CHALLENGER: Mickey Thompson's Own Story of His Life of Speed

Mickey Thompson, King of the Hot Rods and the Fastest Man on Wheels (over 406 m.p.h.), presents here his life on wheels in competition with Stirling Moss's recent All But My Life. The two men are essentially different types of racers. Thompson set out to break records on the Utah Salt Flats, did some oval track racing at Indianapolis and, some years ago, competed in the Mexican Road Race. Moss is the more glamorous and entered in cross-country rallies such as the Mille Miglia, the Monte Carlo race and various international grand prix speed battles. He also wrote a more penetrating, philosophic book (p. 950) than Thompson, who writes a kind of gee-whiz-and-hot-dog prose well swabbed with axle grease. Thompson's story, however, matches Moss thrill for thrill and often communicates a sense of heroic performance as his cars start fishtailing at 875 m.p.h. Mickey builds all his own cars, using production line motors, and is most famed for his Challenger, a long, flat 2,000 horsepower racer with four Pontiac engines welded together under its hood. Fast?--nothing faster on four wheels, and it doesn't even begin to unlimber before Mickey gets well up into the 200's.