Taking it to the Limit

Taking It To The Limit: 20 Years of Making Motorcycle Films is a behind-the-scenes look at a man who chose to build a career out of making films about a subject that consumed a major portion of his life – motorcycle racing. It is a fascinating insight into a period when there was no cable television and films were actually shot on film and distributed on film to terrestrial television stations. It is also a period of the coming of age of motorcycle racing in America, where the sport became “media-conscious.”

In his own words Peter Starr opens up a storehouse of memories and experiences of working with the highest echelon of professional racers from 1973 – 2001 – Hailwood, Baker, Sheene, Roberts, DeCoster, Mauger, Penhall, Scott, Collins –  some of the greatest names in the sport on both sides of the Atlantic. He shares insight and hindsight into how these racers agreed to work with him in what has become the most amazing collection of classic, award-wining films of that or any era.

He studies the racers he admired so much and the battles and demons they fought in cleaving their way to win their races and championships. His films bring out the otherwise unknown personalities of some of the greatest American and European riders while maintaining a perspective of the sport that a bludgeoning television audience could appreciate.

Brilliantly illustrated with photographs from some of the sports greatest photographers intertwined with exclusive productions stills that give the reader a true taste of what filming racing motorcycles was like in the seventies and eighties.  From the glamour and seductiveness of the sport to the gritty, sometimes politically grimy backwaters of the film production business, Starr recounts his story of making films about the sport he loved so much while fighting the battles with television networks and even people within the motorcycle industry.