Yeah, you've heard this kind of bullshit before:
"Last Chance!"
"Absolutely unavailable after cutoff date!"
"If you miss this opportunity, you'll be sorry!"
"Don't you really WANT a bullet-nose Studebaker?"

Only this time it's all true. If you want to give some fine friend, family member or business associate a SIGNED, PERSONALIZED copy of one of my mostly excellent books for Christmas, you'd better get your behind in gear (and preferably in first rather than reverse) as I need to ship them out by end of day on Tuesday next or they will not--REPEAT: "NOT!"--get there until the week after New Years. And won't you feel embarrassed?

If you haven't read them (shame on you) or feel unsure, just google "The Last Open Road" to see what folks have been saying for the past 30 years or sit through the 30 second web ad on You Tube: CLICK HERE for link. As to the signing & personalizing part, best bet is to order online at www.lastopenroad.com and then send me an email to thinkfast@mindspring.com to let me know what you have in mind.

SUPER SPECIAL BONUS!!!

For a limited amount of time (I'm thinking through next Tuesday) you or your gift-receiving pal will also receive. at no extra charge, one of our fine THE LAST OPEN ROAD license plate frames, and this will also apply to orders for:

1) The award-winning audiobook version of THE LAST OPEN ROAD (done in the style of a 1950s radio play with different character voices, music, sound effects, etc.). It's roughly 19 hours of road-trip fun, available in USB flash drive or CD formats and includes a video you can't get any other way about the making of the audio and some other stuff you will hopefully enjoy.

2) Our fine, high quality Track Caps in either "Elkhart Lake 1952" or "Seibkens" embroidery. PLUS the free license plate frame. Such a deal! How can you resist?

PHOTO TRIVIA ANSWERS!:

Yeah, it was that Brit Know-It-All Bob Allen again who knew all the right answers and got them dashed off in a hurry. Makes you wonder if he can't find anything more important to do? Then again, he's been helping me with proofing and fact-checking the new book, so I'd better treat him nice at least until it's done...

Answers Below:

1) what am I driving here (yeah, that's me, but brand new helmet that hadn't been painted yet): Bonus: Where is this?

1. ANSWER: This is a car I love and that I got to co-drive on multiple occasions with two different owners. It had a wonderful little single-stick, all-alloy Coventry Climax "FW" motor and was built in England back in the mid-1950s by a clever expat-Portuguese gent named John Tojeiro (who built a LOT of neat stuff back then, including the Bristol-powered special that became, in a roundabout way, the chassis and layout inspirational prototype of the AC, AC-Bristol and eventual Shelby Cobra sports cars). It ran at Le Mans (maybe even this exact car?) and surely never looked this good back in the day. But the guy who found it and resurrected it from little more than a hank of hair and a piece of bone, had it beautifully (and dare I say "creatively?") restored to a higher and more gorgeous lever than it had ever known was my old Kansas City car bud John Muller. Now John had a creative advertising agency and he was brilliant with both ideas and graphics, and the car was just gorgeous! Drove great, too. Just as in period, it wasn't quite a match for the latest and best Lotus models and Lola Mk. 1s, but it was pretty damn close. This pic was in the rain at Watkins Glen and I was having a lot of soggy fun with it. Many years later, after John's untimely passing, it fell into the hands of an East Coast doctor named Marc Cendron who'd started vintage racing (and turned out to be better than a fair hand at it) and of course I wandered over to introduce myself and blah, blah, blah and we wound up doing a few enduros with it. That's me again (bottom pic below) in the same car years (maybe even decades?) later at Watkins Glen:

2) What am I driving here (below)? And where?

ANSWER: I'm in Bob Yarwood's "LADYBIRD" British Clubmans' racecar at Seattle's Pacific International Raceway. He told me he built it himself and it was one of several Clubmans' "Ladybirds." Great class for low-budget racing in the U.K. and loads of nimble, hair-trigger, wired-into-the-roadway fun!

3) What happened here (below) and why, where is "here" and who was at the wheel of what?

The aftermath of Jochen Rindt's horrific crash at Montjuic Park in Spain after the high wing support struts collapsed on his Lotus 49B. Lots more about this (and the entire evolutions of wings on racecars) in the new book. Rindt somewhat unbelievably walked away from the above with just a concussion and a broken jaw, but died in his Lotus 72 at Monza the following year--apparently after the half-shaft to the inboard front brake failed--when he also won--posthumously--the World Driving Championship.

ERRATA:

OK, they got me. Or, more accurately, Lee Lygiros got me. I incorrectly stated that it was the Coen brothers who wrote/produced the movie "AIRPLANE," when it was actually the Zucker brothers plus Jim Abrahams. Mea Culpa. I shoulda got that right...

NEW TRIVIA:

Tell me what these images are and, in the case of image number 3, why it never raced like that and why it's important?

CLICK HERE TO ORDER STUFF

FROM THE WEBSITE