Ed Swart From Zandvoort to Daytona
Jim Weed
Volume 47 Issue 02
Jan 23, 2022
Ed Swart has spent 60-years racing Fiat, Abarth, Chevrons and vintage raced Ferraris. He was first a business man and raced for the enjoyment of it. This book chronicles his life from grass-roots racing to the vintage racing scene.
There are all kinds of racing books. Ones that improve your driving. Ones the delve into every detail of a particular race or track.
Then there are the racing personality books that rave about the exceptional prowess and ability of a driver.
And there are books written by a driver chronicling their life and times jousting on tracks around the world.
This book “Ed Swart, From Zandvoort to Daytona” is an autobiography. Written not as someone who is attempting to toot his own horn. Ed Swart is not that kind of guy.
It is his humble, matter-of-fact recounting of his life as one who, by virtue of family, rubbed shoulders with many of the great drivers during the 1950s.
He worked on and raced a Fiat Abarth in the early 1960s and started an automotive accessory business to capitalize on the items other racers needed.
Racing little Fiats made for competitive races which improved experience. Moving onto an Abarth 2000SP and creating a new team, Swart gained greater recognition as a driver.
The Team Radio Veronica soon became Canon Racing Team with Chevron B19 cars and the sponsorship to run more races.
I haven’t mentioned Ferrari yet. Swart retired from racing to concentrate on his business, but we know old racers never retire completely, they go vintage racing!
A 250 GT SWB Berlinetta was found and prepared to race on the European vintage race circuits. This opened the door to take advantage of participating on the Tour Auto and hillclimbs throughout Europe.
In 1980 a business opportunity brought him to southern California and soon he was using his SWB at tracks like Laguna Seca and Riverside. The SWB gave way to a succession of Chevron race cars that Swart continued to race right up to 2021.
This book is interesting with descriptions of racetracks and how they have evolved from first-hand knowledge. The stories are short and descriptive without seeming braggadocious.
Ed Swart is a low-key kind of guy, a quiet warrior who consistently gets the car to the finish line and usually on the podium.
His six-hundred racing events are chronicled in the appendix and is well worth spending time perusing the sheer number and cars he drove.
Few have sixty-year racing careers. Fewer still have done it as a secondary career.
Available from Coterie Press. 192-pages, over 300 photographs. $49.95