Laurels with the scent of gasoline. Interwar automobile sport, Petr Kožíšek
Published by NTM Prague
Softcover, format 21 x 26 cm, 166 pages
The author of the exhibition opening in October 2021 has also prepared a clear catalogue of events, sporting events, the most famous types of cars, trophies, as well as personalities who significantly contributed to the extraordinary development of motor sports in Czechoslovakia in the interwar period. The exhibition at the Technical Museum can be visited until May 1, 2022, you will see every car on display and the details of the highly artistic trophies from close range, but the catalogue will remind you of the pleasant atmosphere for a long time to come.
West Bohemian Races and Circuits. A Century of West Bohemian Road Racing, Jiří Wohlmuth
West Bohemian Races and Circuits is a continuation of memories of motor racing on city circuits and hillclimbs. It loosely follows on from the editions from Central and Northern Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Road races in West Bohemia began in the mid-1920s. They were considerably more modest than those in other parts of the country, but for example the famous races in Pilsen Lochotín were very significant and famous racers regularly started in them.
The first pre-war part deals not only with racing in Pilsen and the surrounding area, but also in the spa town of Karlovy Vary. The second part chronologically deals with post-war racing in a number of places, Cheb, Kdyň, Klatovy and Nepomuk. In the third separate part, you will get to know several excellent racers, designers and mechanics, whose names were famous throughout Europe in their time - Otto Krattner, Josef Lukšík, Albín Patlejch, Václav Pauer, Josef Sloup, František Sutnar, Miloslav Vališ. The book is complemented by circuit maps, period, previously unpublished photographs and, as is traditional, results reports.
My Beautiful Suffering, Miroslav Špak
Monograph of motorcycle racer Miroslav Špak
Road, as the queen of motorcycle sports, has the oldest world championship. In our country, the Czechoslovakian championship is proud of its founding date in 1954. During its existence, the composition of the cubic capacities gradually changed. Sidecars also appeared briefly in it. During the existence of the Czechoslovakian championship, more than 800 riders took turns as participants. The best of them managed to permanently write their names in the historical winners' tables. The aim of my story is to bring both witnesses and the younger generation closer to the atmosphere of the races by looking behind the scenes. The individual stories of people, mechanics, competitors and also organizers of motorcycle road races tell how attractive and dramatic those times were.
1000 Czechoslovak mils 1933, 1934, 1935, Petr Kožíšek
To give a concise overview of the extensive content, it is possible to write that the representative publication captures the author's dedication to the specific discipline of automobile racing, held with various variations up to the present day. The intention of the first year of the competition, which began to be prepared in the Autoklub na Opletalová in February 1933, was to promote the domestic automobile industry affected by the economic crisis. The description of the three pre-war years takes up two-thirds of the publication's content. Some of the original photographs of the competition cars were stored in the archives of the Technical Museum, photos of the prototypes were discovered quite by chance in an unused archive, another series of photographs were borrowed from family albums of generations that know the direct participants only from preserved oral memories. Details of the individual years are presented by copies of the period press. Several original photographs show factory cars that never participated in any other races or competitions; after the end of the first year of the "miles", they were destroyed by the manufacturer - they did not live up to expectations. The following pages describe the commemorative years starting in 1970, when there were already enough enthusiastic owners of historic vehicles across the country. The last part contains the lists of starters and the results tables of the pre-war years.
200 Czechoslovak motoring plaques from the period 1922-1939
For the exhibition POWDER and BENZÍN Troja 2000, the author prepared a catalogue with images of more than 200 commemorative plaques, often created according to the designs of prominent design figures – Španiel, Nušl, Axmann, Švec, Pištora, Pichl and others. Two criteria were decisive for the selection – that the plaque was issued in Czechoslovakia in the period before the Second World War. Motoring plaques are nowadays a narrowly specialized collecting discipline. The publication will provide information and can direct thematic creation of private collections.
Central Bohemian Races and Circuits, A Century of Central Bohemian Road Racing, Jaroslav Kotrbáček and Jiří Wohlmuth
Acceptable distances between populated places, as well as a good road network in Central Bohemia, have made it possible to write an interesting history of racing in this region. Long-distance races, hill races and city circuits began to be held here more than 110 years ago. In many towns, racing had only a fleeting existence and after the first year, no more followed (Kralupy nad Vltavou, Vlašim, Horoměřice, Roztoky u Prahy). However, there were places where racing took place for several decades (Městec Králové – 40 years; Kolín – 16 years; Mělník – 13 years). For each of the thirty-nine places, the authors found the exact race routes, information from the organizing activities and result lists with the names of competitors, both known and unknown, and spiced everything up with interesting facts from the period press. Witnesses will reminisce over the pages, and representatives of the younger generations will wonder where and on what roads the racers fought for supremacy.
Ace of Hearts, Miloslav Souček
With the warm words of the foreword by Prof. Pavek, which will set the reader in the right mood, the author slowly begins to unwind a continuous strip of memories. About his apprenticeship in a car repair shop and his first contacts with motorcycle handlebars, about exploring off-road motorcycle races. It is absolutely natural that Míla Souček likes to remember motorcycle sports in the colors of the army team - of course, after all, he was young, healthy and overcame random life obstacles with a smile. A separate chapter in his life, to which the author likes to return, is the period of motorcycle competitions with participation in the Six-Day Motorcycle Competition in Zlín in 1955. Between the lines, the perceptive reader can sense the devotion to motorcycles from Divišov. With ESO motocross specials of all three cubic capacities, he achieved success for our colors on tracks included in the European Championship. The last pages of the memories belong to motocross in Stříbr in 1963.
Reminisce with the author, recall the names and motocross tracks in the country and abroad.
Automobile and motorcycle racing in Prague and the surrounding area, Jiří Wohlmuth
The author has been around road racing tracks since he was a boy. For just as long, he has been trying to extract from eyewitnesses the preserved memories, which are often contradictory. The long-standing idea of processing the "racing" part of the region's history received its final impetus this August at the Strahov Circuit. Going through his own extensive archive, he mobilized close friends and eyewitnesses, and delved into the ČTK archive to process the materials in the evenings. The result, delivered by the publisher in record time to bookshop shelves, will delight friends, fans and eyewitnesses of car and motorcycle racing. A number of previously unpublished facts and photographs will reveal completely new information about sporting events that have always attracted many competitors and spectators. Get yourself a wonderful read for long winter evenings.
Czech Roads 1945 – 1955, Jan Lahner
A lifelong passion for motorcycle racing, careful study of archives, collection of memories of eyewitnesses and period photographs, programs of long-forgotten races and newspaper clippings, translated into clearly arranged 270 large-format pages in hardcover. This is what Jan Lahner's magnum opus, Czechoslovak Roads 1945-1955, looks like. Renowned motoring historian Jan Lahner has compiled a unique work documenting motorcycle racing on our roads in the first post-war decade. Each year of this period is dedicated to one chapter, describing in detail individual motorcycle races. Each chapter is supplemented by biographies of the racers who met in those years on road races and formed the top of the time. The lives of racers such as Kostlivec, Bubeníček, Lucák, Dusil, Kněz, Jiří and Jaroslav Simandl, or Jiří Koštíř and many others have not yet been published anywhere. Similarly, many of the more than 600 black and white photographs contained in the book have not yet been known to the public. The last chapters contain technical descriptions of interesting racing motorcycles and a clearly arranged table of all recorded race results.