The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend is a big day for motorsports, at least for the past couple of years.
The Grand Prix of Monaco kicked things off Sunday morning, followed by the Indianapolis 500 and, later, the Coca-Cola 600.
Being an avid Formula 1 fan, I spent the weekend watching the practice from Thursday, the Saturday qualifying and the Sunday race all delayed, thanks to the modern marvel of the DVR and time-shifting.
The DVR makes the Indy 500 somewhat more interesting (and quicker) when you watch it at 60 times normal speed. I didn’t bother recording the NASCAR race. Oval-track racing just isn’t very interesting to me anymore. Both the Indy 500 and NASCAR were much more fun to watch back in the 1970s, with the cars not so homogeneous (and in the case of NASCAR, more stock).
What’s all of this have to do with pulps?
Well, it got me thinking about auto racing in the pulps. The only story I recall reading that was auto-racing-themed is “Greased Brakes: A Tale of the Racers Who Ride With Death,” by Barry Lyndon (a pseudonym of Alfred Edgar), which appeared in the January 1929 number of Everybody’s Magazine.
I’m surprised that there was never a pulp magazine devoted to motorsports fiction. Grand Prix Stories, anyone?
Back during the pulp era, motorsport wasn’t a sport of the masses, and I supposed publishers just didn’t see enough of a market for an auto-racing pulp.
Why not combine two of my interests and start looking for more auto-racing pulp fiction? Maybe you can help me (and anyone else who might be interested). Do you know of any pulp stories that are centered around auto racing?
