Against Death and Time: One Fatal Season in Racing's Glory Years
by Brock Yates

Against Death and Time is factual and, á la Yates, well written and highly readable. It recounts all the tragic events of 1955 that had such a tremendous impact on motorsports for years to follow.
Racers, even the purely amateur sporting set, recognize there are certain dangers inherent in the practice of their chosen activity. Normally the dangers involve the racers or their machines as courses and tracks are surely devised to offer spectators, and the crewing team members, safety from the gasoline hauling, speeding missiles. Yet, in spite of ever-increasing precautions and safety devices, the fatal accident(s) occur even into the millennium. Sometimes, despite those best laid plans, events conspire -- and so it was in 1955.
Early in the year two drivers, a world champ and an Indy 500 winner respectively, died in the spring -- Alberto Ascari while running in the French Grand Prix and, just days later, Bill Vukovitch during the Indy 500. Come summer, again in France, during Le Mans -- miscalculations, accidents and cars off the track into the crowd with nearly 100 spectators killed.
And then, only one -- but that one was so well-known with such a high profile that the world would hear of it. James Dean had wrapped the film he was working on so the studio could no longer forbid him to compete and he was enroute to the road race... but you know the story.
And if you don't, the pages of Yates' book are a good place to start. Yates writes of all these events in a yarn-spinnin' style that gives background and entertains while informing.
And, of course, all these news making "incidents" only fed the anti-racing press giving them new arguments to fuel their rhetoric. From the racing point of view, it didn't help that one of those against was pretty high profile himself. William Randolph Hearst was the owner and publisher of a major circulation newspaper, The Los Angeles Examiner, and often shared his views in print.
Yates tells the story well making one wonder yet again why those books used to teach history are so dry and off-putting. Say, maybe if you share this book with a young person, he or she will find history an appealing subject. But do read it yourself before passing it along.
Helen Hutchings, Copyright 2009 (Speedreaders.info)

The year 1955 was the ultimate nightmare for automobile racing, so much so that Switzweland banned the sport from its borders. Too many daring drivers and unsuspecting fans were killed in the line of fire.

Quite a few well known race drivers lost their live in 1955 in pursuit of the elusive checkered flag. Racing legend Bill Vukovich died while leading the Indianapolis 500, well on his way to a possible third victory in a row. As well, it is estimated that 80 - 100 spectators died at the LeMans race when Pierre Leveghe's Mercedes was involved in an accident which ended when his car was literally launched into the crowd and exploded.

Brock Yates delves deeply into the history of the 1955 racing year and amply describes the mayhem and loss which occurred. His story line is one which he both lived through and saw first hand. Included in this racing history are stories about sprint cars, the Indianapolis racers, LeMans and other championship racing events through the end of the year. He also writes stories about great drivers like Mike Nazaruk, Vukie, Alberto Ascari and Jack McGrath. To the true racing fan, this book is remarkable coverage of what awful things happened in 1955; however, you will probably have be a huge fan to know many of the famous names to appreciate Yates' treatment of them.

Having enjoyed Yates' engrossing book about Enzo Ferarri and most of his magazine writing, I have the feeling that a lot of this book was recorded by him for someone (an intern? a neighbor on the next farm?) to key into a manuscript. He's far too good a writer - often brilliant, in fact - for this book to represent him anyway near his game-time self. It's troubling to see so many typos and bobbled details:
"Smithsonian Institute."
Wrong. It's INSTITUTION!
"...he treated Tom and I"
Somebody get me an objective case first person pronoun, pronto!
"...hence it's nickname"
While you're at it, grab a third person possessive ditto, OK?
What's bothersome here is in the very next line, "its" is used correctly.
"twelvth" = sheesh
In the index: Ray Harrouh, Mad Russion, New York State Thurway, shushbox (I think he means slushbox)
I should point out that these examples all are from what's here in the preview material. If no one bothered to check just these few pages, imagine what errors the entire book contains. But I look forward to his books and articles (what that certain car magazine did to him, as I understand it, was terribly wrong), and I am sure that fans of motorsports will enjoy much more from Brock Yates. He really does rank way up there.

This could have been a GOOD book? There are many good parts to the book, but it wonders, isn't connective and supplies a complete chapter on a personal novel, not racing. It could also do without the author's escapades! To bad it couldn't have been more directed toward some of those Great Drives of the time. Many, including those pictured on the cover are left OUT!

I read this book because on a particular day I was in the mood for a book about racing (being the month of May), and the one Economaci did is fairly unfindable in book stores. This looked pretty good - Roger Ward, Mad Russian, the Le Mans disaster - seemed like it might be a nice history book.

The problem with this is not necessarily the content, some of the info was interesting, and I found only few very minor errors that I can't even remember...The problem is the way the content is told. This "I was actually there" first person this is insanely unbelievable to the the point of asinine fantasy. Being there when Vukovich was killed (and being a vicarious pal to boot) is believable. Then being at the Le Mans tragedy...could have happened to a few people. But being at Indy in 1955, Le Mans in 1955, being friends with James Dean and waiting on him to arrive before his death, nailing the Warner Brothers executive's race car groupie daughter, meeting Enzo Ferrari during the early days of gp, and on and on...

I had a good bit of difficulty just finishing this thing and I love open wheel racing in any form it takes. But sportswriters are very seldom good at writing fiction, and this is no different. So if you are in the mood for some airline reading on the way to Indianapolis in late may....get something else.

Ugh. What a disappointment. This book badly needed an editor -- any editor. It reads like a high school draft that was rushed together before deadline. Yates is terrific in the pages of Car and Driver, where he's got adult supervision, but this book is unfinished and unprofessional. He contradicts himself, misspells words -- including, ironically, 'editorial' -- invents new words, and defines the same term three times in as many chapters. There's one whole chapter where lowercase L's are used in place of the number 1.

Apart from that, his peculiar "faction" or I-was-there style doesn't really suit the material, or his talents. He's still writing a history, he just inserts the words 'I' and 'me' from time to time to liven it up. It doesn't make the story compelling, just lame. Too bad.

Ugh. What a disappointment. This book badly needed an editor -- any editor. It reads like a high school draft that was rushed together before deadline. Yates is terrific in the pages of Car and Driver, where he's got adult supervision, but this book is unfinished and unprofessional. He contradicts himself, misspells words -- including, ironically, 'editorial' -- invents new words, and defines the same term three times in as many chapters. There's one whole chapter where lowercase L's are used in place of the number 1.

Apart from that, his peculiar "faction" or I-was-there style doesn't really suit the material, or his talents. He's still writing a history, he just inserts the words 'I' and 'me' from time to time to liven it up. It doesn't make the story compelling, just lame. Too bad.

After reading the enthralling 'Cannonball' a few years ago and the passionate 'Hot Rod' soon after, I was looking forward to 'Against Death and Time'. As a rule, I am a fan of all things motorsport and I enjoy historical fiction, however, I was supremely disappointed in this offering. Yates' main character seems to be a blatant reproduction of Levy's 'Hank Lyons' character from the 'The Last Open Road' series. If you are looking for an interesting book by Yates, buy 'Cannonball', if you are looking for a fictionalized account of the early days of sportscar racing, buy something by B.S. Levy.

I recieved this book as a X-Mas gift. RE-GIFTER. Brock Yates' writing reads to me like that of a fellow who has too much going on and decided at the last minute to add "write this book" to the list.

There's a few decent passages, but so much of this seems read as bland, hurried text. I own it, but I sort of wish I didn't.

Brock Yates brings impressive credentials to his effort to write what is loosely called a novel. "Against Death and Time" is set in 1955, a tragic year in auto racing history, and is told through the eyes of an unnamed free-lance writer. The book's concept sounded great, but I found the execution to be horrible.

A plot really doesn't exist in the conventional sense. The chapters simply follow the narrator around the world to the locations of numerous tragic accidents that year, culminating with James Dean's in central California. At least half the chapters read like straight non-fiction with no "plot development" other than "I flew to France." There is no dramatic tension involved in the book whatsoever, although the author does throw in one jet-set babe, apparently for no reason other than to introduce the narrator to James Dean.

The story might still have worked if it were not for the distractions from poor research and editing.

A dozen times, he refers to the clear-blue flame of the the methanol fuel used in Championship and Sprint cars. In 1955 these cars burned gasoline, and would do so until methanol and fuel bladders were adopted following the terrible main straight crash at Indianapolis in 1964 that killed Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald. Later in the book, he has Buddy Holly and the Crickets playing "That'll be the Day" at a Hollywood party. Unfortunately, that song wasn't released until 1957. Elsewhere, the narrator is assigned to write an article for "Liberty" magazine, but that assignment is later cancelled by "The Saturday Evening Post." An unusual business practice, to be sure.

Finally, I have never seen a book with as many typos in my life. I question whether this book actually had an editor. There are more typos in this one book - over a dozen (I lost count) than on the rest of my bookshelf put together.

The world of auto racing in 1955 could have been a really good yarn. "Against Death and Time" is not.

I remember the 50's and 60's racing era. There were many great drivers who paid with their lives. This account is a riviting read typical of Brock Yates

2/3 of the book was devoted to Bill Vukovich which was tolerable. The other third was about the 1955 LeMans race and James Dean. It seemed that Yates would frequently concoct situations to have everything fit together. By the end of the book his constant name dropping got to be too much and I skipped through the last 40 pages in about a half an hour.