A high-speed, sensationalistic feature on those skeletal pseudo-cars whose only purpose is to go fast and turn left (one gear, no starter) -- and the fanatics who drive them. Candidly describing himself as a ""zealot,"" Scalzo tours the race tracks, chronicles the history and portrays the owners, mechanics and drivers in their feuds, fears, victories, and blood-drenched defeats. The perils are dizzying -- gory, ignominious death by such painful means as decapitation or burning -- and Scalzo makes sure that we know it: he shows us sprinters hurling end over end out of the track and skulls being crushed as the cars churn frantically around the circuit. Why do they do it? Scaizo doesn't know, but for the drivers, quivering in their seatbelts as they round a death-trapped curve, it's all part of an exhilarating, highly competitive sport. An accelerated, hard-riding book that spurts ahead quickly but unevenly -- but some readers may wonder where the thrill is.