Magazine coverage

If I were looking to expand my knowledge of national level racing from around the world in the fifties, sixties and seventies, which magazines and periodicals would you recommend?

Particularly I am trying to find out which is the best source for American racing between Road & Track, Car & Driver or Sportscar Illustrated.

And Australian periodicals are a closed book to me totally.

Remember - I'm not looking for local reports of big international events. Those are the races which will have been covered to a large extent by the historically minded press. But what was the best source for your national and club series?

Can't help much on the American front apart from suggesting that browsing the web has help me with the history of Trans Am.

Here in Australia, the now defunct Racing Car News (a monthly publication) covered racing in all categories across the nation in the 60s, 70s and into the 80s. The publishers also produced yearbooks through the 80s and into the early 90s that in effect, covered the national championships, even down to final points standings.

The annuals are from Chevron Publications, which took over them from Niel Allen's empire, with its weekly paper, Australian Motoring News.

For fifties and forties coverage, Australian Motor Sport has the broadest view, while the main events were always given space in Modern Motor and anything in New South Wales was usually mentioned in Sports Car World through the latter fifties and into the sixties, even seventies.. but RCN's coverage was complete by then, well and truly.

In the US, Sports Car Graphic is really a very good source, though I don't know its origins. I think it started under another name...

Thanks guys! This is just the sort of information I'm looking for. Keep 'em coming!

Expanding on what Ray posted, if you had the monthly 'Australian Motor Sports' from 1946 to the early '60s, then 'Racing Car News' from then into the '70s, you'd know just about everything. And Ray might remember the name of an excellent but short-lived publication from the early '70s, edited by a Mr Lake.
As far as US publications are concerned, I found that Car & Driver, Road & Track and Sportscar Graphic were all first class at some period or another, but not consistently over a long time.

Tim, sorry not to be much help, even though I used to get Road and Track in the late 70's, I do not recall if they carried news of national racing. My friends and I were always interested in the new cars coming out, and so if national racing was covered, it did not make an impression on me, and besides, I wasn't following the national scene that much, as racing wasn't exactly going on in my backyard.

Perhaps Eero would have better recollections, being both a Yank and a bit older than I. Car and Driver, then as perhaps now, was less of a real enthusiasts magazine, with the writing never up to the standard of R+T. Given the choice of a pile of the two, I would go for R+T. Sportscar Illus. may be your best bet for racing news.

good luck

Originally posted by David McKinney
Expanding on what Ray posted, if you had the monthly 'Australian Motor Sports' from 1946 to the early '60s, then 'Racing Car News' from then into the '70s, you'd know just about everything. And Ray might remember the name of an excellent but short-lived publication from the early '70s, edited by a Mr Lake.

Old Barry, you mean?

Well, he edited two in that period, his own Cars & Drivers Australia (I think that's it) and Chequered Flag, the latter going on to become Australian Road & Track (or something similar) under Robin Luck's direction in the nineties, while his own mag was indeed shortlived.

AMS, on the other hand, has its shortcomings, not covering all meetings in all states all the time, as RCN was to do later. Much depends on what you want to research... Gold Star level stuff, I think a lot of David McKay's coverage in Modern Motor is hard to beat.