Tommy Hinnershitz - The Life & Times of an Auto-Racing Legend by Gary Ludwig. Basket Road Press Inc. 2009. ISBN #978-0-9815099-4-5. Photos. Color dust jacket with photos. Auto-racing history. Complete race by race career statistics. Collector's item. Many have called him the greatest dirt-track Sprint car driver of all time. This exciting biography of Tommy Hinnershitz, by veteran novelist/sportswriter Gary Ludwig, is a superb account of the life and times of this racecar driver who became an auto-racing legend. This hardcover book is a fascinating history of the Sprint car, telling how it evolved, beginning during the first few years of the 1900s, to become the true American race car. You'll read about the drivers, mechanics, owners, and promoters who spent their American ingenuity and willpower to invent, innovate, and engineer the development of the automobile through high speed rough and tough competition. You'll learn more about the early champions, including Ted Horn, Joie Chitwood, Jimmy Bryan, Johnny Thomson, and many more. They were Hinnershitz's rivals during a career that began in 1928 and spanned five decades. Racing and winning on the dusty dirt horse tracks at state and county fairs while traveling the backroads across America earned Hinnershitz a chance to race in the Indianapolis 500. He was there at the beginning, one of a handful of daredevil athletes, the champions who invented the broadslide; going in low and coming off high, or vice versa. After leading the way, setting the pace, and developing the style, Hinnershitz set himself apart from all the others; he went in high and stayed there. This BEAUTIFULLY PRINTED HARDCOVER BOOK, being distributed internationally, includes the story of his life and amazing career, a history of Sprint cars, stories about officials, famous promoters and their speedways, profiles of past legendary drivers, mechanics, and owners, over 20 pages of photographs, a full color dust jacket with photos, and Hinnershitz's complete race by race career statistics. A great gift item for that special auto-racing fan. This book is already becoming a collector's item. For the modern race fan this book serves as a catalyst for a better understanding of the men who had to overcome awesome obstacles to achieve success during the early years of auto-racing. Hinnershitz raced during an era without safety equipment or concerns. It was before seat belts, roll bars, and cages. He and his contemporaries seemed to embrace a greater lack of fear, adopting the adage that tragedy can't happen to them, only to the "other guy. " Because of this lack of safety equipment and much less sophisticated racecars, many drivers died young. Tommy Hinnershitz was there through it all, and he was one of those that survived. He was a true pioneer of American auto-racing. He was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing Hall of Fame, and was honored by numerous other organizations.