Author: Alan Wilson with Andrew Marriott
Published: Veloce Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-845843-89-2
When I first met Alan Wilson at PMW Expo in 2006, he mentioned that he had the raw material for a biography of his race driver wife, Desiré, sitting in his hard drive. Five years on, that material has been edited into a book with the help of journalist Andrew Marriott.
Apparently, during the creative process, Desiré herself needing some persuading to listen to her life story. Alan tells me that he finally got her feedback during a holiday in Tahiti, when he read her a couple of chapters a day sat on the beach...
Desiré’s story, peppered as it is with moments of good fortune and more than its fair share of bad luck, is in many ways the typical tale of a talented driver who never quite scaled the heights (s)he might have. The difference, of course, is that Desiré also encountered sexism as an additional barrier to career progression. It should be noted that her nationality also counted against her at a time when, because of opposition to the apartheid regime, being South African was rarely a passport to success in international sport.
Nonetheless, some stellar sportscar drives (including two World Championship victories and a top-10 finish at Le Mans), a competitive showing for Tyrrell in the 1981 South African Grand Prix (a race that was subsequently struck from the record books), and a number of IndyCar outings are just a few of the highlights from Des’s long and varied career. From her earliest days in South Africa, her determination and competitive spirit shine through; this, more than anything, is what makes you believe that she rarely got her just desserts. Had her on-track steel been matched by a cannier approach off it, she might have enjoyed even greater success.
Alan Wilson’s informal style makes this an easy read, and there are countless colorful anecdotes (pink, in the case of the comical goings-on with the all-ladies team at Le Mans in 1991), as well as some blacker moments, such as the death of Des’s friend Gordon Smiley during qualifying for the 1981 Indy 500.
The book would benefit from a thorough proofread – I lost track of the countless misspelled names of drivers, cars and racetracks, which gives the text a less professional feel than it deserves. Rally legend Michèle Mouton’s name is spelled in two different ways, for example, both of them incorrect! I didn’t feel that the chapter on other successful female drivers sat well with the rest of the book, either.
Nonetheless, Desiré’s is a story worth hearing, and full credit to Wilson (Mr) for his perseverance in getting it published.
Review by Graham Heeps
January 2012
Author: Tommy Byrne with Mark Hughes
Published: Corinthian Books
ISBN: 978-190685018-0
First published in 2009, Crashed and Byrned tells the unique story of Tommy Byrne, the rags-to-rags Irish driver who was briefly the Next Big Thing at the start of the 1980s.
When Byrne tested the McLaren MP4 at the end of ’82 he’d already won titles in FF1600, FF2000 and F3, and raced in F1 for Theodore. He was remarkably quick at the test, but his rough-and-ready nature put paid to any hope of a McLaren race drive. ‘Too proud to beg for a drive’, no one else came calling, and Byrne was the first to recognize that his moment had passed.
The story in Crashed and Byrned is as much a personal one as a racing one. Refreshingly, sometimes painfully honest, Byrne provokes an entertaining mix of amusement, sympathy, pity and revulsion in the reader. As his life lurches from one metaphorical car crash to the next – teenage pregnancy, fights, alcoholism, various other bad decisions in life and career – you find yourself willing him not to do the obviously daft thing he’s about to do. What keeps him likeable is that he’s well aware of his shortcomings (if only from the perspective of hindsight).
It’s very funny from start to finish, too. Whether working as personal chauffeur and bottom-wiper to an incontinent, meat-buying millionaire in Ireland; masquerading as an undercover Irish cop on stakeouts with the Long Beach police (while team-mate to a rock star from Mötley Crüe); or shutting himself and a bunch of hookers safely away from his gun-toting, manic depressive Mexican F3 boss at a post-race orgy, Byrne has packed more into his colorful life than most of us regular folk ever will.
Crashed and Byrned is an easy read (I demolished it in just a few hours) thanks in part to co-writer Hughes, the prolific motorsport author and respected Autosport columnist, who ties the tall tales together and adds background info and third-party accounts where appropriate. But he wisely lets Byrne, who now works as a driver coach in the USA, do most of the talking. The result is one of most amusing and politically incorrect racing books you’ll ever read.
Review by Graham Heeps
March 2011
Author: Clyde Brolin
Published: Vatersay Books
ISBN: 978-0-9564738-0-6
Overdrive is unlike any motorsport book we’ve read before, focusing as it does solely on the driver’s state of consciousness – as in ‘higher consciousness’, or being ‘in the Zone’.
It begins with the famous story of Ayrton Senna’s 1988 Monaco GP qualifying lap, 1.4 seconds faster than anyone else could manage, after which he claimed to have been undergoing an out-of-body experience, looking down on himself driving the car from above. It’s a great story, backed up by Alain Menu’s gripping eyewitness account.
The episode marked a spiritual awakening for Senna, and had he been alive today, he could doubtless have filled an entire book with other Zonal anecdotes and his thoughtful musings on God and his place in the world. Instead, a supporting cast of numerous other drivers step into the breach. There are some real gems here, from the meditational Andy Priaulx, to the religious Ricardo Zonta, the candid Johnny Herbert or the inspirational Alex Zanardi.
But we felt that some of the other anecdotes of trips to the Zone, however long- or short-lived, don’t add much to the narrative. It’s as if Brolin (an experienced motorsport journalist who writes under a pseudonym) felt the need to include everybody he spoke to on the subject. We’ve no doubt that many more accounts were consigned to Brolin’s Trash folder, but it doesn’t always feel that way, robbing the book of some much-needed pace.
Near the end, there’s also a section on soccer players’ visits to the Zone which, while very interesting at times, seem out of place in this context. So be prepared to skip over a few pages or paras here and there, but for most readers, the unusual insight provided by the likes of Herbert and Priaulx alone will justify your reading the rest of the book.
Review by Graham Heeps
February 2011
Author: Maurice Hamilton
Published: Ebury Publishing, London
ISBN: 978-0-0919-3267-1
It’s five years since Williams won a Formula 1 Grand Prix, so recent converts to F1 would be forgiven for failing to appreciate the significance of this, one of the sport’s most illustrious teams. But it’s not just newcomers who will find enlightenment in this comprehensive new history from Observer and BBC Five Live correspondent, Maurice Hamilton.
The story of Williams, right from Frank Williams’ short-lived driving exploits in the early 1960s to midway through the 2009 season, is told through the words of those who were there – drivers, team personnel, friends and family members among them, and including the central players of Williams himself and Patrick Head. Hamilton threads the individual anecdotes together with a concise narrative that drops in helpful background notes. He also provides the detail that the protagonists cannot remember, are unwilling to divulge, or, in the case of Ayrton Senna and Piers Courage for example, are sadly unable to relate first hand.
There are some fantastic stories here, such as the build-up to the 1988 British Grand Prix, when the team made a short-notice decision after qualifying to abandon the troublesome active suspension for a conventional setup, designing and building new front dampers overnight to fit to the FW12 for the morning warm-up next day. Or when Max Mosley – then still with March – sold Frank Williams a 1975 car for the 1977 season, claiming it was a ’76 model; the truth was only revealed when subsequent repair work uncovered the distinctive orange paint of Vittorio Brambilla’s 1975 Beta Tools livery!
Beyond racing, this is also a human story, and the sections dealing with the deaths of Courage and Senna, and Frank Williams’s 1986 road accident are particularly moving. It all adds up to a captivating read, and goes straight to the top of the charts as PMW’s favorite motorsport book of 2009.
Review by Graham Heeps
December 8, 2009
Authors: John Davenport (words), Reinhard Klein (McKlein Photography, images)
Published: McKlein Publishing, Cologne
ISBN-13: 978-3-927458-42-0.
With its dramatic abstract boards this book demands attention from very first glance. A second glance registers historical authority in the names of John Davenport and foreword writer Walter Röhrl and immediately we are off down the stony tracks and convoluted tarmac of a ‘rally-by-rally history’ all the way from 1978 to 1999.
For those who are still entranced by that bumpy but ultimately dominant ride to change the face of World Rallying, we are taken all the way from the first experiments with the humble Iltis truck transmission and an apparently innocuous request in open session of an unsuspecting BPICA (FISA) to change the rules to allow four-wheel drive in international rallying; all the way to exotic heights like Pikes Peak and multiple Championships and beyond.
The Dual German/English text is measured and economical but still provides a complete, focused insider’s narrative well worthy of the stunning photographic background to every significant event along the way. The tone is reverential but frank, even blunt at times and Reinhard Klein’s archive images are like pulling back the window blinds and being there.
At about 2.5kg and 30cm x 32cm x 2cm this is not one for the Metro or even the door pocket of the car. Instead it is both entertainment and archive. Try an evening at the coffee table with something stronger and voicemail engaged. It repays.
Review by James Martin
November 5, 2009
Author: Neal Thompson
Published (paperback): Three Rivers Press, New York
ISBN: 1-4000-8226-1
Driving with the Devil – originally published in 2006 and now available in paperback – is the perfect antidote to the relentless commercialism of modern NASCAR. Beginning and ending in the modest Atlanta office of Raymond Parks, the sport’s first team owner, the book tells the story of how he and a colorful cast of drivers, mechanics, promoters and general hustlers shaped stock car racing out of the illegal – not to mention highly dangerous – business of liquor-running in 1930s America.
NASCAR came to be known as Bill France Sr’s baby, but, backed by impressive research, including first-hand accounts and extensive use of primary sources (he even moved his family to North Carolina to write the book), Thompson debunks what he sees as a conscious rewriting of history. He tells the story of what really happened before, during and immediately after France “founded” NASCAR, 60 yeas ago, and champions the role of bootlegging in creating the first “stock” race cars and drivers. The tone is measured but the amazing stories Thompson relates ensure that the reader’s attention is held from start to finish.
There are complex personal relationships here too, particularly that between sometime best friends, Parks and France. Relations between the two suffered when France appropriated NASCAR for himself and set it on the road to its current status as a multibillion dollar behemoth, but an encouraging footnote to the tale is that since the publication of Driving with the Devil, NASCAR has at last moved to recognize Parks’ contribution to the sport’s birth. For sure, Thompson’s work played a part in championing Parks’ cause, and it has recently been announced that the now-94-year-old has donated some of the trophies and memorabilia from his office to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which is due to open in Charlotte, NC in May 2010.
Review by Graham Heeps
September 3, 2009
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Under the skin of the innovative, all-electric Formulec single-seater
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