(oh boy, something I've always wanted to do :))
The Fabulous Trashwagon
By B. S. Levy
Think Fast Ink Press (www.lastopenroad.com)
Oak Park, Illinois.
(c) 2002
533 pages (not including advertisements)
Bert Levy's third novel in the life and times of Buddy Palumbo is out
and
it picks up right where the last one left off. Montezuma's Ferrari saw
Buddy and Julie getting married. This book starts with Buddy's massive post
wedding hangover and one very upset Julie, but not before a hero dream scene
set at Le Mans. The action continues from there.
This book deals much more than the previous two (The Last Open Road,
1994
and Montezuma's Ferrari (1999)) with Buddy's trials and tribulations of
balancing the running of a corner garage / sporty car shop / race team and
settling into newly married life and a lot less with the major sports car
events of the day. Although with a hefty 533 pages there are very few
events from the 1953 & 1954 seasons he misses. It would be enlightening to
see just how historically accurate this story really is. Levy's first
person writing style certainly adds an air of credibility and his legal
disclaimer does little to dilute our desire to believe it is a true story.
("...Any semblance to actual events or persons, living or dead is entirely
coincidental, or maybe not so coincidental, but Jeez, don't sue us, okay?")
His highlights include the story of Buddy's trip to work as part of a
pit
crew at the 1953 Indianapolis 500, his cross country excursion to the
Bonneville Slat Flats and a heart wrenching recall of a major accident at Le
Mans in 1954. All the time Buddy is getting married, building his very own
race car (The Fabulous Trashwagon, named by his benefactor and friend "Big
Ed" Baumstein, used machinery dealer turned not particularly good race car
driver, after a particularly harsh teasing at the hands of the snooty SCMA
types), starting an auto dealership ("I think we could sell a lot of those
Volkswagen things") and starting a family. Couple those big events with his
descriptions of the local East Coast race scene, including Callicoon,
Watkins Glen, Great Despair Hillclimb and others and you get an entertaining
look at life in ad around sports cars and sport car racing when the whole
concept was new.
Most of the old crowd is back, with a couple of new faces and relationships
and Skippy Welcher is as much the village idiot / prince ass as ever. With
the author's skill at dropping recognizable names, it almost feels like you
are having a few with old friends, and famous ones at that, while shooting
the breeze at that racetracks favorite bar. In Potside Companion Levy wrote
an article about the importance a good tavern to the success of any
racetrack. It is a theme he picks up on again here. It is a testament to
the authors writing style at you feel almost sad that a fictional character,
just like the rest of us, has to grow up and older.
Levy keeps the action moving and the readers attention, with his usual
Gonzo Journalism style of writing. It's an entertaining read and well worth
the trouble of finding. We can only hope this third book is just that and
not the final installment in a trilogy.
Ken Gano
September, 2002
NFI, (of course, it's a review!!)
(Mandatory Triumph content for the Triumphs list:
Levy writes at length, and very favorably about the "new" Triumph TR2, even
going as far as to have one as the very first car in his new business
venture of selling sporty cars. He also writes many complementary turns of
phrases about Triumph's performance when compared to the their rivals in the
market. At one point there is a description of his late night drive, and a
near miss of a wreck in a very early TR2. Levy knows his cars well enough
to make the Triumph accident the result of a failure of their notoriously
weak early steel wheels. I have heard Levy has said some pretty
uncomplimentary things about Triumphs in the past, so I was a bit surprise
to see our brand treated so well. This is not however a book about
Triumphs, but rather about the whole vast range of sports and racing cars
about during this period.)
kg
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