Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Track & field sports, athletics
|
Buy Now
The 1929 Bunion Derby - Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace Across America (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R713
Discovery Miles 7 130
|
|
The 1929 Bunion Derby - Johnny Salo and the Great Footrace Across America (Hardcover)
Series: Sports and Entertainment
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
On March 31, 1929, seventy-seven men began an epic 3,554-mile
footrace across America that pushed their bodies to the breaking
point. Nicknamed the ""Bunion Derby"" by the press, this was the
second and last of two trans-America footraces held in the late
1920s. The men averaged forty-six gut-busting miles a day during
seventy-eight days of nonstop racing that took them from New York
City to Los Angeles. Among this group, two brilliant runners,
Johnny Salo of Passaic, New Jersey, and Pete Gavuzzi of England,
emerged to battle for the $25,000 first prize along the mostly
unpaved roads of 1929 America, with each man pushing the other to
go faster as the lead switched back and forth between them. To pay
the prize money, race director Charley Pyle cobbled together a
traveling vaudeville company, complete with dancing debutantes, an
all-girl band wearing pilot outfits, and blackface comedians, all
housed under the massive show tent that Pyle hoped would pack in
audiences. Kastner’s engrossing account, often told from the
perspective of the participants, evokes the remarkable physical
challenge the runners experienced and clearly bolsters the argument
that the last Bunion Derby was the greatest long-distance footrace
of all time.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.