Tracks:: Racing the Sun

by Sandro Martini

In this epic novel about the motor-racing heroes of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, legendary characters battle to win incredible races on switchback roads along the edges of ravines. Exploring the relationships between the champions as much as the sporting events themselves, this is a thrilling tale based on the true rivalries, triumphs and disasters during a fascinating period in European sporting history.

Sandro Martini is a seasoned journalist who has worked in Italy and the USA. He has spent years researching the facts and creating a story which tells us much about men, their addiction to speed and the love of the machine at a particular time in history.

Genres: Fiction, Sports

335 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2014

Reviews

[Cold War Conversations Podcast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captivating novel focusing on European motor racing in the 1930s and 40s.

Martini has obviously researched the period meticulously and his knowledge of not only motor racing but the politics of the period too is detailed. His journalists writing style makes the pages literally whizz by.

The book starts in 1968 in a seedy Venice hotel bar where an American author is interviewing an aged Italian motor racing journalist. The story then moves between the two periods and covers in detail the fierce battles between the drivers and the car makers with real life historical characters such as Dr Porsche and Enzo Ferrari featured throughout.

A great read for anyone interested in the period, but also for any motorsports fan, especially for the vivid descriptions of the racing.

[Stephanie L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What else does an Italian do on a Sunday afternoon?"

It's hard for most of us to envision the racing days of the late 1920s up to the breakout of the second World War but, if there is any medium that can transport you vividly to that age, it's this book.

Many racing drivers have said that they race on the verge of life and death, now and in recent years... yet, compared to those times, these words ring hollow nowadays. Amidst the treacherous slopes of Mussolini's Italy, from mountainous Brescia to the roads of Rome and the downward slopes of Pescara, we travel to Nazi Germany, in the dangerous turns of Nurburgring, and around the heart of Europe. There are many grand prix that occurred from 1930, where our events begin to take place, until the late 1940s, some with minimal importance and others that changed the course of history. In that chaotic decade, four racing drivers, soon to be legends, stood (or perhaps survived?) above the rest. Their stories of their driving prowess are fascinating, but their interpersonal relationships - rivalries, friendships, infatuations - are even more intriguing as the events unfold.

This book is not just an iteration of historical races that took place. It describes the changing times within the drivers and the countries they represented, the ever - growing spread of the powerful and invasive fascist regimes within the sport and the press that broadcasted it. It narrates the meteoric rise and crashing fall of personalities that were famous all over Europe. Their success and failures, their virtues and vices, their astonishing wins and devastating losses. Through the eyes of a journalist that is present in almost all major happenings through these years, we glimpse the adoration towards these masters of speed... yet we almost become numb, as the book marches on, to the countless deaths upon the tracks. Thus, I come back to what I said in the beginning; these were races on the verge of life and death. One wrong turn, an over-correction and you were bound to fly, along with your car, on the other side of the paddocks. Whether you came out alive was up to divine providence. Yet, more and more challenged their fates in order to experience what it felt to be "at the limit". The recipients of glory and fame, of envy and the pressure of being poster boys of regimes they may have not believed in.

Even if it begins rather slowly, I can't deny the push and pull of the book, its amazing ability to transfer me back to times I have never been to. I could scarcely hear the roar of the engines, smell the flying dirt of the tracks. The thing you'll fall for, however, isn't the back and forth of the races themselves... you'll be captivated by the lives of those drivers that lived through it all, sympathise with those who stayed by their side and feel sorrow at their untimely demises.

I know I did. I cried at the end of the book, at the reminiscing words of the last great driver of his era as he approached his own end. I am sure, if you are a fan of sports in general, that this book will move and transport you just as much as it did with me.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a journalist’s attempt at fiction.

Achille Varzi, the hero of this book, was a real 1930s to 1940s Grand Prix racing driver. His career has all the ingredients for a great dramatic motion picture. But he is almost forgotten: racing in that age was the stuff of propaganda for two regimes, in Germany and Italy, that lost the war, and many a protagonist had a reason for not telling all the truth, both then and afterwards. So our author in ten years of research could not fill all the gaps, and decided to invent and embellish, and sell the story as fiction with a factual basis.

So far so good... if his craft half matched the calibre of the story. Sadly it doesn’t. Wooden and clichéd dialogue, that is sometimes hardly psychologically believable, and invented ornament and detail that sounds surprisingly inaccurate and unconvincing, given the amount of research that allegedly went into the book, mar the reading experience. On the website accompanying the book, Martini mentions half the manuscript got edited out and might make a second book on the German drivers. Four years on, and it’s not here yet: something is amiss.

Not that the editors get it all right: there’s at least one mistake in almost every Italian phrase that is supposed to make the book more authentic.

It is still a great story, and the second star is for the effort of telling it. There should be more books on Varzi. But if you half read Italian, get one of the books by Giorgio Terruzzi published by Giorgio Nada. They tell the story as far as it can be told, and as accurately as possible.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very niche book about racing in Europe in the 1930s-1950s which focuses mostly on two Italians - Achille Varzi and Tazio Nuvolari, though weaves in many other drivers from that time as well.
I wasn’t sure I was going to like the story initially since I’m definitely only a casual F1 fan. It also took me a bit of time to get used to the writing style. The author is a journalist which is extremely evident in this book - I swear every event is anchored in time and space by at least 10 mentions of obscure (to ignorant me at least) locations in Italy or Germany. He kind of gets around this by introducing a fictional sports journalist who is the narrator of the story. Once you get used to the pacing though, the book moves along fairly quickly and is very engaging.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book about racing in the 30's, Varzi, Nuvolari, Ferrari, Caracciola, Rosemeyer, Stuck - all the greats of that era. The fictional part ties all the racing together and makes the drivers more human. Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this era of racing.

[Sergio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary, I would ruin this review if I reveal anything more.