, strictly, is not how history should be told – but then how else could the book have paid for itself?
MR MOTORMOUTH
Through its pages you can become acquainted – perhaps if you're old enough re-acquainted - with history going back more than a century, find out about the Cape's early race circuits, get the truth about how low-flying helped finance the race meeting and meet some of the world-famous names who warmed rubber on the hallowed tar of Killarney: Mike Hailwood, the now Sir Stirling Moss, biker Geoff Duke, Jochen Mass, Jim Clark, Colin Chapman, Peter Gethin and even a human one-armed bandit.
There's even a section on Mr Motormouth, Murray Walker, who was a good friend to Killarney but (perhaps I missed it?) somewhere there should be a tribute to the dozens of unnamed photographers, professional and amateur, whose work appears in this book.
While the price is a bit steep, '50 Golden Racing Years of Killarney' should keep you absorbed for hours – and perhaps even serve as a reference work to settle some of those pub arguments about who drove what, and when. It will be on my coffee table for a long time.
Now, Mr Pheiffer, how about a film script...?
