Author Description

This book is by way of a summit meeting between John Chaplin, a career Fleet Street journalist and the world's best speedway writer, and John Somerville, an enthusiast par excellence, who has amassed the world's biggest and best speedway image bank. The dynamic duo, who have long wanted to work together, have now teamed up to bring you the greatest stories about the greatest personalities from the world's most exciting sport, illustrated with the greatest photographs. In 37 chapters they cover subjects as diverse as John Mills and Dirk Bogarde as speedway stars on celluloid; Peter Craven's Pyjamas; Hail to the Leg-trailers; the Duggan Phenomenon; Alice Hart's Flying Circus; the Low-down on Rocket Bikes, and much, much more. All the drama, the romance, the triumphs and the tragedies of speedway's 84-year rollercoaster existence are here in Chaplin's inimitable words and Somerville's fabulous pictures.