Speed reading: Starting Grid to Chequered Flag, by Paul Frère

"Bob LeDrew" (bobledrew1)
09/08/2013 at 16:37 • Filed to: None

I happened upon "Starting Grid to Chequered Flag" in a used bookshop. I was sold on the book by two things: 1. It was two bucks; 2. the cover photo of someone driving a Ferrari 250 Testarossa.

I'd never heard of Paul Frère. For that, I'm now a bit ashamed, because he had quite a life. But you'd never get that sense from this book, unfortunately.

Starting Grid to Chequered Flag is the autobiography of Paul Frère's racing life, from 1952, when he began racing, to his victory with the Ferrari team at the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans.

There's a great deal to recommend this book to any reader with a love of sports car racing, and particularly of that type of racing's legendary past. And this book is full of references to names to conjure with: Moss, von Trips, Hawthorn, Gurney, Hill... and on and on. And if you want accounts of races of the day, you are going to be more than satisfied. From the 12 hours of Rheims to record-setting sessions at Monza to Le Mans to Frère's "home" track of Spa, you hear about triumphs and tragedies.

But there are things about the book that leave me cold. One is possibly due to the fact that the book was translated from (I'm assuming) from French by Louis Klementaski, and I suspect that what seems to be a too-literal word for word translation has deboned the prose. The second is that rather than select incidents, races, or in some way select themes to organize the book, Frère chose to simply create a chronology of his racing life.

That in itself is interesting. But what there is of Paul Frère the man is severely limited. We hear of his fear of driving on wet tracks after two accidents. We hear a brief mention of his journalistic career. There's a brief mention of his wife. But the reader has to work to get a true sense of the racing life of the 1950s.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book to me was the almost chaotic sense of drivers bouncing from team to team from race to race, and some teams operating as privateers. For the 1957 Le Mans race, Frère drove a Jaguar D-type for the Équipe Nationale Belge, with the other cars in the stable being a two-liter, four-cylinder 'Testa Rossa' Ferrari, a 3.5 litre Ferrari V12, and a Porsche Spyder. I can't imagine something happening now in professional racing series.

Other characters in the book are bare pencil-sketches. Most other drivers are simply described as "the great", or "the American." Some of Frère's closer colleagues are described as good-humoured or calm. If you're looking for insight into or portraits of the great drivers of the day, you won't find it here.

The book also fails to place auto racing in the context of the times. The tragedies of Le Mans in 1955 and the Mille Miglia in 1957 are mentioned and described, but there's little effort to place the outcry in the wake that saw outrage against Le Mans and the cancellation of the Mille Miglia.

The time was fascinating. The people, equally so. But if you want a true sense of what made this a fascinating scene to take in, you will not be well-served by Starting Grid to Chequered Flag , sad to say.

Starting Grid to Chequered Flag was published in 1956 and 1961 in French by Editions Jaric, and by in English by B.T. Batsford in 1962. Used copies widely available online.

DISCUSSION (10)

365Daytonafan > Bob LeDrew
09/08/2013 at 17:03

You may also want to check out his book "My Life full of cars' covers his racing career and his life as a motoring journalist. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Full-Cars…

427zeo6 > Bob LeDrew
09/08/2013 at 18:06

Your dating yourself to the digital age. PF was a regular contributor to Road&Track magazine for years. That was in "the olden days" when history was in print unable to be altered on a day to day basis like today. What great times we live in!

JackOlsen1 > Bob LeDrew
09/08/2013 at 18:14

His books on Porsche are classics, especially The Porsche 911 Story .

Bob LeDrew > 427zeo6
09/08/2013 at 18:15

Hey, who else would date me?

I was never a R&T guy — Car and Driver, me. So I likely missed out on Frère's columns there. I do wish I'd known more about him before this, however.

Patrick Frawley > Bob LeDrew
09/08/2013 at 18:41

My first reaction was that you need to keep digging into history a bit, but my second (and more reasonable) is that I'm getting old and was fortunate to know about - and read the writings of - Monsieur Frère when he was still alive.

Paul Frère was perhaps the best racer-journalist of all time, a confident and mechanically sympathetic driver who excelled at endurance racing (won Le Mans in 1960) while being able to accurately and thoroughly describe the sensations and techniques of fast driving in clear, if slightly cool, prose. He and Phil Hill were Road & Track's go-to senior contributors for both historical perspective and enlightened analysis of car feel and response well into the new century. Go hunt down the August 1986 issue with the epoch-defining Ferrari feature.

He died slightly early at age 90 (!) in part because of complications after a bad crash.

His writings wouldn't usually be about how his was such a Golden Age kind of thing, but for details and analysis he was the best.

Bob LeDrew > Patrick Frawley
09/08/2013 at 18:46

Yeah, I don't doubt I need to keep digging in.

Stephen > Bob LeDrew
09/08/2013 at 18:49

...never heard of Paul Frere...? I'm 31 and can't fathom that statement, especially on Jalopnik.

Go get his classic "Sports Car and Competition Driving" book. It is a must-have.

MFEJAL grey because who knows... > Bob LeDrew
09/08/2013 at 18:56

I was looking a picture he took while riding as co-driver, I think was at Mille Miglia.

I'm sad you found such a gem of a book for only $2.

The photos are to be framed. All his photos.

Cheesewhiz > Patrick Frawley
09/08/2013 at 23:07

Exactly - I read that '86 Ferrari issue until the cover came apart. I recall him being the European Editor for years, with insites far beyond mere racing. Auto/racing journalism is poorer for his departure.

RedEyeNinja > Patrick Frawley
09/09/2013 at 13:02

Thank you for pointing out the major points about Paul Frere that the author and anyone younger would have missed or dismissed.