The Bookworm Critique

If life is all about little milestones, then I guess I can tick another one off. Or at least, this column can. After eight years, we're running our first review of a book related to the IRL. (Can I hear someone clapping at the back of the room there?)

The Indy Racing League has long struggled to develop any real sense of credibility outside its own paddock. OK, it has the Indy 500 - a race that maintains a strong allure, but one based on what it used to be rather than what it has become. It has Danica Patrick, who has generated a lot of column inches for the series despite moderate on-track results. And at the serious end of the field, it has a handful of pretty good drivers.

For a long time it was a kind of open-wheeler refugee camp for guys who didn't make it to F1 and were shut out of Champ Car by politics, although the coming of age of Marco Andretti this year at least hints at some legitimate home-grown talent.

But generally, IndyCar has rarely looked like much more than a slightly undernourished estranged cousin to Champ Car - a series that has spent a bit of time on the ropes itself in recent years.

Looking at the 2006 driver line-up, who could have made it as a Formula One driver? Dan Wheldon is probably quick enough. Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan perhaps, if you wound the clock back ten years. With a bit more experience Andretti could be a look-in, although his value to the IRL could prove to be too great for it to ever to let him go.

Scott Dixon would also add his name to the list. Whether you'd agree with him or not depends in part on your reading of the two tests that the Australian-born New Zealander was given by Williams in 2004. He did a reasonable job in a one-day outing at Paul Ricard, but a follow-up at Barcelona a few weeks later was less successful, and the team crossed his name off the list.

Having just read Dixon's authorised biography, I'd hoped to be able to shed a little more light on his own thoughts about this. Actually, I'd like to know how he feels about all sorts of things. Unfortunately I don't, because although Sandy Myhre's 'Indy to Indy' thanks him profusely for "allowing this [book] to happen", there is no actual input from Dixon himself to be found. There are quotes, sure, but they read like pre- and post-race press releases - probably because that's where they came from.

I suppose before we go much further we have to recognise this book for what it is. It's not an autobiography. It's not even a serious biography (irrespective of whether it pretends to be). It's a fan book, plain and simple.

New Zealand is a small country, and one that throws tremendous support behind any local that makes it on the world stage. In Dixon, the 2003 IRL champion, they have someone legitimately worth getting excited about, and now they have a book about him that they can give one another for Christmas.

The timing of the release is a little mystifying, given that it comes a full three years after his title success, although Dixon did manage to string together a reasonably good season in 2006 after a couple of lean years spent battling with the Toyota engine.

To Myhre's credit, she has attempted to make up for the lack of input from Dixon himself by speaking to a lot of people who surround him, although accessibility seems to have tilted this heavily towards those who were involved in his formative years. The interview material could be rather better integrated, though - in one case, a single quote runs to almost five pages.

The book is also let down by some little mistakes; some glaring (In one amusing Freudian slip, Olivier Panis is referred to as 'Olivier Panoz'), some more subtle ('Australian Motorsport News' magazine is referred to as 'Australian Motoring News').

Adding to the frustration, Myhre has a tendency to wander off the track and into all kinds of side-alleys, which is fine if you're looking for a general book about the IRL, but not so great if you want to learn more about Dixon.

But the main downfall for me was that the book just wasn't particularly well written. Cliche abounds - any mention of the Indy 500 that doesn't include the word 'iconic' stands out for its sheer rarity - and there are some weird parallels drawn.

The remark that the cars used in the NZ-based Toyota Racing Series "could almost be called a Formula Renault but because it has a Toyota engine in a Tatuus chassis, it's named for the primary sponsor" doesn't make a lot of sense unless you already know that Tatuus builds the chassis for both series, and that TRS cars are similar in weight and power to a FRenault 2.0.

On the flip side, the main value in the book comes from its pretty accurate portrayal of the unique difficulties faced by Australian and New Zealand drivers who are trying to establish an international open-wheel career.

Getting into F1, or even something Champ Cars, takes some doing no matter where you come from, but when you come from the antipodes you have to overcome little extras like dreadful exchange rates and the difficulty in selling a sponsor on the value of a series that they've never heard of, and one that is going to reward them with next to no coverage in their home country.

It's little wonder that such a comparatively small number of drivers from Australia and NZ ever get the opportunity to go over and get hammered in British F3 or Champ Car Atlantics.

'Indy to Indy' is not a book that is ever going to hold much appeal outside the world of IRL and Scott Dixon fans. But if you belong in one of those camps and you don't expect too much from your motorsport books, then you might find this to be a pleasant enough way to kill a couple of hours during the off-season.