Racing in the Dark

How the Bentley Boys Conquered Le Mans

Peter Grimsdale

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN:
  9781471198274
• Print ISBN:
  9781471198267

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RAC MOTORSPORT BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Glorious...gripping and sometimes tragic' Robbie Coltrane
The inspirational story of the Bentley Boys and Le Mans – the race they made their own. 
Le Mans, 1927. W.O. Bentley peered into the dusk. His three cars, which had led from the start, were missing. Two years running he had failed to finish. Once again he was staring into a void. Racing, his shareholders told him, was a waste of money. This race looked like being his last.
 
W.O’s engineering skills had been forged on the Great Northern railway and in the skies of the First World War, where Bentley-powered Sopwith Camels took the fight to Germany’s Red Baron. Determined to build and race his own cars, he assembled a crack team from all strata of 1920s Britain, from East End boys Leslie Pennal and Wally Hassan to multi-millionaires Woolf Barnato and Tim Birkin, men in search of adventures to blaze their way out of the dark past.
 
They dedicated themselves to building the perfect road and racing car. In the hayloft above their workshop, the first Bentley was born and soon it was the car of choice for the fast-living upper classes. They raced at the fashionable Brooklands circuit and then set their sights on the fledgling 24 Hours Le Mans race. An audacious goal for a British car, yet the Bentley Boys rose to the challenge. But on that night in 1927, after the biggest crash in racing history claimed their cars, could they still pull it off and put British motor racing on the map?  
 
In the 1920s, Bentley Motors burned brightly but all too briefly; yet its tale, filled with drama, tragedy, determination and glory still shines a century on.   

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Le Mans Circuit (1923–28)
• Prologue: Duel on a Golf Course
• Chapter 1: Dangerous Men
• Chapter 2: Seven Tons of Coal
• Chapter 3: The Outlaws
• Chapter 4: Smiling Through the Dust
• Chapter 5: The Paperweight
• Chapter 6: ‘Le Virage du Mort’
• Chapter 7: A Savage Elation
• Chapter 8: Sent to Coventry
• Chapter 9: Dawn Patrol
• Chapter 10: The Morning Destroyer
• Chapter 11: The Invisible Foe
• Chapter 12: Out of the Firestorm
• Chapter 13: Best in Class
• Chapter 14: Market Fever
• Chapter 15: Bentley Boys Assemble
• Chapter 16: A Lovely Sound to Die to
• Chapter 17: The Song of Roland
• Chapter 18: Endangered Species
• Chapter 19: The Serpent of Speed
• Chapter 20: The Tourist Trophy
• Chapter 21: Leading from the Front
• Chapter 22: The Road to the Sarthe
• Chapter 23: The Birth of Endurance
• Chapter 24: Twice Round the Clock
• Chapter 25: Chasing the Phantom
• Chapter 26: Neck and Neck
• Chapter 27: A Presumably Respectable Doctor
• Chapter 28: Sound and Fury
• Chapter 29: A Diamond-Encrusted Spoon
• Chapter 30: That Bloody Thump
• Chapter 31: The Brooklands Squad
• Chapter 32: The Slug
• Chapter 33: Going All Out
• Chapter 34: The Desolation of W.O.
• Chapter 35: A Bit Like an Animal
• Chapter 36: Carnage at Maison Blanche
• Chapter 37: The Schoolboy and the Playboy
• Chapter 38: Full Throttle
• Chapter 39: Bentley v. Bentley
• Chapter 40: The Other Bentley Girl
• Chapter 41: The Real Bentley Boys
• Chapter 42: The Smile of the Tiger
• Chapter 43: ‘Les Camions Rapides’
• Chapter 44: The Maharajah’s Displeasure
• Chapter 45: Return of the Sphinx
• Epilogue
• Photographs
• Acknowledgements
• Endnotes
• Bibliography and Further Reading
• Index
• Copyright