Customer Reviews
Not yet Byrned out! - By: marchof73, 20 Nov 2008 
An excellent & personal view of one man,s motor racing career.Do not expect a race by race account but instead get the inside story of a meteoric rise to success & an even quicker fall from the spotlightin the competitive world of British & then European racing.
To say he got screwed by McLaren would be an understatement!
There are,however,some hilarious accounts of racingin the early 80,s
Buy it!
An incredible read - what a story! - By: Neil Friel, 16 Sep 2008 Just extraordinary. What a fantastic read. If you could imagine an unlikely cross between Angela's Ashes & Fear & Loathingin Las Vegas with a loose motor racing backdrop, this is it. It has youin hysterics one moment, full of sadness the next. The most amazing sports biography I've ever read. In fact even if it was a work of fiction, it would still work. If you never buy another book again, you must buy this one.
Loved the book, what a read I couldn't put it down. - By: J. Scott, 11 Sep 2008 I loved the book, gripping from the beginning & a great read all through. The Racing stuff is very interesting but it's not just a book about racing the strange characters that Tommy encounters through his life you just couldn't make up!
Full throttle racing, money, steeling, sex, drugs & rock & roll (without the rock & roll).
Hurricane Byrne! - By: A. T. Airey, 05 Sep 2008 This is some journey!
Barely believable, 'Crashed & Byrned' somehow twists through the apposite worlds of grubby 1970's O'Connell street, the 1982 Las Vegas Grand Prix & a seedy mansionin drug addled Mexico. Why? Because Tommy Byrne was chasing his quest to make the motor racing world realise that he was the most naturally gifted racing driver of his generation (and that is no idle boast by the way). And what is more, this book does itin a kind of surreal innocence that would be quite at homein a Hunter S.Thompson yarn!
Tommy Byrne will generally only be known to racing people but his story is so unique that he & his adventures will be enjoyed by those who have never seen a motor racein their lives before. This story will surely become a classic alternative to the bland & colourless publications that modern sports stars often produce.
It wasn't so much that Tommy was anti establishment it was more like he created his own establishment & then whether it was his fault or not, trashed itin a bright haze of his own brilliance & confidence. This had an uncanny knack of rubbing people up the wrong way. Ron Dennis was one of these people, so was Ayrton Senna. Years before Eddie Irvine was getting a slap from the great Brazilian champion, another & more gifted urchin from the Emerald Isle was getting under Ayrton's skin! Put bluntly, if John Lydon & Phil Lynott had raised a bastard child that took up motor racing, then his name would have been Tommy Byrne.
The anecdotes are toldin a fabulously honest & more often than not comic fashion. There is no self pity & no 'what ifs'. These are left to the reader, who by the end of it are likely to ask these questions quietly to themselves. His 'tell it, how he saw it' descriptions of situations & people are quite superb, brutally honest & tremendously funny. In these days of wretched PR sheen this book takes you back to an era when genius 'literally' stole. It's sports answer to 'The filth & the fury!'
Put togetherin a simple & effective way by Mark Hughes, who proves that he is as subtly adept at translating these unforgettable memories of racings greatest roguish lost talent' as he is of acutely detailing the weekly technical & strategic aspects of the current Grand Prix scenein Autosport magazine. Hughes also offers an oversight to Byrne's memories, dippingin to the likes of Gary Anderson & Ron Dennis himself, for a revisionist perspective twenty five years on from 'Hurricane Byrne.'!
Above all, it tells of an ambitious & talented young man who was fighting a desperate & constantly losing battle to be accepted by an elitist sport that even by the standards of the early 1980's found Tommy Byrne just too much of a risk. It cannot be recommended highly enough.
