Beautiful Danger: Beautiful danger - an oxymoron, yet an appropriate description of such a perilous sport. It's a sport which has killed many, but the danger is cloaked in this book.
Author and photographer Stephen Davison, in his introduction, encourages his readers to see the beauty, not the danger. It's a beauty he evokes through his lens. He describes the almost balletic feeling he gets as the riders "burst into view, tortured tyres dancing over the road, reaching for tar."
Fan and snapper simultaneously, Davison dances with danger himself, as he pokes his camera through trackside grass - "a truly terrifying place," he admits.
Agostini, Hailwood, Fogarty, Hislop and the great Joey Dunlop feature among the 101 pictures spanning 30 years of road racing. Clifford McLean's 1992 pensive and poignant shot of Joey is quietly powerful.
Images of racers who have died grace the pages of this book. A spookily captured shot shows Tom Herron as he raced, seconds before he was killed in 1979. Smiling Gary Dynes and Owen McNally are pictured after the 1999 Ultra-Lightweight TT: both died a year later. David Jefferies was snapped by Davison at the 2003 TT practice session just minutes before his fatal accident.
Veteran photographers Billy Reid and Clifford McLean remind the viewer of halcyon days. A photo by Rowland White at the 1970 North West 200 shows fans occupying every available space at the bridge and banks of Dhu Varren, Portrush: a spectacle that today's safety strictures simply wouldn't permit.
Beautiful Danger captures the sheer magical joy of road racing; you can almost feel, hear and smell the buzz race day. A stocking filler for all biking fans.
• Beautiful Danger - Blackstaff Press €24.65 (hardback)