Publisher's Synopsis
The story of Richard Seaman, the greatest British racing driver of the 1930s. It is an ultimately tragic tale of a handsome and gifted young man whose single-minded ambition propelled him to the very top of his profession.;Beginning in 1934 with a little MG, Seaman progressed swiftly with an ERA in 1935 and then Earl Howe's Delage in 1936. With this 10-year-old car Dick stunned the motor racing world and won himself a place with Mercedes-Benz one of the most successful Grand Prix teams of all time. His first season was dogged by crashes, but in 1938 he came good, winning the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring - the first Englishman to win a Grand Prix since his hero, Sir Henry Segrave, had won the French in 1924. He followed this with a brilliant second place in the Swiss GP and finished third in the 1938 European Championship. That same year Dick fell in love with 18-year-old Erica Popp, whose father was Managing Director of BMW. It was a great romance, but one blighted by the violent opposition of Dick's mother, the formidable Mrs Lilian Beattie-Seaman who, with war between England and Germany fast approaching, had no time for a German daughter-in-law. Dick and Erica married against her wishes, but their happiness ended in tragedy with Dick's untimely death during the 1939 Belgian GP when he was leading the race.;"Shooting Star" reveals much information from the two women in Dick's life, and includes many telling contributions from his school and university friends Tony Cliff and Ray Lewthwaite; fellow racing drivers Charlie Martin, Kenneth Evans, George Harvey-Noble and Mort Morris-Goodall; Mercedes team-mates Rudolf Uhlenhaut and Hermann Land; friends George Monkhouse and Rodney Walkerley; and mechanics Giulio Ramponi, Bill Rockell and Karl Bunz.
