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Marshall Pruett
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ALMS Reviewed: American Le Mans Series 2007 Season Yearbook
Written by: Marshall Pruett   
04/29/2008 - 10:52 AM
Oakland, CA
 
The American Le Mans Series 2007 Season Yearbook. » More Photos


It had been the better part of seven years since the last American Le Mans Annual Review. Thanks to the Series, the authors, and incredible photographers that formed TPP Publishing’s ‘American Le Mans Series 2007 Season Yearbook,’ we have a much needed and long overdue addition to the bookshelves of sportscar racing fans everywhere.

As the 2007 American Le Mans Series delivered the most competitive season in the ten year history of the championship, the return of a proper annual to recount and memorialize this modern ‘golden era’ is perfectly timed.
The Yearbook features gorgeous photography from a number of full-time ALMS shooters. » More Photos

The 146 pages of text and 450 plus photos deliver a visual feast of each round of the 2007 Series championship. Fitting the well established branding and presentation guidelines the Series is known for, the cover of TPP’s annual features a clean white canvas, with a centered, wide angle shot of the beginning of the 2007 Utah Grand Prix used to declare the crisply structured contents that await the reader.

To appreciate the present state of the series, delving into the epic LMP1 vs. LMP2 battles, Ferrari vs. Porsche GT2 battles, intra-team Corvette Racing GT1 competition, the return of Acura and their efforts to match pace with the Porsche RS Spyders, and all the other major story lines of ’07 are a must-read. Thankfully, the authors of the American Le Mans Series 2007 Season Yearbook have this covered.
Statistical data is also a key component of the American Le Mans Series 2007 Season Yearbook. » More Photos

If you’ve just discovered the American Le Mans Series in 2008, read the American Le Mans Series 2007 Season Yearbook cover to cover. The annual will walk you from the 2007 season opener at Sebring through the finale at Laguna Seca, leaving you as an expert and mini-historian of the classic 2007 championship, thus helping you to better understand the back stories that mark the 2008 championship.

Featuring the stunning photography from ALMS regulars Robin Thompson, Joe Martin, Martin
Spetz, and John Machaqueiro, and the keen, deeply knowledgeable writing from sportscar reporters Gary Horrocks and Tom Kjos, it’s all the more impressive to consider that the book was created in less than sixty days, completed well after the 2007 championship had concluded.

There’s a unique strength to the efforts of Kjos and Horrocks--the ability to add a razor sharp focus on recounting the critical details of every practice session, the drama of every qualifying round, and the minutiae of every race. Delve into the stories from each race, and you’re quickly transported to pit lane, the paddock, or inside a team’s transporter to immerse yourself in the first-person accounts of each day as it unfolded.

The writers of the 2007 ALMS annual strike a perfect tone in their delivery, elevating their accounts of the more exciting races and taking a more measured approach to the few races that failed to peg the fun meter.

Of all the positives I’ve mentioned about TPP’s 2007 annual, it’s what the 2008 American Le Mans Season Yearbook might contain that has me even more excited. According to editor Tom Kjos, the addition of technical reviews of each car, more pages, more photos, and more writers will build upon their first product in a manner the Series deserves.

The team behind the 2007 annual is comprised of passionate sportscar insiders—people with the guts to revive the long lost ALMS yearbook, and as I’ve found, they’ve done a praiseworthy job in a critically short time frame. Let’s hope these men are tasked by the American Le Mans Series to deliver yearbooks for many years to come.

The American Le Mans Series 2007 Season Yearbook is available on the American Le Mans website, and through TPP's website.
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