Andy Amendola did not set out to become a motorsport publisher. He was a new racing fan looking for modern racing books he could read with his kids. When he couldn’t find them, he was inspired to start Red Racer Books.

“I’ve always loved cars, but never understood racing,” he started with. “It never clicked for me.” During the pandemic, he and his wife watched Drive to Survive, and he started to connect with the sport. The series gave him the characters and storylines, but it also helped him understand how racing worked. He became hooked by “the science, the global nature of it, the personalities, the business side of it… everything.” He joined group chats, listened to podcasts, watched as much racing as he could, going into what he called “deep research mode.” 

The deeper he went, the more he wanted a way to share it with his kids. He had always curated their reading list around what they were passionate about, and racing had become one of those things. “I was thinking, let me find some books about racing, and let’s get them into it too,” he said. “I couldn’t find any. Everything had cars that were outdated. Nothing looked like the racing you see on TV.”

His first in-person race was the 2021 United States Grand Prix in Austin. “The first time I walked up the steps to see the track and hear the cars, I was just blown away,” he said. “Just to see the amount of people and energy at the track, for me, it was just like a light bulb went off.” He had already been thinking about a children’s racing book, and Austin gave him the push he needed. On the way home from that race, he wrote the first draft.

Read about Andy’s story in the Summer26 issue of Speedwell Magazine