Additional information
by Peter Joffre Nye (Author)
This is the first biography of the short but exciting life of Albert Champion--record-setting bicyclist and motorcyclist, daredevil race car driver, early automobile innovator with thirty US patents, charismatic ladies' man, and celebrity of the Jazz Age. Though most Americans have heard of the two companies he founded (Champion Spark Plug and ACDelco) few know much about the flamboyant man behind the companies. The book's lively narrative describes the many adventures of the Frenchman who rose from poverty in Paris to great wealth and fame in both his native France and the United States. As a bicycle racer, Champion set more than a hundred world records. When the urban speed limit was 8 mph, he was the first ever to drive a motorcycle a mile under a minute. Then a car-racing crash in Brooklyn snapped a leg bone that kept him in traction for eleven weeks. Handicapped but undeterred, he hobbled out of the hospital on crutches and recovered to win the French national cycling championship. He subsequently invested his prize money to become a tycoon in the American auto industry, working closely with the leading players in this new revolutionary industry.Good looking and a natty dresser, he was an incorrigible ladies' man, whose many dalliances finally ended in a love triangle that resulted in his death under mysterious circumstances.
Author Biography
Peter Joffre Nye has written for the Washington Post, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, the Denver Post, and many other publications. Among his many books is Peak Business Performance under Pressure, which he coauthored with Bill Driscoll. He also wrote the script for the documentary The Six-Day Bicycle Races: America's Jazz-Age Sport and converted it to a coffee-table book with the same title. He studied at Ball State University and the London School of Economics, and he earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College.
