CHALLENGE THE WIND

Perhaps no better, or no different, from most of the novels which have been written about sports car racing, this is a fairly professional account of Peter Langley's laps around various transcontinental tracks (Le Mans, Monaco, Nurburgring, Indianapolis) after he is hired to drive for ""Le Maitre,"" one Emile Volanti. Volanti tells his men when to win, when to lose, and sometimes die in this sport which is also a business with a one-to-five casualty statistic. Before very long it is established that Peter is one of the ones who will make it big even though it may not be worth the price; he loses Jill, and then Marcienne, an ornamental drifter; he runs into debt; two of his teammates die; and after his second crash he is told that the next one will presumably be fatal. Still he goes back since the ""challenge"" seems to be a ""compulsion"" to do what you can do best, even if it's a gutting game. Most of these aspects come through clearly, along with a fair amount of occupational knowhow on what takes place on and behind the start-finish straightaway. Commercially competent.