Automotive Writers Group Honors Three for Book on 1950s Racing

21 January 1999
Automotive Writers Group Honors Three for Book on 1950s Racing
            Denise McCluggage Presented Lifetime Achievement Award

    LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21 -- The Motor Press Guild (MPG), a
Los Angeles-based organization of automotive journalists and industry
personnel, gave the 1998 Dean Batchelor Award to the three authors of
"American Sports Car Racing in the 1950s."  The three authors, Michael T.
Lynch, William Edgar and Ron Parravano, were honored for a book that included
a historic and personal look at a pivotal decade in motorsports.
    Lynch is a Harvard-trained historian who has been writing about
motorsports for 30 years.  Edgar, a journalist and award-winning documentary
filmmaker and film producer, is the son of race car owner John Edgar.
Parravano, an attorney who a holds a master's degree in American history, is
the son of Tony Parravano, a southern California road racing legend.
    Their book documents sports car racing during the 1950s, when new and
classic marquees introduced new cars, new race courses and a new crop of
drivers fueled the evolution of the sport from a small-scale operation to the
big business it has become today.
    The Dean Batchelor Award annually recognizes outstanding contributions to
automotive journalism during the previous year.  An MPG committee evaluates
nominations and votes on the award.
    The MPG Board of Directors also awarded a Dean Batchelor Lifetime
Achievement Award to automotive writer and former race car driver Denise
McCluggage.  The syndicated author, also senior contributing editor at
AutoWeek magazine, has her "Drive, She Said" column printed in more than 40
newspapers around the world.  She was recognized for her many achievements
during her more than four decade career, which includes racing, rallying,
writing, observing and photographing the cars and people involved in the auto
industry.
    Widely recognized as one of the world's best women drivers, she is also
the only woman to have ever won the prestigious Ken Purdy Award for Excellence
in Automobile Journalism.
    This was only the third Lifetime Award from the MPG.  The two previous
honorees were motorsports journalist Chris Economaki and photographer Jesse
Alexander.
    The DBA trophy is a stylized resin-cast model of the So-Cal streamliner
race car that Batchelor helped design, build and drive to several Southern
California Timing Association top-speed records in the 1940s and 50s.  The DBA
trophy was designed by Gene Garfinkle, ISDA, cast by model maker John Pyle,
and is sponsored by the Ford Motor Company.
    During his more than 40 year career as one of America's foremost
automotive journalists and historians, Batchelor authored several books,
including "The American Hot Rod," which was published just after his death in
November 1994.  A founding member of MPG and a past president, Batchelor
served as editor of Road & Track, Car Life, Hop Up and Motor Life magazines.
The Dean Batchelor Award was created in 1995 to celebrate his career and high
journalistic standards by acknowledging the work of others in his memory.
    The awards were presented during the MPG's annual awards dinner at the
Petersen Automotive Museum in early December.  That evening also featured a
behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 1966 John Frankenheimer movie
"Grand Prix" by racing sequence photographer John Stephens, actor James
Garner, race instructor Bob Bondurant and Formula One champion Phil Hill.
They showed scenes from the movie, outtakes and revealed never-before-heard
stories of incidents in the film and during its production.
    The event was sponsored by Pirelli Tire Corporation, Motor Trend magazine,
Speedvision, Popular Mechanics magazine, Irwindale Speedway, Denso
Corporation, Toyota Racing Development, Meguiar's car products and the
Petersen Automotive Museum.
    MPG is a Los Angeles-based non-profit professional trade association of
automotive journalists and industry personnel.  It has more than 500 members
worldwide and maintains a website at http://www.motorpressguild.org .
    For more information on the organization or the DBA, please contact
Michael Coates, MPG publicity chairperson, at 408-399-9081 or via email at
mcoates@aol.com .