RACE ACROSS THE WORLD

In 1968 98 competitors stormed out of London on the world’s greatest automotive adventure, the London-Sydney Marathon, the most ambitious and epic car race ever staged.

Four weeks later they arrived in Sydney or at least half of them did. The others lay in ruin along its 10,000mile route. Unimaginable now in either concept or execution, the marathon captured the attention of the countries through which it passed, and of the world, as it created front page news. It was more than a car race, more than a rally, more than the trials that opened outback Australia only a decade before , it was the world’s most grueling test of driver and vehicle.

John Smailes was a young journalist at the time covering the race for the Daily Telegraph, one of the event’s promoters. It changed his life.

“We all underestimated the lasting contribution and vast influence of the marathon when it occurred, “ John said. “We were so focused on moving this great race across the world at break-neck speed that we hardly noticed the impact it was creating or the barriers it was breaking just to exist.”

After the Marathon John produced his first book, co-written with competitor David McKay, Australia’s first national touring car champion. It was called The Bright Eyes of Danger ( from the Robert Louis Stevenson poem Youth and Love:1 : “ The untented Kosmos my abode, I pass a willful stranger, My mistress still the open road, And the bright eyes of danger.”) . The blow by blow coverage of the great race is still available, occasionally, on e-bay. Last time we looked it was $1500.

John’s new book explores more deeply the motivations that made the Marathon possible and the ambitions that drove its success. “It’s the book that should have been written back then, “John says.