Biographical note:
Peter Joffre Nye is a fulltime author and freelance writer. He has written many feature articles for the Washington Post, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, Women's Sports & Fitness, the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, and many other publications. Among his many books is Peak Performance Under Pressure, which he coauthored with Bill Driscoll. He also wrote the script for the documentary The Six-Day Bicycle Races: America's Jazz-Age Sport, narrated by Frank Deford, and converted the script to a coffee-table book with the same name.
Country of final manufacture:
US
Main description:
Record-setting bicyclist, daredevil race car driver, early automobile innovator, charismatic ladies' man, and celebrity of the Jazz Age--Albert Champion was all this and more. Though most Americans have heard of the two companies he founded--Champion Spark Plug and ACDelco--few know much about the flamboyant man behind the companies. This is the first biography of his short but exciting life.
The book's lively narrative describes the many adventures of the Frenchman who rose from poverty to great wealth and fame in both his native France and the United States. As a bicycle racer, Champion set more than a hundred world records. When the urban speed limit was 8 mph, he was the first ever to drive a motorcycle a mile under a minute. Then a car-racing crash in Brooklyn snapped a leg bone that kept him in traction for eleven weeks. Handicapped but undeterred, he hobbled out of the hospital on crutches and recovered to win the French national cycling championship. He subsequently invested his prize money to become a tycoon in the American auto industry, working closely with the leading players in this new revolutionary industry.
Good looking and a natty dresser, he was an incorrigible ladies' man, whose many dalliances finally ended in a love triangle that resulted in his death under mysterious circumstances.
As a story of one of the great architects of speed, this fascinating biography captures both the life of a pivotal figure of the era and the spirit of the early 20th century through the Roaring Twenties.
