Pace Makes the Race

[shoelessjoe]

Since I have started to incorporate TPR numbers into my handicapping process I decided to dust off my copy and reread it.Upon doing so I now feel it should be in the top 5 of anyones list.


Dick since you were one of the authors maybe you could shed some light on this. I was reading that Pizzolla's chapters were almost banned from the original book and that they were left out of the reprint.I think his chapters only made the book even better and cant understand why they were an issue in the first place.

[RonTiller]

Dick is obviously the expert on the goings on at that time, and I don't speak for either him or Tom Hambleton, but here is the gist of what I recall from Tom's account. This is all just 2nd hand recollection on my part, as Tom was working at HDW when he and Dick wrote and published the 2nd edition of TPR. Otherwise, I woud never stick my nose into anything relating to Sartin and that group's goings on.

Tom developed TPR and a number of chapters were added to the book, including the Pizzola material on the fulcrum, which Tom did not agree with. It sounded like he felt completely bulldozed by all the other stuff he did not agree with being added. Since TPR was originally his creation, he felt a like TPR was being hijacked and he was losing control of the book explaining HIS creation. In other words, the whole book project of explaining the TPR ratings was morphing before his eyes into something he did not believe in. What actually went on behind closed doors I don't know.

I don't know the details but "banned" seems a little ridiculous, as it was Tom's creation to begin with and Tom certainly had every right to have input into what went into what was originally HIS book. The most interesting aspect is that the Pizzola material was included at all, given that Tom did not agree with it. Obviously, Pizzola (or Sartin) had more clout than Hambleton over the contents of a book about Hambleton's TPR ratings!

This is why, when Tom decided to do a second edition of TPR, Tom wanted just his own stuff in it (and Dick's), without the material others wrote and without the material he neither believed in or in fact used. His name on the cover of the book meant these were ratings and this was a methodology he used on a daily basis and wholly endorsed.

I don't say this as a criticism of the material Pizzola added - it is what it is. Perhaps (ha! - almost certainly) everybody would have been happier if the material had never been comingled to begin with.

It all worked out in the end - there's plenty of room for all sorts of ideas. Schmidt and Hambleton did the 2nd edition of TPR the way they wanted it done, without anybody else's unwanted content. Pizzola has been very successful with books and programs promoting his own ideas and methods and he has many satisfied users of his material and his programs.



Ron Tiller
HDW

[shoelessjoe]

Actually Pizzolla said that Doc was the one that objected to it.

[Dick Schmidt]

Ah, the good old days of dancing to the PIRCO Paranoia Polka.


The book was finished and in galleys with the chapters from Tom, Howard and myself more or less finalized when we gave a copy to Michael (and others) to read and comment on. He immediately said it was the best stuff he had read and started to campaign to be included, which Howard (who was the publisher and ultimate authority) eventually gave in to. Michael's stuff is what it is, but was never a part of TPR. Some people find it very useful and others not so much, but neither Tom or I ever used it.

Howard's chapters changed dramatically as the book was written. Originally it had over 100 pages of stuff about his work with his original truck drivers and how he developed what became the "Phase III" method. When I mentioned that I would be contacting those members of the original group I could find for permission to use their names and get some quotes, he dropped all that stuff immediately. Stuck with his psychology of winning material, which was always excellent. He did know how to read horseplayer's minds.

When we decided to reprint our own parts of Pace Makes the Race (by contract, we had all retained copyright to our own contributions) Michael was off doing his own thing with Erik Langjhar and declined to participate. Howard was upset with both Tom and I, so at last we wrote the book we wanted to write in the first place. The numbers and techniques in the second edition are much better, so we felt (especially Tom, who did almost all the work) that we wanted to get our best product out before the public.

Dick

"No matter where you go, there you are." -Buckaroo Banzai

[shoelessjoe]

Thanks for the inside info.You guys that made up Pirco were one heck of a great bunch of handicappers,too bad it couldnt have lasted longer.