DRIVE IT THE COMPLETE BOOK OF BRITISH DRAG RACING
DAVID HARDCASTLE & PETER JONES
PUBLISHED 1981 BY HAYNES PUBLISHING LTD, YEOVIL, SOMERSET

David and I were just two drag racing fans who thought, ‘why isn’t there a good UK based book on drag racing?’
We simply had an idea, approached a number of publishers, one of whom (Haynes bless them and their manuals !!) decided that this is just what they needed.  It never was a best seller, I still have to work for a living, but that was never the reason David and I did it, we just loved the sport and it gave us an opportunity to get close to it, real close !

Now you have to remember that neither David, or I professed any great knowledge in any area connected with publishing, writing, photography or drag racing come to that.

David had an interest in American cars and had been to a number of race meetings before, in fact my first visit to the ‘Pod’ was at David’s insistence, I was more of a roundy-round fan at the time. David and I had collaborated on a few articles about building model drag cars in particular pro stockers, for the ‘Hot Rod & Custom’ magazines. That’s where my interest in photography began as a hobby.

I also spent sometime with the NDRC (Midlands), as their Press & Publicity Officer, they were a dedicated band of people who really got Long Marston up and running.

However the rest as they say is history, quite ancient history if I stop and think about it.

The book was pretty well received when published with one or two nice comments from the established press, (Autocar, Motoring News) but Dennis Foy in the magazine ‘Hot Car’ gave it a bit of a pasting.  In retrospect I would have to agree with some of his comments, the book didn’t really live up to its title, but what the heck we were having fun.

Best of all, it got reviewed by HOT ROD in the States so we got our names in probably the best rodding magazine on the planet, after that I didn’t care what Mr Foy thought about it !!!!!

The book was launched at the World Finals at Santa Pod in 1982, Haynes put up a marquee and some sponsorship money for some rounds of racing so some money came back to the sport.  Worst of all they asked us to sign copies of the book, how embarrassing, if you’ve got one sorry, that’s ruined a perfectly good book.

Well as I said we never did make our fortunes and if I’m honest it probably cost Haynes more than they made as well, but it was good experience and that’s where most of these images came from so if you didn’t buy a copy you get them for free now, and if you did buy a copy a big THANK YOU.

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