Sigur Whitaker Articles

Sigur Whitaker is an acclaimed auto racing history book author. First Super Speedway and Sigur are collaborating with this platform for her articles. You can receive her articles directly by subscribing to her e-mail newsletter. If you would like to be added to my subscriber list, please let her know at sigurwhitakerbooks881@gmail.com.

Sigur Whitaker Reviews "Master Driver of the World"

Book Review: The Master Driver of the World, the 1914 Cactus Derby by Mark Dill
By Sigur Whitaker
The Cactus Derby, officially known as the Los Angeles to Phoenix Endurance Run, began in November 1908. The 1914 race was 728 miles spanning three days with stops in Needles, California, and Prescott, Arizona. This was a test of the mettle of the participants—both men and the cars.
 

Carl Fisher, Master Promoter

By Sigur Whitaker
By all accounts, Carl Fisher was a promotional genius. Sit back and enjoy some of the tales of Carl Fisher. Some of these will probably have you scratching your head wondering if they are indeed true. Most of the stories are from secondary sources and in some cases appear to stretch the truth. I suspect that it might have started with his wife's book "Fabulous Hoosier." Throughout her life, Jane Fisher proudly promoted Carl even after they divorced. 
 

Carl Fisher and His Elephants

By Sigur Whitaker
 
In the 1920s, Carl Fisher used elephants in the development and the promotion of Miami Beach. Ed Ballard, a fellow Hoosier, gave him the first elephant as thanks for a trip to one of Fisher’s Miami Beach hotels. Ballard was the owner of six circuses including the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, one of the largest traveling circuses in the country, competing with Barnum & Bailey and Ringling Brothers. The two-year old elephant arrived in Miami Beach on February 3, 1921, and  was named Carl II after Fisher.
 

Carl Fiisher Car Promotions

By Sigur Whitaker.
 
Fisher loved promoting bicycles and when he converted his bicycle shop to an automobile agency (dealership), the promotions became even more outlandish.
 

Ferrari

By Sigur Whitaker
 
The movie Ferrari, which will make its debut in theaters on Christmas Day, is based upon Brock Yates book, Enzo Ferrari, published in 1991. Like the movie Ford v Ferrari, the movie is a small slice of a larger history. The book is aptly named as it covers the entirety of Enzo Ferrari’s life. During his ninety years, he was tenacious in his desire to win automobile races with cars bearing his name.
 

The Winningest Driver

By Sigur Whitaker
 
The winningest driver at IMS isn’t one of the four-time Indianapolis 500 winners or Jeff Gordon, who won five Brickyard 400 races. Rather, it is Johnny Aitken who amassed fifteen victories on the fabled track. Known as “Happy Johnny,” he started racing in 1905 as a member of the National Motor Vehicle Company team which won twenty-four races at the Indianapolis Fair Grounds.
 

The Brickyard Crossing

By Sigur Whitaker
 
Brickyard Crossing, Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s golf course, can trace its origins to the 1920s in Miami Beach. Golf was becoming a pastime of the rich and the people who wintered in Carl Fisher’s Miami Beach resort demanded it. Interestingly, Fisher really didn’t care for golf. In fact, he was terrible at it. At one point he played a nine-hole golf course in Miami Beach and lost eleven golf balls.
 

Whitaker on Race Against Time and Death

By Sigur Whitaker
 
Brock Yates was a gifted writer and screenwriter (Smokey and the Bandit) who served as the managing editor of Car & Driver magazine from 1964 until 2006. In his book, Against Death and Time, he uses a technique which he refers to as faction. In it, the story is told by a first-person narrator as a witness to the events of the book. Today we would put this book in the historical fiction genre.
 

Cocolobo Cay Club

By Sgur Whitaker
 

Rickenbacker Buys IMS

By Sigur Whitaker.