On the Road: Good reads for the gearhead on your list

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Christmas 2020 is going to be different with many people staying close to home, but the silver lining is that means there will be plenty of time to spend with a good book. In that spirit, here are three suggestions that could prove of interest to a gearhead on your list.

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Mickey Thompson: The Lost Story of the Original Speed King in His Own Words

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First up is a book that almost didn’t see the light of day. Mickey Thompson: The Lost Story of the Original Speed King in His Own Words, was written in the early 1970s by the late motorsports writer, editor and drag racer Tom Madigan. Over a period of two years starting in 1972, Madigan and Thompson spent time conducting taped interviews. After each conversation, Madigan typed up the stories.

The pair covered many of Thompson’s exploits and motorsports innovations, from his earliest days building wooden cars powered by washing machine motors to dominating drag racing and establishing speed records at Bonneville, Indy 500 and Baja off-road competitions. After completing the work, however, Thompson wanted Madigan to wait to publish the manuscript. Madigan placed all of his type-written pages in a plastic container and put it in a desk drawer. As Madigan writes in his introduction, “…typical Mickey, he wanted to hold the story until later in his life, with the idea of a movie off in the distance.”

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While not forgotten, the manuscript lay dormant through 1988, the year Thompson and his wife Trudy were murdered at their California home. Madigan waited another 20 years before approaching publisher Zack Miller at Motorbooks about the possibility of finally printing his work, and this 240-page hardcover edition is the result. It’s filled with more than 200 images that showcase Thompson’s vehicles, from his days in the 1950s creating dragsters to the 1980s and his race-winning Baja buggies.

The story is sometimes challenging to follow, however the book proves rewarding in the insights it provides into this particularly popular motorsport superhero, and as stated on the dustjacket, is “…an amazing biographical artifact.”

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Next up are two titles fit for armchair travelers.

Motorcycle Messengers 2: Tales From the Road by Writers Who Ride

Motorcycle Messengers 2: Tales From the Road by Writers Who Ride is the second volume in a series edited by Canmore, Alberta writer and rider Jeremy Kroeker. Available from www.oscillatorpress.com, Motorcycle Messengers 2 features a foreword by Charley Boorman of Long Way Round fame. He writes, “Throughout my life’s journey, travel books have urged me on to further adventures of my own,” and he adds, “I hope you all have at least a section of bookshelf at home where you have your travel and adventure collection.”

Although it seems no one will be riding too far any time soon, Motorcycle Messengers 2 offers a literary escape and explores two-wheeled adventures in far-flung locations as well as a few closer to home. For example, included is the story Finding Peace. Writer Liz Jansen completes a Canadian adventure she’d started two years prior, searching for the land near Beaverlodge, Alberta that her immigrant grandparents had farmed in the 1920s. The first time she tried, she crashed her motorcycle in southern Alberta and had to convalesce before trying again. This time around, she’s 4,000 kilometres from her home, riding a Triumph Tiger in the Peace River-area of northern Alberta. Led more by intuition than actual coordinates, she beautifully describes the roads and surrounding country as she does eventually locate the area her ancestors once inhabited.

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The Harley-Davidson Story: Tales From the Archives

Finally, there’s a book for those with an interest in the history of Harley-Davidson, but who might never get a chance to visit that company’s museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Published by Motorbooks, The Harley-Davidson Story: Tales From the Archives by Aaron Frank takes readers deep into the Motor Company’s past while bringing the narrative up to the present.

As Harley-Davidson Museum curatorial director Jim Fricke writes in his introduction, “Fortunately for those of us working on the Harley-Davidson Museum, the company’s founders were savers. They began preserving motorcycles, documents, printed material, and photographs just a few years after starting their business.”

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Author Aaron Frank makes good use of all archive materials at hand to relate the Harley-Davidson story, beginning with the earliest printed document on record, a drawing of a bicycle motor penned by William Harley in 1901.

Frank notes, “More than anything, this simple line drawing captures an incredible moment in time. A moment when the personal transportation landscape was being rapidly and radically reshaped. A moment of incredible business opportunity, when two hardworking and resourceful young men (Harley and his friend, Arthur Davidson) could build a manufacturing company up from nothing, in a backyard shed.”

Heavily illustrated with archival photographs, brochures and some contemporary imagery, The Harley-Davidson Story is a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of this legendary American motorcycle manufacturer.

Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have a column tip? Contact him at 403-287-1067 or gregwilliams@shaw.ca