Small Treatise on Carroll Smith.
Carroll Smith gained initial fame as a member of Carroll Shelby's Ford works
teams in the 60's as a race engineer on the GT40's and Cobras. Sometime
after Shelby pulled out of racing, he wrote a series of articles detailing
race preparation for Sports Car Graphic entitled "Prepare to Win." This was
later expanded into a whole book on car preparation. He has since followed
that book up with any number of books, all contain the "....to Win" in their
titles. These books contain some theoretical information, and a vast amount
of very practical info, garnered from years of experience. Along with this,
he includes his lines of reasoning for the things he says and does. Smith
has continued to work as a crew chief/engineer on any number of racing
projects since the 60's. I met him in 1979 when he was preparing a Formula
Atlantic for Tom Gloy.
The book that I have in front of me is: "Engineer to Win," published by
Classic Motorbooks. ISBN 0-87938-186-8 (pbk.). Other titles are "Prepare to
Win," "Tune to Win," "Drive to Win" (I think its out), and "Carroll Smith's
guide to Nuts & Bolts, fastners, etc" (or something like that). Each covers
a seperate facet of the race car business. There is a fair amount of overlap
in each book. He's worth the read, he's been there and done it very well.
His cars are clean and fast, and relatively low buck affairs (to the extent
that there is such a thing).
Michael Singleton
> I nevre heard of a 'Carroll Smith books'. Would you E-mail me the
> complete title, author, Lib. of Congress #, publisher company, etc.
> information so I may be able to go out & view this book, before
> purchasing it. Thanks of all the time ,effort in e-mailing me,
> responding to my request.
> -Cosmo Kramer
>
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