Book: The Limit

Cool, I want to read this as well....

 

I'm in the middle of it too!!! It's great!! I met and talked with Phil Hill a couple times when I was younger but I knew more about him from R&T than I did of his racing exploits.

Great book.

 

I thought the book was worth reading once, but it covered familiar ground and didn't reveal anything new.

The other thing that got on my nerves was the amount of time spent explaining the danger of racing in that era. I realize safety was terrible compared to today's standards, but Cannell gives the impression that if you even looked at a race car in the '50s and '60s you were as good as dead.

An interesting book no doubt, but not worth buying.

 

When reading this book it might be interesting to know there are some errors inside:

The Limit – Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit
by Michael Cannell

Errata

Prepared by Michael T. Lynch and Pete Vack


Page

3. Hill’s father was a “lifelong civil servant”. Phil Hill, Sr. had been a corporate executive most of his life before becoming Postmaster of Santa Monica CA.

12. “GI’s bought MGs in England”. The value of the pound was 4.03 US dollars at the end of the war, making the $ cost of an MG about $2,200, plus the shipping to get it home. A new Chevrolet convertible was about $1,600 in the same period. Few, if any GIs had the wherewithal to buy and export an MG while they were on duty or buy a Chevrolet convertible when they got home.

19. Hill “drilling holes in alloy chassis” of XK-120. His Jag had an aluminum body, but the chassis was steel.

20. Pebble Beach course described as “much of it gravel”. There was a short stretch of unpaved road (not gravel), but the remainder was paved.

25. Chinetti “won Le Mans in 1932 after plugging a leaking gas tank with chewing gum. The year of the chewing gum incident was 1934.

27. Lina Lardi “worked in Ferrari’s factory “during the war.” Ferrari’s had known Piero’s mother since at least the early 1930s. She never worked at the factory. In a TV interview, she described their first meeting as taking place when she was posting a letter. He approached and said, “How did you get so beautiful, in so little time.”

29. The car in which Chinetti won at Paris in 1948 was a Spyder Corsa, not a Barchetta.

30. Book is at the 1949 period when it mentions Chinetti selling cars with a speedometer “that swung thrillingly up to 180 mph”. No Ferrari street cars reached that speed for another generation.

37. Bracco drove a 250, not a 340 in Mexico in 1952.

38. Grace Kelly drove a Mercedes 190 in High Society, not a 300 SL.

John Fitch was, “one of the first Americans to shoot down a Messerschmitt.” Hardly, at that stage of the war, but he was among the first to shoot down a Messerschmitt 262, the firm’s jet fighter.

41. The buzzard bars on the 300SLs in Mexico were “soldered” to the area in front of the windshield. Bolted is correct.

45. Book has Hill racing at “Carrell Gardens” and “Phoenix Raceway”. Perhaps the first is confused, as Carrell Speedway is in Gardena CA. Phoenix Raceway was an oval and Hill did not race there. Hill did take part in a road race laid out on Luke Air Force Base (15 miles W of Phoenix) on May 3, 1953. Luke was named after Frank Luke, Jr., a World War I ace and posthumous Medal of Honor Winner. He was the first airman to receive the medal.

Book claims, “Americans viewed sports car drivers as suspect athletes engaged in a bastard sport like surfers or bull riders.” This is nonsense, as Fortune 500 executives as well as other wealthy community leaders took part in the sport. It was widely covered in the leading sporting weekly, Sports Illustrated, from the time of its founding in 1954. Local newspapers often reported the races and their ancillary events on the Society pages, because of the social prominence of the competitors.

69. The Mercedes 300 SLR at Le Mans in 1955 had “hydraulic flip-up brakes, similar to those on airplanes, designed to take the pressure off the disc brakes”. The 300 SLR had drum brakes.

73. At Le Mans in 1955, “Levegh’s singed body lay on the pavement.” Probably refers to a body on the track that films show being covered by the gendarmes using a canvas signboard. That is generally agreed to have been a woman spectator. Levegh ended up in the spectator area 82 feet from impact according to Hilton.

78. The story is told of Hill being invited to join the Ferrari team after a 2nd place drive in Buenos Aires early in 1956. It leaves out the fact that Hill was driving a team car there.

87. “…humble Italian workmen, like his father…” Ferrari’s father’s ironworks sometimes did work for the Italian railway and employed large crews on some jobs. He was a business owner, not a humble workman.

90. Denise McCluggage is referred to as, “…one of the first women drivers.” Denise was certainly one of the best, but there had been women in racing since the 1920s. Denise raced in the 50s and 60s.

111. “Every spring 600 entrants blasted out of Brescia before dawn.” Of the 11 post-war Mille Miglia, only two had over 500 entrants and all but four were in the 300s or below.

115. “Stirling Moss, who spent two seasons on the Mercedes team…” Moss drove for Mercedes only in 1955.

118. In the Trips section, only overall placings are mentioned, even though some of those were class wins.
132. To dramatize the temperature at the Argentine Grand Prix in 1956, it is described as 113 degrees “on the track”. This was a pavement temperature taken by tire technicians. Repeated on p. 235 at Reims in 1961 – 120 degrees. Ambient air temperature obviously very warm, but much less in both cases.

135. At Cuba 1957, Trips drove for “An American who had flown down with an ancient Testa Rossa.” Trips car at Cuba was less than a year old.

140. In Castellotti’s accident at Modena, he, “…bungled a crucial downshift coming out of a curve.” One does not shift down coming out of a curve. The accident is covered in detail in the book mentioned in the notes. Too much speed upon entry and a missed downshift going in.

152. “Ferrari had won all but two Mille Miglia since the war.’ Alfa won in 1947, Lancia in 1954 and Mercedes in 1955.

157. The finish of the 1957 Mille Miglia is described with Taruffi and Trips running side by side as if it were a massed start race, and has Trips backing off to let Taruffi win. Taruffi’s race number was 535, Trips ran with 532. Thus, if the cars were side by side, Taruffi would be three minutes ahead if they ran in tandem, since the race numbers represented their starting times. Ferrari had given Trips team orders at Bologna to stay behind Taruffi. The gesture was not from the goodness of Trips heart, as portrayed.

177. Hill’s Maserati 250 F at France in 1958 is described as, “…outdated, with six fewer cylinders than the Ferraris…” The 250 F had a straight 6-cylinder engine. The Ferraris running that day had V-6 engines.

207. Much is made of Trips win in the 1960 Syracuse Grand Prix without mentioning that it was not a full Grand Prix, but a Formula II event.

214. The Ferrari 156 Sharknose is claimed to have 400 horsepower. It actually had exactly half that.

222. “Aside from Mercedes, Moss relied on privately owned cars”. Moss drove factory cars for H.W.M., Vanwall and Maserati.

224. “Monaco was the on the only Grand Prix run on city streets.” During this period, championship races were held on street circuits in Switzerland (Bremgartern), Spain (Pedralbes), Morocco (Casablanca), Portugal (Orpoto) and Italy (Pescara).

229. 1961 Monaco Grand Prix. “Moss received congratulations from Prince Pierre in the royal box.” Moss was presented the trophy by Prince Ranier. Prince Pierre, his father, was persona non grata at official events after a divorce from Ranier’s mother in 1933 and lived most of his life in France.

232. Holland 1961 was, “the first by any German in two years:” No German had won a post-war Grand Prix until Trips that day.

233. At the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix, Hill is reported to have, “recorded the first lap under four minutes in track history”. Hill lapped Spa at 3’51.9’ in 1960.

240. Brake rod error. Hydraulic brake systems have no ‘rods’.

244. In the section describing the 1961 German Grand Prix, it is said that the drivers, “..nicknamed it (the Nurburgring) the “Green Hell”. This appellation was given to the track by Jackie Stewart years later.

271. The book fails to mention that Phil Hill attended the U.S. Grand Prix in 1961, despite Ferrari not sending cars to the race.

275. At Goodwood in 1962, after his pit stop, and before his crash, Moss, “flew down the straights at 180.” On the Goodwood course, Moss’s Lotus would have had trouble reaching 150.

278. After the disastrous seasons of 1963 and 1964, “Hill never regained his form.” This is ridiculous. Hill won World Championship victories in both 1966 and 1967 and also won a Can Am race in 1966. At that time, Can Am was the fastest road racing series in the world, with lap times on a given track were faster than Grand Prix cars.

 

Cannel thought he had a deal that would get the bokk made into a movie. Rush took away the interest in getting this one made. If Rush is a success then may if will get a chance again as Patrick Dempsey has picked up the option on the property.

There had also been interest in making "Goes Like Hell" into a movie too but again "Rush"
became the one racing movie that happened. Racing movies do not have a good record of making Hollywood money.

Jeff

 

My wife bought it for me for my B-day.....loved the book. Read it on a few flights, and could not put it down.

 

What a great book, so much danger back then for both the driver and spectator.

The lives of so many talented drivers...

better understand the semi sad ending to Hills F1 and racing career