Jim Hall: Chaparral, Texas and the Invention of Modern Racing

Jim Hall: Chaparral, Texas and the Invention of Modern Racing

<DIV><B>Jim Hall is the Charles Lindbergh of motor racing. The man who changed everything. Here, he tells his story for the first time.</B><BR /><BR /> From racing's earliest days, the men who designed and built these land-bound rocket ships viewed the air that moved over, under, and around a car as it<B></B>hauled toward 200 miles per hour as a nuisance with which they had to contend. It was Jim Hall who first saw how this nuisance could be turned not only into a force for good, but a<B> breakthrough in vehicle performance</B>. Today, racers call it <B>“downforce”</B>—the amount of downward force that can be exerted on a car’s tires to improve how well the vehicle stops, goes, and, most of all, grips the corners.<BR /><BR /> Hall’s innovations <B>made him both a hero and celebrity</B> throughout the 1960s and ‘70s. He was on the cover of <I>Newsweek</I> and <I>Sports Illustrated </I>and featured in countless newspaper and magazine articles. <B><I>The</I><I>New York Times</I> alone published 250 stories about Hall </B>over the period. The Chaparral phenomenon reached Europe and Asia, and into seemingly every American home.<BR /><BR /> Hall’s achievements made him<B> more renowned than understood</B>; he was a famously private individual. Part of it was a natural introspection and an almost obsessive focus on his goals. Part of it was the Texas-cowboy ethos that a man’s actions should count for more than his words. But now, in <I>Jim Hall</I>,<B> he will finally tell his story</B>. How he changed race car design. How he conquered the world’s greatest automakers from a tiny quad of steel-sided buildings on State Highway 349 in Midland, Texas. How he inspired a generation.</DIV>