ROAD RACE

Contrast this with Henry Felsen's Street Rod (Random House, 1953, p. 307) for a story about hot-rodding that has a happy rather than disastrous ending. For Dave Neil, a sixteen year old highschool student in a small New York town, eventually turns his efforts from a witless showiness and defiance of the law, to the safer, more organized means of the planned speedway. But the way is not easy. Dave has to buck the dare-devilling of Max Warner and the Hot Rod Club, and ostracism from that group when his turn to virtue sparks their animosity. He does it, and the climax, a sports car field day, shows Max to be the conceited imbecile he is. Philip Harkins writes well, as his record of sports stories proves, but his facile solutions lack the emotional probing speed needs.