"Bob LeDrew" (bobledrew1)
11/18/2013 at 16:19 • Filed to: None
1
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"Bob LeDrew" (bobledrew1)
11/18/2013 at 16:19 • Filed to: None | 1
| 0 |
If you're on Oppo or Jalopnik, chances are you don't need me to fill in the big blanks on who Niki Lauda is. However, if you went to see Rush, you might want to dig up a copy of Lauda's autobiography to get some worthwhile context on that year and on the life of the film's underdog.
To Hell and Back , published in German in 1985 and in English the following year, is Lauda's story, told in collaboration with German racing writer Herbert Volker. In fact, the German title (which I prefer) is Niki Lauda: Meine Story . But hey. I guess To Hell and Back sounded more salesy.
If you didn't know this about Lauda before Rush , you knew afterward: Lauda is one coldblooded son of a gun. The film and media coverage of Lauda show you a Lauda with ice water in his veins, who calculates risks, who tweaks his psychology as precisely as he directs his mechanics to tweak his car.
And to his credit, Lauda lets himself come off as pretty much that in To Hell and Back. And he had to be. The product of a wealthy Austrian family, he turned his back on all forms of security for the life of a racing driver.
He doesn't think twice about going into huge amounts of debt, and by page 27 of the book, he casually mentions "I was now a further 80,000GBP in debt, making a grand total of 160,000GBP outstanding at the end of 1972." In 1972, the average salary in the UK was just over 2,000 pounds.
And eventually, his daring pays off: he makes it to F1 and gets to drive for Ferrari, where, of course, the historic Nurburgring accident takes place in 1976. One other important thing to notice: the black-vs.-white of Hunt-Lauda as portrayed in Rush is, at least in Lauda's account, essentially non-existent. In Chapter 13, he describes Lauada as "good to get along with... an open, honest-to-God pal — and one helluva driver." Not exactly archenemies.
And judging by his book, while he may not have had James Hunt's capacity for pulling a bird, he did okay.
What the reader get in To Hell and Back is a fascinating glimpse inside one racer's mind. One gets the idea that while Lauda is not a robot, and not without emotion, that he subjugates everything to his own logic and keeps his emotions for those he trusts the most.
Of course, Lauda tells the reader in chapter 14 ("The Lauda System"), that he's actually "too sensitive, too emotional as it is", and that his "system" is designed to "protect myself and to apportion my time and energy."
The one emotion that Lauda is certainly not willing to repress is annoyance. Not anger, but annoyance. When he writes about his early years in the airline business, you get the sense of his annoyance that the bigwigs behind Austrian Airlines couldn't see reason and stop trying to kill his airline (of course, this can be read ironically now that Austrian Airlines has merged with Lauda Air). You get the same sense during the days at BRM when Lord Stanley swallows the cock-and-bull story fed to him by his mechanics, and at Ferrari when his plain speaking was not appreciated.
And he is certainly candid about racing, about business, and about people. In his "Colleagues and Competitors" chapter, he (perhaps surprisingly) defends Gilles Villeneuve's actions in the crash which took his life, says lovely things about Nelson Piquet, but is bluntly dismissive of drives like Emerson Fittipaldi ("once very good indeed, but he has failed to mature further") and Carlos Reutemann ("A cold, unappetizing character.")
It should also be noted that Lauda demonstrates a very dry sense of humour in the book, as he did in real life (The Lauda Air mascot was "Niki the Rat.") Describing dealing with his wife Marlene's hot temper, he says "Once the area in question has been wrecked to Marlene's satisfaction, a sense of calm sets in."
To Hell and Back is an important document for jalops: a well-written (or at least well-translated) book that portrays the voice of one of the great drivers and characters to have graced us with his skill.
Read it. Sadly, the book is out of print, but you can purchase it through Amazon (affiliate link below) or find it at your local library.
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