Bluebird and the Dead Lake

Author:

By John Pearson

Format:

Paperback

Availability:

Out of print. Try our second hand search facility.

Price:

£9.99

Tagged with:

Extreme Sports, Biography, Land Speed Record

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Further Details

• Published: 25th May 2002
• ISBN: 1854108360
• Pages: 195

From Word of Sport:

Donald Campbell's legacy is bound within the bleak depths of Coniston Water, yet his spirit not only drove him faster than any man before, but empowered him to overcome an aboriginal curse. These inspirational achievements are explored in John Pearson's book, focusing on Campbell's Australian odyssey.

From the Publisher:

This dramatic, disaster-laden account of how British driver Donald Campbell broke the world land speed record in the 1960s is a classic tale of adventure in the Australian desert. In 1964, in Australia's remote outback, on the dazzling saltpan of Lake Eyre, Donald Campbell set out to drive his Bluebird car at over 400 miles an hour--faster than any man in history. Things went wrong from the start: unseasonable rains, a sodden lake bed in which every high-speed run slewed dangerously, money running short...even an Aboriginal curse. With death shimmering on the horizon, the lonely Campbell tried to hold his nerve until he broke the record. Campbell would eventually lose his life racing his Bluebird boat on Coniston Water in England, with more than 30 years passing before his body was recovered in 2001, but this strangest--and greatest--of all his world-record attempts was witnessed by a young reporter. John Pearson's book about Donald Campbell is an extraordinarily compelling portrait of a modern tragic hero, fighting a battle with the inhospitable elements and the outer limits of technology--and, above all, with himself.