Black Noon: The Year They Stopped the Indy 500
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2014 Dean Batchelor Award, Motor Press Guild "Book of the Year"
Short-listed for 2015 PEN / ESPN Literary Award for Sports Writing
Before noon on May 30th, 1964, the Indy 500 was stopped for the first time in history by an accident. Seven cars had crashed in a fiery wreck, killing two drivers, and threatening the very future of the 500.
Black Noon chronicles one of the darkest and most important days in auto-racing history. As rookie Dave MacDonald came out of the fourth turn and onto the front stretch at the end of the second lap, he found his rear-engine car lifted by the turbulence kicked up from two cars he was attempting to pass. With limited steering input, MacDonald lost control of his car and careened off the inside wall of the track, exploding into a huge fireball and sliding back into oncoming traffic.
Closing fast was affable fan favorite Eddie Sachs. "The Clown Prince of Racing" hit MacDonald's sliding car broadside, setting off a second explosion that killed Sachs instantly. MacDonald, pulled from the wreckage, died two hours later.
After the track was cleared and the race restarted, it was legend A. J. Foyt who raced to a decisive, if hollow, victory. Torn between elation and horror, Foyt, along with others, championed stricter safety regulations, including mandatory pit stops, limiting the amount a fuel a car could carry, and minimum-weight standards.
In this tight, fast-paced narrative, Art Garner brings to life the bygone era when drivers lived hard, raced hard, and at times died hard. Drawing from interviews, Garner expertly reconstructs the fateful events and decisions leading up to the sport's blackest day, and the incriminating aftermath that forever altered the sport.
Black Noon remembers the race that changed everything and the men that paved the way for the Golden Age of Indy car racing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Coming up on the 50th anniversary of one of the most tragic days in Indianapolis 500 history, when Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald were killed in a fiery crash in 1964, first-time author Garner recounts the tragic accident and the events leading up to and following the race. An avid race fan and former automobile public relations executive, Garner covers almost every aspect of the race from the drivers and their cars to the emergence of the "funny cars," the competing tire brands, and the ongoing controversial ethanol debate. While machines dominate much of the work, Garner is careful to not forget legends like A.J. Foyt and Bobby Unser, and his descriptions of the carefree Sachs and reticent MacDonald keeps the work focused. A great way for motor sports fans to learn about how their favorite sport's dark past influenced its bright future, this work proves Garner is off to a fast start as a racing writer.
