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There is a precariously-balanced stack of pristine new books sitting here waiting to make their way into this column, but I've decided to ignore them for this week.
They'll get their turn (well, most off them will), but this time around I decided to take a look at a book that was released a couple of years ago, partly because it's related to American open-wheel racing and can therefore be tenuously tied in with this weekend's Indy 500, but mostly because I came across a copy last week and checked it out on a whim. In book reviewing terms, that counts as living on the edge.
For those who don't know, Dr Stephen Olvey is essentially North America's answer to Prof Sid Watkins. Olvey was Medical Director for CART between 1979 and 2003, after which he moved across to the ill-fated Grand Prix Masters series. He is also founding member of the FIA's institute for motor sport safety.
Olvey played a central role in revolutionising both the science and the attitudes towards safety in American open-wheeler racing, and his account of almost 40 years in motorsport (he started on the medical team at Indianapolis in the mid-1960s) makes pretty compelling reading.
