RISE OF THE KINGFISH The American sports car racing scene of the 1950s was a time like no other, when fiercely independent, deep-pocketed men could acquire ex-factory racecars and campaign them with some of history’s most legendary drivers.

Unfettered by sponsorship concerns or overwhelming regulatory scrutiny, this tightly knit community of men’s men risked life and limb in the events of the Collier brothers’ fledgling SCCA, often competing on old US Air Force tarmacs that had been provided under the auspices of ex-SAC chief General Curtis LeMay.

Admirably pure in its essence, this was a golden era of racing that fielded some of the decade’s most beautifully sculpted and ferociously specified competition machines.

Among this niche of sportsmen that included such luminary figures as Briggs Cunningham, Tony Parravano, John von Neumann, and Jim Kimberly, few team owners commanded more respect than John Edgar.

Born in Ohio to a wealthy family whose company manufactured kitchen machine...