Who was the author....

of the little hard backed books, hot rod, drag race, stock car race, chicken race (i think was one). I remember there was five or six of 'em.

 

Henry Gregor Felson. Hot Rod, I loved that book as a child...

 

Thanks! I remember 'em from the sixth grade. I musta read 'em a hundred times back then.

 

Felsen wrote Hot Rod, Street Rod, Rag Top, Fever Heat, Crash Club, and Road Rocket. William Campbell Gault wrote Dirt Track Summer, Drag Strip, and a couple other car oriented novels. I've got one by another author called Road Race about a kid that hops up a Model A, gets hauled in by the cops, and then gets bailed out and kind of adopted by a local adult car lover that restores and races Dusenbergs. Were it not for novels like this when we were young, what would we have written book reports on?

 

There are a lot of fans of his work on the HAMB, and it's been discussed a number of times. Search "Felsen" and you'll find more than a dozen threads.

 

One of my other favorites was Christine by Stephen King. Granted, a horror novel, but very car-oriented, and lots of human-interest besides the horror, a genre I am not a fan of, even though I am a fan of his early work.

 

Amazon lists the "Henry Gregor Felsen Collection" as currently unavailable. Sounds like it would make a good Christmas gift, though.
I'd never heard of 'em before--thanks guys. When I was a kid I read books by and about the great European driving aces: Fangio, Fitch, Clark, Hill, the other Hill, Gurney, Cunningham, Moss, etc etc etc

 

Search "Henry Gregor Felsen" on eBay. There are six of his books on there right now.