BEHIND THE WHEEL: Great Road Racing Drivers

As distinguished from drag and track racing, ""International road racing is the most demanding form of automotive competition: and the men who race the road courses of the world are among the most exciting in sport."" Jackson profiles 22 of them (has-beens, stars, and up-and-comers) in the youngest collective biography yet, and the shortest -- each subject being allotted a brisk page and a half plus a whole half-page photograph, full-face. They're grouped geographically (Australia and New Zealand, Great Britain, Other Countries, United States), and for all the similarities -- quite a percentage started out on motorcycles -- distinctions emerge: Phil Hill collects music boxes; Jackie Stewart hangs around the pits in a black cap but sports the Stewart tartan on his helmet; Mark Donahue is a ""clean-cut, modest Ivy Leaguer (Brown) who still wears his hair short""; Bruce McLaren, ""quiet, unassuming and highly likeable,"" began driving for therapy and always ""insisted on testing his own cars,"" in one of which he was killed. That's not the only place you might need shock absorbers, but a preparatory first chapter provides everything else; here again Mr. Jackson gets a lot of mileage out of a thrifty minimum of words.