L-R: Burt Levy, David Hobbs, myself, John Fitzpatrick and Bob Varsha. [Photo by Eddie LePine]
By Jack Webster
In addition to the many things going on at Amelia Island during Concours weekend – the car auctions, the vendor displays inside the Ritz Carlton and the fantastic cars on the field – authors were on hand to sign their new books, myself included.
I was there with my new motorsports photography book, “Racing Pilots”, and was certainly in some very good company. I was set up with my good friend and mentor Burt Levy who has helped me greatly in my quest to become a published author. Burt, of course, is well known to the motorsports community for his “Last Open Road” series of racing novels which he has been selling at motoring events around the country since 1994. He is the best.
On the first day, I was seated next to John Fitzpatrick who was on hand to sign his outstanding book about his racing career “Fitz”. It was great to sit next to John and swap racing stories and look through our books together.
One of the big introductions of new books for the Amelia Island event was David Hobbs’ highly anticipated biography “Hobbo” that he did with Andrew Marriott and both David and Andrew were on hand to sign copies. I have to take a tiny bit of credit for Hobbs doing a book since I have been bugging him for at least the past ten years to write one. David, I told him, you have such incredibly funny and interesting stories, people would love a book from you. He asked me if I thought people would really be interested in a book by him and I told him again and again – of course they would, just get it done. Gladly, he did and the reception at Amelia Island for him was terrific.
The biggest introduction of the weekend was Hurley Haywood’s new book, “Hurley – From the Beginning” and it was very well received to say the least. I think they actually sold all the stock that they brought to the event and whenever Hurley was at the signing table (which was quite often), there was always a lot of fans lined up to meet Hurley and buy his book.
And me? Well I was certainly pleased with the event as well and even though this was not a racing event I did quite well with “Racing Pilots” both inside the Ritz Carlton and on the show field. Sitting at the author’s table on the field Saturday next to legends like John Fitzpatrick, Hurley Haywood and David Hobbs was quite the experience for me.
When I started by racing journey back in 1971 I could never have imagined that I would find myself seated next to such racing royalty 47 years later signing my own book, while they were signing theirs.
It’s been quite a ride.
Jack Webster has been shooting motorsports since the early 1970’s, covering Formula One, CanAm, F5000, TransAm, GrandAm and American Le Mans races, among others. In addition to his photography, he has also worked on racing teams, both in IMSA and IndyCar, so has a complete knowledge of the inner workings of motorsport. Both his photography and writing can be seen here on racingnation.com