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The Stainless Steel Carrot: An Auto Racing Odyssey-Revisited
515 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 5, 2021
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July 7, 2026
There are more than a few books I’ve read in my time which I consider essential. Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four”, Paul Brickhill’s “The Great Escape”, Lloyd Douglas’s “Magnificent Obsession” among them. Some are topic-centered, say, in caving books, William Halliday’s “Depths of the Earth” or among racing tomes, Sam Moses’s “Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots”. And…Sylvia Wilkinson’s “The Stainless Steel Carrot”.
I used to own a hardcover copy of this book. I wish I still had it. On the other hand, if I did, I might not have dropped a tenner on an ebook copy of it, which would’ve been such a shame, as it continues the story ended in the original. An update, a coda, if you will. Because John Morton’s career as a racer really deserves such a followup. A 2026 inductee into the Motor Sport Hall of Fame, he may be the best race car driver you’ve never heard of. Twice a Trans-Am champ, twice a class winner at Le Mans, his resume is astonishing for a guy the average race fan might not be aware of. A story that really needed to be told.
But a story needs a storyteller, and that’s where Sylvia Wilkinson comes in. Literate, effusive, and…well, fun to read. You want to know how Morton got where he ended up. It reads like fiction—Wilkinson is an award winning author of fiction—but it’s all real. What’s more, she’s a pleasant and interesting person herself; I met her at Riverside in 1985, I’m sure, and she was kind enough to spend several minutes talking with me when she could and probably should have been doing more important things. John was driving Jim Busby’s Porsche that day, after all, and he and another of my favorites whose story deserves to be told, Hoosier Pete Halsmer, were about to win the LA Times Grand Prix.
It’s a terrific book, and to say it deserves to be on every race fan’s shelf wouldn’t be doing it justice. It’s one of those books that deserves to be read and re-read as the years go by. An essential, in other words. Read it, absorb it, and read the inner story of a truly remarkable character from the sport I love so deeply.
Thanks, John. Thanks, Sylvia.
I used to own a hardcover copy of this book. I wish I still had it. On the other hand, if I did, I might not have dropped a tenner on an ebook copy of it, which would’ve been such a shame, as it continues the story ended in the original. An update, a coda, if you will. Because John Morton’s career as a racer really deserves such a followup. A 2026 inductee into the Motor Sport Hall of Fame, he may be the best race car driver you’ve never heard of. Twice a Trans-Am champ, twice a class winner at Le Mans, his resume is astonishing for a guy the average race fan might not be aware of. A story that really needed to be told.
But a story needs a storyteller, and that’s where Sylvia Wilkinson comes in. Literate, effusive, and…well, fun to read. You want to know how Morton got where he ended up. It reads like fiction—Wilkinson is an award winning author of fiction—but it’s all real. What’s more, she’s a pleasant and interesting person herself; I met her at Riverside in 1985, I’m sure, and she was kind enough to spend several minutes talking with me when she could and probably should have been doing more important things. John was driving Jim Busby’s Porsche that day, after all, and he and another of my favorites whose story deserves to be told, Hoosier Pete Halsmer, were about to win the LA Times Grand Prix.
It’s a terrific book, and to say it deserves to be on every race fan’s shelf wouldn’t be doing it justice. It’s one of those books that deserves to be read and re-read as the years go by. An essential, in other words. Read it, absorb it, and read the inner story of a truly remarkable character from the sport I love so deeply.
Thanks, John. Thanks, Sylvia.
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