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My old treasure chest.

I've a couple of bits and pieces here.

This is a...

This actually is...

It hasn't been cleaned for a while,

'cos I really don't go in here that often, but...

It's the "Sports Star of the Year, 1981, Ireland."

Look at that.

And that's 1st place, Laguna Seca.

That's disgusting.

Naked.

If you didn't make it, nobody gives a shit.

That's how I feel now.

About 20 years ago, yeah, I would've felt, you know,

like, "Oh shit, you know,

those guys screwed me over, and they did this..."

[soft tranquil music]

This album here, I think my sister

might have put this one together for me.

When I was racing I didn't think

I was the best driver in the world...

I knew I was the best driver in the world.

I remember that suit. That's one of my first ones.

I just got...

I got beat. I got beat by the system.

[music intensifies]

There are lots of hard luck stories

in Formula 1.

Tommy is the defining case study,

because there's never been anybody quite that good,

who's never made it.

True talent really stands out.

We had Senna, Alain Prost,

Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher.

And Tommy had the talent of these guys for sure.

You know, he just had that natural feel for a car.

Tommy Byrne was wild.

Some of the things that he did were so unorthodox,

that only Tommy Byrne ever could've done it.

Or will have ever done it.

The problem is...

he may have gone just too far.

[dramatic music]

What you saw was what you got with him.

Some people might think it, Tommy would say it.

And I think it hurt in the top end

where there's sponsors,

where there's major manufacturers involved.

And they don't want people

that are a bit wild like that.

[tires screeching] He got from nothing...

to Formula 1

in little more than 4 years.

We may never see a similar story ever again.

[music mellows]

We've got it all up. We're gonna get it tight.

It's two of us who used to work up in...

Here you go, Bert.

Where did you get these extra batteries?

Yeah, he gives them to me, you take them.

Hey Sonny!

We will get going. My name is Brian Till,

I'll be your lead instructor for the day.

That just means that I talk more than the other guys do.

But you got a great group of guys

back there in the back.

Tommy Byrne down at the end.

Very accomplished open wheel driver.

Six, seven...?

-Seven. -Formula Car championships over in Europe

before he came to the United States. A little time in Formula 1.

Tommy's been here at the school

I think since... '93? '94?

-'95? Something like that. -'94.

Twenty one years now! You've been here what, 22?

Yeah.

-Scary! -Long time. Long time.

So Tommy and I used to race together a little bit.

I crashed Tommy in Detroit one year.

-No, you ran into me. -Did I?

[laughing]

Of course my car was broken.

-Yeah. -I had to walk back.

[laughing]

Through the streets of...

-the downtown streets of Detroit. -Through the streets of Detroit.

-You walked? -Yeah!

Here's a guy

who had come within a fingertip reach

of the pinnacle of the sport.

And it just slid down the other side of the mountain

when it just slipped from his grasp.

Your job today in this high-performance school

is to use 100 percent of the car

100 percent of the time.

Drive it like you stole it.

Some of us ended our careers on our own terms.

Tommy didn't.

But for the longest time, Tommy went to sleep.

Woke up...

and thought, "This isn't fair."

I should've. I would've. I could've.

Good job, P2.

Mike and Carl on deck!

To carry that with you...

when the door closes

and you're the only person in the room...

how loud are those voices?

[soft somber music]

Obviously I wasn't the nicest guy in the world.

And it's just when you don't make it,

people, well, they try to say "He did this, he did that."

But you know what?

I just couldn't have anybody tell me what to do.

There are various theories on Tommy Byrne the racing driver.

One is that he royally messed up a potentially great career.

The other one was that he wasn't given a fair shot.

And I think Tommy's truth

is always somewhere in that shade of gray

between those two extreme viewpoints.

There were things in Tommy's character

and from his background

that made him not an easy fit in Formula 1.

Alex Hurricane' Higgins, Georgie Best,

I'd put him in that kind of mold.

Just a... a little irreverent,

and... super talented, and liked to have a beer.

The start of the 80's, the two hot shots

were Tommy Byrne and Ayrton Senna.

Had it not been for Senna

arriving at around the same time,

Tommy's talent would've been enough

to carry him through.

It would've been irresistible.

And there was a real anger there,

in terms of the fact that motor racing

takes a lot of money and a lot of support.

So if you don't have that,

it's easy to fall by the wayside,

or suddenly your careers changes direction

as Tommy's did.

Obviously when you're trying to go racing

and you're completely broke all the time,

and you're racing against people

like Senna and the Brazilians with all the money,

and you haven't got a pot to piss in,

it does make a difference.

I mean, you don't get the same respect.

People treat you different.

And I hear this all the time, I've seen little quotes about

"Tommy's got a chip on his shoulder."

I think anybody would have a chip on their shoulder

if they were treated like shit after they win races.

So many races.

I'd win the exact same race that Senna won.

I'd win it first, he'd win it the year after,

and suddenly, it's like, you know,

"Who's Tommy Byrne?"

And when Senna won,

it was like the second coming of Christ.

And that's just the way life is, you know.

People treat you different

when you're broke and when you're rich.

What could I change?

Be born a millionaire

with a silver fucking spoon up my ass.

[music intensifies]

Tommy still carries the cross of the rejection

from Formula 1, every day.

He's not the Tommy he would have been

had it all panned out the way he was expecting it to.

He knows what it could have been and what it should have been.

It's a little overgrown since the last time I was here,

that's for sure.

Yep.

Ah man, look at this.

There's the trees my mom planted.

Shit, they were like...

they were a couple of feet tall.

So, I used to ride my motorcycle

all the way through here at night

when I'd come home at 15 years of age.

Drive through there, drive all the way through here,

drive up, and drive in the door.

I just couldn't control myself with speed.

I had to be flat-out everywhere.

And I worked at the gas station across the road,

everybody was talking about the day they would go there,

and I wouldn't be there anymore because I'd be dead.

Because everywhere that I went, I was flying.

Flying down the roads.

Flat-out.

Couldn't slow down.

That's what happens when you're born in the back of the car

on the way to the hospital.

[somber music resumes]

♪ Far across the foam ♪

♪ All though I've often left it ♪

♪ In foreign lands to roam ♪

"Tommy is still in trouble."

Tommy Byrne away to a flying start.

Born special. Born a special way.

[laughing]

Three firsts for Irish.

Sports star of the week.

Oh, man, I was.... I was out of control.

I feel bad now, obviously, you know, you feel bad...

Because I have my own kids.

Whatever chance they had of controlling me when I was...

nine or ten or eleven,

they had no chance at all when I was 15, 16 years of age.

I just didn't...

I just didn't listen.

This house now...

I just...

I just don't want to be here, actually.

To be honest, you know...

It's just... it's in the past.

I had a time here, I grew up in this house.

Mom and dad, sisters, everybody was here.

But now it's, you know, it's just...

Time to move on!

When he was a child,

he was a nuisance to everybody around him.

-How's it's going, Maurice? -I'm humbled, I'm humbled.

-How's it going? -Very good.

Now I thought he was a little...

bastard at that stage.

He was just a little brat.

You didn't happen to bring back that part of fancy of boots

I gave you that time, because I'm still waiting on.

-You use them often? -I haven't used them for a while,

but I do like the boots, yeah.

I do have to wear a couple of pairs of socks with them.

Do you wear it with the jacket?

I forgot about the jacket.

[laughing]

Tommy would have had a rough childhood

brought on mainly by himself,

by his attitude and by the way

he carried on, and...

no law was written for Tommy Byrne.

He never changed what he was like

when he was 11 or 12 years of age.

He just had that cockiness in him

that he would have to do it his own way.

You see, that's really as little as I thought of you

over the last number of years, Tommy.

They're up there.

-Thanks, Maurice. -Among all the...

Here, show me...

show me what you've got there.

Oh, look at that one.

-That's the, ah... -That would be quite an important one.

Is that the British Grand Prix one?

-That's the British Grand Prix one. -Holy smokes.

Look at that, huh? What else have you got?

Yeah, that one there...

I think that's one of those European ones.

-Is this it? -I think so.

This is the P&O Ferries Formula Ford 1600.

This is the championship one, Maurice.

Cor, You think it would be maybe

a little bit looked after better than that.

-Well, look at this. -You didn't even know where they were Tommy.

No, I didn't, you're right.

I think that's an old shell from

World War II or something.

But they've been lying up there for...

many years.

-Maurice... -Yes?

These could probably clean up pretty good, I'll bet.

It's the same in my own house back in Florida, the same thing.

-You tell me. -Trophies in boxes.

-Look at that. -See if you can--

See if you can clean that one.

When your fan club was...

Yep! Remember that?

We had the annual Tommy Byrne Dinner Dance

to make me money, and I think I earned...

I think I earned, like... £300.

That was as much money that was collected

for that one particular dance.

Enough money to get me some clothes.

-We needed $300,000. -Yes!

It was a lot of work for me

because I couldn't even enjoy myself,

because I had to talk to everybody.

Yeah.

and by the time it was all over and I was ready to...

you know, get shit faced...

-It was too late. -And you had to put...

the Dundalk accent back on again.

or they would have all called you an asshole.

I had to put... Yeah, the accent.

-Yeah. -Yeah. Alright, yeah.

[hooting]

[cars racing]

[dramatic music]

These little tracks here, this is where it all started.

Yeah, I worked for free, fixing a Mini Stock car.

It's been 40 years ago,

because I loved being involved.

And I would look forward as a mechanic

to take it out for the race.

Then you drive it back and park it there,

and this is what I used to look forward to for the whole week.

[tires screeching]

There's something about the speed,

it's addictive.

The smell, the noise...

it gets in your...

It kind of does get in your blood.

It's just one of those things.

Just stick the needle in, you know, and it just...

you know, keep on pushing.

[bashing]

[cheering]

Yay!

I'm more comfortable here,

watching these little racers,

than I would be watching a Formula 1 race,

or even at a Formula 1 race.

It's pretentious, it's full of a bunch of...

fake people,

and I never really liked it in the first place.

And of course, I'm much more comfortable here.

It's just, maybe...

It doesn't get much better than that!

I would say 99% of the people here

driving at this track tonight

are probably here having fun.

And that maybe there's 1% out there

might be trying to make it big time in racing.

Because remember, there's very few people in the world

who actually make money racing.

I left school at 15 years of age.

The first real job I got was in the factory in town.

And I was going to be a mechanic.

My partner

that I was apprenticing for nicknamed me "foot-and-a-half,"

because I was really, really small at the time.

So he nicknamed me "foot-and-a-half," and...

All you could hear in that whole big shop was:

"foot-and-a-half, foot-and-a-half!"

Because I was always gone somewhere, doing something.

Probably pilfering something.

We didn't call it stealing, we called it pilfering.

But I just loved pilfering more than anybody else,

I just loved to take shit.

I would wrap stuff around me,

underneath my overalls, and...

take something home everyday.

I just loved it.

I just loved taking shit, you know? Like...

Sometimes you took it because you need it,

and sometimes you took it just because, just for the hell of it.

But I eventually did get caught,

so I went to court and got fined.

Put on probation or whatever the case would've been.

So I could have for sure went down the wrong path

if I didn't start racing.

I knew that's what I wanted to do,

I wanted to be a race car driver.

My first Formula Ford car, my mom had told the bank manager

that my sister Margaret was pregnant and...

and we had to put an extension on the house.

And I stood behind my mother telling her what to say.

And I think it was £1250.

It was a lot of money! It was a loan!

We just didn't put the extension on the house.

So, it was only small lies.

But I got my car!

When he came on the scene at Mondello,

I was quite surprised.

Here was this small guy.

Very cocky.

No one could quite understand him,

he spoke so quickly,

and he had a very pronounced Dundalk accent.

I wouldn't say he was like a fish out of water, but...

he came from a background

that normally motor-racing people wouldn't be part of.

So he was a big surprise

to that element.

Tommy's face, his personality, his background

was always going to be a difficult fit.

It's a very elitist sport,

whereas... Tommy was...

from a very, very poor working-class background.

And so the odds of him succeeding

were very slim.

In 77 was when I went to Mondello,

and I had no idea what I was doing.

And I wouldn't listen to anybody.

I thought if smoke wasn't coming off

all four tires, I wasn't doing it right.

There was this kid that looked like a 13 year old

that fell out of the back of a bus.

And he was just flinging the car around

with complete abandon.

And I thought,

"This kid is good, this kid is exceptional."

I had a bunch of friends all coming together, all...

"Oh here we go, this is going to be a new adventure."

And it was. Just...

rednecks, out of sync with everything.

But I figured I was passing cars,

so I must be doing something right.

It turns out they were just scared

because a crazy bastard's coming up behind them,

and he's either going to run into them or not,

so they would just let me by.

But I learned my craft by crashing.

I crashed all year in that car.

That car was always coming home in more than one piece.

It left in one piece

and came home in two, three, sometimes...

50 pieces.

And my mom, she'd come out and take a look at it

and she'd go...

"When are you going to quit this nonsense

and get a real job?"

And then I'd just be completely depressed...

go to bed...

wake up next morning

with a completely different attitude,

and start again.

[soft mellow music]

At that time Bernard Devaney, Derek Daly,

David Kennedy and Eddie Jordan were all in England.

So I read about those guys

and I'd seen pictures of them, so obviously I was thinking,

"Well if they can do it, then I can do it."

So I left Ireland at the end of '78,

and that was it.

Never to look back.

The kid that came over from Ireland to England in '78,

was raw, ragamuffin... chancer.

Full of hope, massive talent,

total self-belief, but that was all he had.

My first year away from home,

and I had a pretty rough first half of the year,

that's when I was very nervous a lot

because I didn't win a race.

And we qualify at nine in the morning

and wouldn't race until five o'clock that night.

So all that time no eating, no nothing, just nerves.

Sick to my stomach.

That went on for 20 races.

And eventually I won the race in Nürburgring,

so that's when I knew I was as good as I thought I was.

And ever since that day,

I never, ever felt sick to my stomach again,

It was just fun.

For over ten years Formula Ford

has been the essential first rung of the ladder to fame

in single seater racing.

Formula 1 drivers

like James Hunt and Emerson Fittipaldi

started racing at the wheel of a Formula Ford,

which has turned Formula Ford into a proving ground

for future world champions.

So, the way the junior categories work

is that you have professional teams

building the cars, creating the cars,

fielding the cars.

That all costs money.

By and large, the teams

don't go and get drivers.

What happens is the drivers bring the money

to the teams to run them.

Whether that's commercial sponsorship,

or family money, or whatever,

it's that that sustains the junior categories

in motor racing.

It's very, very rare that anyone

gets a drive for free,

but Tommy managed to get a drive for free.

Ralph Firman started his own firm,

Van Diemen, in the early '70s.

Van Diemen has won

every major Formula Ford championship

in England since 1977,

and for that you need drivers with talent and nerve.

If we feel that we haven't got such a driver,

then we will sponsor one ourselves.

Van Diemen have been very successful

over the years because...

A: Ralph picks winners.

And B: He didn't want that winner

in someone else's car,

so he certainly recognized Tommy's talents early.

He knew Tommy didn't have any money,

so you could hardly ask him for money.

If he wanted him in the car,

he was going to have to give him the drive for free.

[car racing past]

Michelle is cooking for the team,

she's the best cook on the circuit.

This is the grassroots, really,

of where it all starts in motor racing, isn't it?

For youngsters1

Formula Ford 1600, club racing.

And it's all very much, I suppose,

It's... you know, it's a nice family...

I suppose, thing, too.

-We didn't have these motor homes. -No.

And you can see some of the pictures,

you know, we were in the dirt.

I love Cliff Dempsey Racing, because he's old school.

Reminds me... more like Ralph Firman,

all those years ago.

He just doesn't put up with any shit.

And he knows how to take fast drivers,

he's the guy you want to be with.

You put up with a lot with a quick driver

on his faults because he's quick.

He may not have all the things you want,

but if he's quick, you put up with it.

You mean he may not have all the things you want out of the car?

-Exactly. -But in the cockpit.

-He's fast. -When he's everything, you put up with it.

Really good for the first section.

Then we go into the first chicane,

bend really good through there, you bleed in the speeder.

Back in your day

you had to actually use your brain

to drive a race car,

now the guys don't have to do that.

-That's the problem. -I had all that stuff in my head.

They don't have to think as much anymore...

-Because of... -Because of data.

And coming and running with professional teams,

It's not really... Daddy's paying the money,

it doesn't really matter if they don't get a result.

-Exactly. -You know,

they'll come back the next day and they'll be racing anyway.

Whereas when you raced...

if you didn't get a result,

you weren't out the next weekend.

And what's the chances Cliff

of a young kid today getting into F1?

Very slim, I think.

To be honest, I think, you know,

We can kid ourselves and say

"Yeah, you have a chance," but I think it's very slim,

but there are exceptions to every rule.

[melodic music]

And there is the man to watch.

It is 21 year old Tommy Byrne from Dundalk in Ireland,

who has already won

three Formula Ford races this year.

When he came from Ireland,

initially he was quick in the Formula Ford car,

like lightning-quick.

Tommy Byrne is in a class of his own

in Formula Ford racing this year.

A string of wins,

he just has to get into the car and he seems to be on his own.

And in Formula Ford that is...

That was quite impressive

for a guy straight over from a regional championship

to be at that level immediately.

He was winning national Formula Ford races.

Formula Ford championship race here...

I could learn tracks very fast.

I was pretty good at reading

how good the other guys were, and how good I was.

I just knew I had something different.

He instinctively knew what to do.

He would get the best out of the car

no matter what it was doing.

Tommy was the only person that I knew

that was working on his own car.

He had no other support.

Everybody else was coming over, paying for a ride,

expecting to get a full-time mechanic on the car.

Tommy was his own mechanic

and then getting in the car and racing.

He did things with the car that you just...

they weren't possible, you know,

I know about racing cars, I watch racing cars,

and you watched this car going round the track

with this bloke in it,

and he... just...

that shouldn't be possible.

Byrne has won race after race this year.

He has really stamped his mark on Formula Ford racing.

It was quite clear he had speed,

and he didn't succumb to any pressure, that's for sure.

So that confidence went into the car.

It wasn't a fake, showy thing, he just had that self-belief.

Jumped in the car, delivered and won

the Championship.

There, appropriately enough, is brilliant Tommy Byrne,

the 1980 P&O Ferries

and RAC Formula Ford Championships

champion of 1980.

Tommy arrived in the UK

as a fully formed rebel,

You know, you said, "Rough around the edges,"

he was all edge.

And you knew he was going to go places

because of his prodigious talent.

You just didn't know how high that elevator was going to go

because of his personality.

Would be...

You could see that it would be a limiting factor.

He lived off everybody and he could smile doing it.

He'd order a meal in a restaurant

long before he'd tell you,

"I've no money, will you pay for that?"

He had no place to stay.

He had no car. He had no money for petrol

He had no money for food.

How could you make a living

unless you're supported by family and friends?

The family wasn't in a position to support him.

So... he was dependent on the goodwill of others.

We'd go maybe out and have a few beers,

and he'd get up the next morning

and you'd see him walking around with a pair of trousers

that you knew were yours.

You need to get your jacket.

That's going to be the first thing you need.

Jacket's down in the truck.

Tommy loved a drink.

He'd get himself into trouble now and again,

but that was Tommy.

People wanted to be part of Tommy's world.

You'd be out in a bar somewhere

and a girl would be drunk and say,

"Tommy, you're so handsome," and he'd say,

"There's no way I'm handsome.

I might be cute, but I'm certainly not handsome."

There was something that Tommy had

which enabled him to, on the one hand,

be blindingly quick,

but he also had, on the other hand,

another God-given gift,

for which if there was a gold medal for shagging,

he'd have won it time and time again.

As well as the driving on a Sunday morning,

you had to do the partying on a Saturday night.

Girls and parties,

that was all part of the rollercoaster.

He spent more time with girls

when other men were sitting at home studying

every corner and ever gear change

that they had done on their day's practice,

Tommy was out that night to see...

could he get a girl? Maybe two.

You didn't get stability with Tommy Byrne,

you got chaos, confusion.

Fun...

the best fun you could imagine, but chaos.

I acted a little bit different than...

the other guys getting in the car.

I would just get excited, like I was high or something.

I'd just go, "da-da-da-da-da-da"

And people just talk, "What the heck is he doing?

He's like all over the place."

I could jump in the car last minute

and still win the race.

[invigorating music]

Some people were frightened of him,

of what he could do.

It was the way he walked through the paddock,

it was the way...

He had a very quick step,

and everything about him was bang, bang, bang.

As a young driver you don't show any weakness,

if you show weakness, you're fucked.

Put the fear of God in them, so they know that...

if they come up behind Tommy Byrne,

it's going to be a problem getting by.

And if Tommy Byrne comes up behind them,

they're in trouble, they better pull over.

That's just the way it is.

The persona he projected to the outside world

was of "I'm the best.

I'm the bollocks."

That obviously...

rubbed some people up the wrong way,

but that was just his persona, that was how he was.

He absolutely believed

that he was the best driver in the world.

Ralph Firman's eagle-eyed talent-spotting

produced Brazilian Ayrton da Silva.

Now the motor-racing world is tipping him

as a future world champion.

With the case of Ayrton and Tommy,

they couldn't have been from more different backgrounds.

One was a millionaire's son,

with all the social graces

that come from a privileged background,

very at ease in that world.

Whereas...

Tommy came over from Ireland with nothing.

[tranquil music]

[racing car revving]

[fast paced music]

For '81, I was...

Senna's mechanic in the Formula Ford,

working at Van Diemen still.

And then I go home and I was living with Tommy.

So they both had very, very good seasons.

But Senna always had his eye on him.

I'm not going to say he was afraid of Tommy,

he was afraid that he wasn't going to do as well

as Tommy had done the year before.

In 1981, he had these two junior categories.

The entry level, which is Ford 1600,

which was what Senna was doing.

And he was blitzing the opposition there.

Also operating from the Van Diemen factory,

Tommy was doing the same in the next category up,

which was Ford 2000.

He won the two major championships.

There's a British Championship

and there's a European Championship,

and he blitzed them both.

Ayrton would come along and do the exact same thing

one year later.

It's unusual that you get

two talents of that caliber come along at the same time.

They don't normally come along like that.

And that was... was a problem for both of them.

Senna's nickname was "Fast Man"

because Ralph would talk about,

"There's a fast guy coming from Brazil."

That's what pissed me off,

because they should have been talking about...

I was a fast man, too.

You know?

I don't think I got the same respect that...

the guys with the money got,

because, you know,

people can smell when you're broke.

They just... they just know it, you know.

They just smell it, and they know.

And they just want to fuck with you,

and want to treat you a little bit different.

But nobody messes with people with money.

You're just... you're coming over,

you're paying, you better do like you're asked.

How much money do you need

to find every year?

Well, in '81, I would say

around £20,000, £30,000,

which is always very difficult to get,

even with good results,

wins and, you know, records,

it's very difficult to get sponsorship.

It caused

particular resentment from Ayrton Senna,

who was bringing significant backing

to Van Diemen,

that Tommy was just hopping from one free drive to the next,

and just sort of skipping up the ladder,

seemingly for free.

Senna didn't like the way I conducted myself.

'Cause we were driving for the same team.

He was doing everything right.

I was cocky, he was arrogant.

That was his personality.

He must have had long weeks.

at least I was out having fun during my week waiting to race.

Oh we didn't hit each other, until...

The festival, when I drove his car.

After that, that's when it went wrong.

We move to Brands Hatch

for the most important Formula Ford event

anywhere in the world.

The Marlboro Formula Ford Festival

and Formula Ford World Cup.

Before the festival,

Senna announced he was retiring from motor racing

and he was going to go back home to Brazil.

And that was it.

He said he was disenchanted with a sport,

that required drivers to pay,

and I'm sure

Tommy getting his drives for free

initiated that niggle in him.

Ralph at Van Diemen was left in a bit of a spot.

He needed,

for the good of the company, to win that festival.

So he called Tommy up and said,

"Can you come and win the festival for me?"

And Tommy being Tommy, said, "Yeah, 'course I can."

And did... in Ayrton's own car.

I won 100 bottles of champagne,

and I got...

50 of them from Ralph after arguing with him,

I tried to tell him I needed 100 because I won them.

He says, "It's my car." I say, "It's my win."

So we ended up with 50 each,

and I did exactly what I wanted to do.

I wanted to spray the shit everywhere

and just waste it... and that's we did.

And drank as much as we needed to get drunk.

That created an opportunity

for Tommy to progress to Formula 3,

that he probably wouldn't have got otherwise.

An opportunity that Senna was originally going to have.

So Ayrton had inadvertently

created an opportunity for Tommy

that actually hurt Ayrton,

because it spoiled his plans for doing F3

the following season.

After the festival,

I was still living up in Norfolk at the time,

and Senna's car

was sitting there from the year before,

after he left it there.

And my car would get punctured every now and then.

So instead of fixing the puncture,

I'd just take my wheel off my car

and swap it with Senna's car that was sitting there.

I guess he came back in 1982.

He wasn't supposed to come back, he was supposed to retire.

But he came back and he just burst in there,

and started screaming at me for stealing his wheels.

"You fucking Irish thief," and screaming and shouting,

and I'm screaming and shouting back at him.

We didn't come to blows

because somebody came in and stopped it,

but he was very, very angry.

If Senna didn't go home, my career would have been done.

Two championships, I probably wouldn't have got Formula 3.

So I just got lucky, I guess.

That's the racing car show,

back in the day when everyone smoked everywhere.

[chuckle]

Looked a little young there, huh?

That's when you had teeth, too.

Except they're not chipped!

Quite a lot of new teeth over the years.

"Tommy's gone to lunch, back at two."

Wow, I was actually signing some stuff.

Actually looks like I was famous.

That's me there. There you are.

Where's that, Tip Top?

Well yeah, but we were buying our beer

from the Crystal bar next door

-cos it was about a third of the price. -Ah really?

-Do you remember that? -No.

That's one I thought you would have wanted to keep.

Wow, Formula Ford Festival, Brands Hatch, 1981, first place.

When did I give you that?

Well you didn't give it to me,

you asked me to look after it indefinitely.

Somebody's been keeping it nice and polished.

Not like some of my other friends I give them to.

Did you not go in all the way

in the English game and Irish racing game

when somebody wins, it's like,

"Fuck, yeah he might be fast, but he's a bollocks."

Were you thinking that?

I hadn't formed an opinion, that would have been stupid

because I had never met you, but...

the preconceived opinion that a lot of people had

because of... people talking, racing, obviously,

was that you were a really cocky,

up-yourself twat.

Yep, exactly.

But we got on straight away.

Exactly, because you're exactly the same!

[laughing]

Why thank you.

Years later, I did think to myself,

"Maybe I should have kept some of those important trophies.

And maybe I should have kept some of the helmets,

just for my kids, if nothing else, you know."

But thanks Stuart, that's great,

at least it's good to see it, it brings back memories.

Oh, shit Stuart, look there.

That's my old car. Holy smoke.

-Hey, guys, what's up? -Haven't seen that for a while.

Hey, Tom, how's it going, buddy?

-Nice to meet you. -How long have you had that?

I think we've had it four years now.

You got my name on it. Look at that.

[vibrant music]

I think I had a nicest seat.

It's, ah... Yeah, it's, ah... I'm probably a...

couple of pounds heavier than you were back in the day.

Back in the day,

I was like Mick Jagger, I was like tiny!

Formula 3 would be the last step,

at the time, before Formula 1.

It was where the F1 team owners and team sponsors

were all looking for the next talent.

Oh, that's truth, I'm looking forward to this.

[revving]

My thought in 1982 was,

because I was struggling for money,

"I need to just blitz these guys.

I need to beat them so bad that...

it's not just good enough winning the race,

I need to win by a mile,

so it'll be easy to get the money

to get into Formula 1."

Winning just wasn't good enough.

I had to show them how great I was.

[exhilarating music]

Tommy Byrne knows this race is his now.

Tommy Byrne wins the Marlboro Formula Ford...

So that's what he did, he dominated the early races.

This man heading for a 33-point lead in the championship.

Tommy stepped up with Murray Taylor,

who was running a Formula 3 Team at the time,

and this was a category in which

the budgets were much higher.

For someone in Tommy's circumstances,

the prize money for winning each race

would fund the following race.

So he absolutely had to win those early races.

Literally, the prize money was

keeping the team's head above the water.

That's an unusually intense degree of pressure.

The fact that Tommy kept winning

and leading the championship

really gave Murray Taylor no option

but to keep supporting him,

finding the money from somewhere

to get the car back to the race track

for the next weekend.

Everybody was running round looking for money,

but we never got any money.

Yeah, a couple of grand here and there.

But Murray got some money from Shell,

and then he got some from General Electric.

Murray, so many different times, says,

"Tom, we can't move,

we can't go on from here, we need to get money."

[revving]

Now, when I was going round Dundalk,

getting £200 off somebody,

and £300 off somebody for Tommy to go racing,

those figures were going from a few hundred quid

to the level, eventually,

where he was being asked for 100,000, 200,000.

Then reality started to kick in.

When Murray Taylor was trying to keep that

championship challenge going,

he had the idea he could get

Ron Dennis at McLaren

to underwrite the cost of the Formula 3 season

in exchange for first call on Tommy's future services.

You would speculate

McLaren would probably have found

Tommy's raw speed and potential,

vast potential... irresistible.

Ron wanted to know about my father, where he worked,

where my mom worked, which I thought was kind of strange,

because I didn't really see what that had to do with anything.

I told him my dad who worked in a factory for 40 years,

and he got a watch at the end of it.

Hopefully I won't have a watch

at the end of what I'm going to do in my life.

I just remember at the end I asked him,

"Does McLaren have any money to help me out at all?"

And Ron goes, "Well Tommy...

all our money is tied up in R & D at the moment."

I said, "What's R & D?"

And he just looked at me like I was an idiot.

And so that kind of, you know...

was pretty embarrassing for me.

I mean, I wasn't a dick to him,

I just came across as pretty uneducated.

And cocky, probably a little bit, too.

Although Tommy had all the prerequisite...

qualities you need in the car,

his... rough edges were the opposite

of what Ron Dennis was looking for.

That wouldn't have been an overwhelming problem,

had it not been for the fact that Ayrton Senna was...

also on the radar as well.

Tommy couldn't control his destiny

in the way Ayrton could.

He didn't have the background to dictate his own path.

[mellow music]

Unlike other drivers, his friends

put together the pennies,

not the pounds, to facilitate

his onward step.

But...

and as that entourage grew,

some of it attracted probably unsavory elements.

Businessmen,

people from all sorts of hazy backgrounds

were intoxicated by the world that Tommy was in.

They latched onto Tommy

and Tommy enjoyed their company and so the...

the racing world can get a bit sniffy

about that sort of thing as well.

He was hustling, he was doing it in the car on his talent,

and out of the car he was just taking...

help from wherever he could find it.

He was attracted to London

and, I suppose, the nightlife, parties,

pubs... drinking.

You know, it's the age old story:

it's very easy to get sucked into that direction

and still believe

that you're doing the right thing for your career

in racing, because

why should they be connected?

But they are.

Yeah, I had a bunch of friends,

just plenty action all the time.

You know, I could stay nearly anywhere I wanted to,

with anybody, I was single.

Because I was the life of the party.

It was either that or don't race.

He was out partying

with the people who were helping him pay

for some of his expenses.

So he felt he didn't have a choice

but to play with these people as they were playing.

They were enabling the drugs

and the alcohol, and he knew it wasn't helping,

but it was the only thing he could do to get to the next race,

pay the rent,

buy his next cup of coffee, perhaps.

He was winning well in the first part of the '82 season

and then it all started going wrong

when the team took on a paying driver

to help pay the bills

and they'd given Tommy's old car to the paid driver.

Murray gave me a different car.

I never even came close to winning a race after that.

Six races in a row that I just was nowhere.

So, of course, their answer to the whole thing was:

"Tommy's lost it."

And they'd just think: "Oh, Tommy, yeah,

you must had a beer last night,

mustn't be feeling too good today."

That's not the way it was.

Then the team were not listening to me, that was...

Then the pressure was getting pretty big for me.

That was...

everything was stepping away there.

He realized that "I'm going to be back home

unless I succeed in this sport"

and I think when a driver has that

in the background, realizing:

"Listen if you don't cut it this weekend

this could be your last."

That's a very strong motivating force.

I was still leading the championship

but why should Murray Taylor

even continue to run me anymore

if I'm not going to win the Championship?

Cos the only thing he's getting out of it is winning the champ--

he had to win the championship.

to be able to continue and show that he's a great team.

So it went on and on and then it came to a head.

I said, "Listen, I'm leaving unless I get a different car."

And I quit the team with nothing to fall back on.

And Murray did call me back and,

eventually, I got a new chassis.

I fought back.

Some drivers are fucked, they can't fight back,

cos they actually...

start believing what these guys are telling them, you know?

You start thinking, "Well, maybe they're right."

That was never a problem for me. I never had to think that.

They must have hated me.

But...

I went to Brands Hatch and absolutely back to normal again.

Pole position and just took off and nobody even came close to me.

Tommy Byrne leading into Paddock for the first time.

I think Brundle was in second place.

All the heavy hitters, the Formula 1 guys were there,

so this was the one - every Formula 3 driver

wants to win the British Grand Prix.

You've got this feeling that everyone is watching you.

So this is the one opportunity you have each year

to go out there and get the job done and again

Tommy under enormous pressure not only won the race,

I mean, just took off and left everyone in his dust.

And I didn't just win the race. I won it by a lot.

I needed that win.

I needed it to happen at that time, which it did.

It was one of my best performances ever I would say.

The bottom line is if a driver can...

win races for you,

you want to have that driver in your team.

And in spite of his own,

what I would call "ill discipline,"

Tommy was winning races.

By winning that race, and to win it that well,

by over 20 seconds,

created a lot of interest in Formula 1.

That's not quite as...

That was fun. That was a laugh.

There was one team in particular

that... took an interest,

and that was Theodore.

[somber music]

They wanted me to drive in Formula 1.

For the last six races of the year.

There are usually 10 to 12 teams

on the grid in the world.

If you get an opportunity

to show your talent, you take it.

So I signed it,

I remember asking for 40,000 the first year,

200,000 the second year and half a million the third year

and Theodore, just laughed at me and basically gave me nothing,

just expenses.

Just over four years

since coming over from Ireland with nothing,

and now in a Grand Prix.

Which is an amazing feat.

That's how far he had come,

and that was all down to Tommy and his talent, nothing else.

That he could do that

without any funding, virtually,

except the pocket money from fans and friends,

that could nearly tell you everything you needed to know

about Tommy's talent.

[music intensifies]

I was excited. Very excited.

But it all went to shit fairly quick.

The car was a piece of shit.

I wasn't the only driver that said that.

The other two drivers before me couldn't qualify it.

Nobody qualified the car. I qualified it,

I think twice out of five times.

I tried to qualify for Dijon, did not, Hockenheim, did not,

was just a couple of tenths off, Monza, same thing.

[racing cars revving]

Well, when I qualified for a race in Austria

I was the last person to get in the car

because I was starting last.

And I really...

I just wasn't impressed at starting last.

I mean, I know I should have said

I've been looking forward to this for so long.

I was kind of looking forward to it, but...

maybe somewhere up the grid, in a better car.

So...

I just wasn't... as excited as some people might have been.

It was nothing fun. I didn't...

like the whole situation.

Nobody spoke to me in Formula 1.

Niki Lauda said hello

and Nelson Piquet said hi, that was it.

Keke Rosberg used to come up and hit me on the head every now and then

cos I got in his way or something, just a complete dick.

For three years I won everything. Everything!

And I had everybody behind me to help me win.

Now I get in a Formula 1 car and I am last.

Not only am I last, when I speak to the team manager

he tells me that if Keke Rosberg was in my car he'd be first.

Any suggestion I give the team, they didn't listen to me at all.

Motor racing is a hard tough environment

and you need a pretty tough skin.

Sometimes Tommy's skin was a little bit thin

when he sensed there was any

disrespect of his ability or his level.

[somber music resumes]

For the first time, my ability was being questioned

by these guys.

I was 14th quickest on the Friday practice.

I thought I might have heard something pop or something at the end.

I wasn't too sure but I did mention to one of the guys,

that I, you know, "maybe could you just check on something?"

Then I did qualifying and I qualified last.

The Theodore guys, their answer was,

they brought Jackie Stewart up

and sent him over to me to tell me how to drive around the track.

Instead of listening to what I said early on that

I think I might have heard something pop or something,

obviously something happened.

I was pissed.

Can you imagine somebody...

coming up to Senna and telling him how to drive,

how to take a line round the track?

But I was as nice as could be.

I did go back to Jo Ramirez and said,

"Don't you ever fucking send somebody over to me

to tell me how to drive again."

What happened to Tommy in his younger years

informed him to behave in a certain way.

When he ran in Formula Ford 2000,

he had a bad car

and he had to really work with the team

and he had to put it to the team,

"I'm not driving for you, are you changing the car?"

And they changed the car

and he became British champion and European champion.

He then went into Formula 3

and a similar situation happened.

The car was not performing well.

And he put it to them, "it's not me, it's the car,

you gotta change the car."

But what he didn't realize is that

you can't use those same techniques,

you cannot bludgeon an F1 team into submitting your way.

Tommy clearly didn't see that.

The team manager,

he pissed me off so bad.

First off,

actually I did talk to somebody about getting him bumped off

early on after the first couple of races.

Maybe I wasn't serious about it

but I actually did talk to one of my friends

in London who kind of, possibly, could have done something.

It was just driving home one day having a couple of beers,

going, "I wish the fucking guy was gone."

That's how I was thinking at the time.

So at the end of the year

in Vegas I had a few drinks after the race and

probably not a good idea either, but...

we were up at Caesar's Palace in the room

and I was fucking pissed at him,

he was still yapping on, about, you know,

just always, he was just this...

It was just a bad time for me.

So I told him to go stick it up his ass

and threw a chair at him and just, you know

stormed out of there, and that was it.

So I was done. Even though...

I was probably done anyway. But I didn't get fired.

I just left.

I did have a three-year contract.

I'd rather not be doing Formula 1

than doing it like that.

Especially if you haven't got a car that moves forward.

Basically, you're just hanging on there

to see how many cars drop out.

But I knew I had something. I knew I had a talent

and I could have taken that talent to another team.

But he came back from Las Vegas,

from the Grand Prix there,

to try to win his Formula 3 Championship,

and the prize for winning that Championship

was a Formula 1 test with McLaren.

He felt that it could be the make-or-break opportunity

of getting into Formula 1 and a top team.

You know, that was my chance

to drive one of the winning cars in Formula 1.

But first I just needed to win the championship.

Just how important is it winning

the Marlboro Formula 3 Championship

series to you in 1982?

Well, I don't think anyone is going to give up very easy,

especially not me,

not after coming all this way.

And you must remember, I think everyone seems to have forgot

that I did miss four races out of it.

That's how close it is.

First, second, and third. One, two, three.

Mansilla, Scott, Byrne.

Into and out of the chicane together.

I had to finish in front of Quique Mansilla

to win the Championship.

Dave's car, every time I got alongside him,

he just run into me and put me on the grass.

And he did that sometimes three times per lap.

In different areas.

And nobody did anything about it.

If I did that, black flag and brought into the pits,

end of story.

But for some reason they let it go.

...probably to get out of the car and walk sharply away...

And then the number one guy was not even getting away

so I still knew there was a chance,

I just had to get by him

and I still could win the race.

...Scott has got the inside line, they're banging wheels,

as they go into the straight,

Tommy Byrne he's waving him aside.

"Move over," he's saying, "let me through."

"Not likely," says Dave Scott,

"I'm second and I'm staying there."

And, ooh...

Dave Scott locked up his rear wheel.

Where is Tommy Byrne? I thought that would happen. He's gone through.

This is it. This is the last lap.

These are the two championship leaders,

Quique Mansilla leads the race and the Championship.

But now Byrne goes through... Magnificent!

And within half a lap after I passed the other guy,

I was two seconds a lap quicker on the last lap.

So they were holding me up that much.

We won the Championship with a very small budget.

So it was huge deal. Big, big deal.

Now I'm going to get to drive for McLaren.

[sighing]

We've got VHS's.

This one?

That was probably the most important day of my racing career.

That's the day I tested the McLaren.

It was a race-winning Formula 1 car.

It would be like driving a Mercedes today

for a young rookie.

So it was huge. It was just a big, big day.

Right there I was shitting myself.

That particular time, right there,

I definitely was getting worried about the whole thing and all.

Could I do it?

It's expensive to run a Formula 1 car.

It always has been, always will be,

so when a team puts a car on track for the day

they are serious about it.

It's costing them a huge amount of money.

They're risking their car with a young driver

that he is not going to stick it in the wall.

The spotlight's on you. There are no excuses.

It is a fast, competitive, well proven car from a top team.

You've got to show your mettle.

[revving loudly]

[dramatic music]

The car was just...

Unbelievable!

It was so easy to drive and just so fast.

And I was only just getting started.

The footage of that test shows a car

being driven beautifully

on the limit, using every inch of track.

He's turning in sharply and aggressively but...

absolutely right on the edge of the car's limits.

That's what the stopwatch confirmed.

Tommy's times

were quicker than the drivers at the time,

who were John Watson, a multiple Formula 1 winner,

and three-times world champion Niki Lauda.

Now, it just doesn't get any better than that.

You know, he could have gone faster than God!

He had just done that!

He'd gone faster than Niki Lauda.

But what was impressive was he jumped into a car

which he had never seen before he did the test,

did a phenomenal lap time.

I did a time that would have put me on the front row

of the British Grand Prix

and with my other car I was last.

The fact I did a 110.1

three times in a row,

which is pretty impossible to do, I'd say that's...

really consistent,

certainly people would've been talking about it.

Certainly!

He did a 110.1. I couldn't believe it.

I was there.

Now, his next job was not to post a better time,

his next job was to make sure

that everything around that 10.1 was amazing.

But that wasn't Tommy.

I wasn't there in the immediate aftermath

of when he got out of the cockpit

and who was listening to him, what he said to the team.

But I think a story went around that

he said "if they can go faster than that

they can take their cucumber sandwiches

and stick them up their arse" or something, so...

that sounds about right.

Tommy insists he never said it.

But, of course, I didn't say any of that.

But at this stage the rumor mill was going with "Tommy, you can..."

I only had to open my mouth

and somebody would just add what they wanted onto it.

He did all he had to do from within the cockpit.

That is all he was required to do.

He passed with A-star.

But... it is the out of the car performance

that, you know, sealed Tommy's fate.

The management of McLaren

wiped their hands off him.

[soft wistful music]

His cocky nature didn't quite sit well

with a very...

English-minded set-up of Ron Dennis and McLaren,

which was ultra-corporate, ultra-professional.

He was far too big a risk.

Autosport comes out Thursday morning

and the Motoring News comes out Wednesday night

and I looked at it and it was like, basically

a couple of words in one of the magazines

and the other one said "Byrne, fast but too cocky."

I went, "Shit."

For once I didn't say a word!

So that was a bit of a let-down, you know?

I wasn't expecting it, actually.

Ron Dennis' quotes played down

the level of Tommy's performance

and he felt that just confirmed

that he was never going to get an opportunity from Ron Dennis.

He felt that he had blown his chance.

And everything was hanging on that in his mind,

and when it didn't happen,

he just threw himself to the wind.

That was it.

I think at that level,

Tommy really wasn't one of them.

He did not fit!

He did not fit.

And I would say an awful lot of it down to...

where he and we started off.

Going from Dundalk to over there,

and working his way through.

He wasn't of the cut

of some of the more sophisticated people.

And the Formula 1 men, you know

it's a small, small group of people

and I think they closed the book on him.

The word was put around,

"Keep him out of here, we don't need him."

I tried hard

for four or five years to get to Formula 1 and I did.

But after that was all over

and then obviously the drinking,

then, you know...

the drugs got a little bit more

and I did some serious partying.

And I ended up taking enough to kill a buffalo, you know?

I went out with a photographer friend of mine

the night before the test

and he gave me a bunch of this white powder stuff,

cocaine that he had.

I'm going to an awards show, now would be a good time to...

do it again.

So I snorted up two lines,

and an hour later, another two lines, just two big huge lines.

And another two lines later on.

Still only twelve o'clock in the day.

[tense music]

As I got closer to the awards, I had to take a few more lines

just to get the same kind of hit that I had earlier on.

And it's like... I'm wired.

I'm just all over the place. I'm just...

And then I just had to keep taking more and more.

And then when I got to the table

sitting around I'm just talking to everybody.

So after, I think I picked up a bunch of prizes,

I can't snort any more of that cocaine because...

my nose is hurting so bad.

So I went to my friend Stuart,

"Hey, I got a bunch of this cocaine stuff,

I can't take it anymore, do you want it?"

Stuart comes back and he says,

"That's not cocaine, that's speed."

I went, "Well, you know, speed, cocaine...

It's the same difference, isn't it?"

He goes, "No, not really..."

At this stage, it's too late, I got so much in my system.

It's three or four o'clock in the morning, I drove back to the house

where I got the stuff in the first place.

He said,

"I hope you didn't take much of that stuff, did you?"

I went,

"Yes, yes, a lot actually.

Like half of it."

"Oh, Jesus Christ,

I just took a tiny bit of it and I was up for two days."

So, he put me in his room.

There was nothing happening, there's no sleep coming,

my heart was just racing.

I just lay there.

I lay there, I lay there, for three fucking days.

And depressed. Very, very depressed

It's like it's... My life was over.

I'm lucky to be alive, I guess.

I mean, I was just going through life like...

there was no tomorrow.

Yeah, don't worry about it.

We'll have you come in, we'll talk about it,

We'll take a look and figure it out.

You're doing fine.

Tenth and twelfth those guys are.

I got a few ideas.

The good news is

you got a bunch of time right there.

-Step on it, yeah. -The bad news is...

You made a couple of big mistakes.

Just... If you can just hit a couple of these marks,

-there's a lot of time. -Yeah.

I think the next time might have been a bit cleaner.

Okay, well, actually you hit it there,

and that's a miss,

and that's middle of the road.

So right there, there's nearly half a second.

-Yeah. -You know?

I'm a professional driver coach,

I can tell them how to act, obviously,

and I can tell them where to be on the track.

I can't do it for them.

It's up to them then to take that information and go out

and change it on the track and use it.

So, good news and bad news.

If you can fix all that...

-That's all good news to me. -God knows, yeah, I mean...

But can you remember it?

-Yeah. Okay. -You'll be able to remember?

You're not going to get pissed off when I tell you?

No, I'm not a sensitive guy.

Drinking? Is that why you're losing?

[melodic music]

European racing is today or nothing.

Americans seem to be...

I hate to say this about Americans,

but generally Americans are all about the second chance.

So here I am in America in 1985,

starting a whole new career again at the bottom.

He's still got no money when he went to America.

He is still scratching about,

but he is a gun for hire, so he gets opportunities.

He still thought he would probably end up making

his millions in motor racing somehow.

This time I wasn't quite as serious,

so, maybe a little bit more partying.

Actually, I started to enjoy racing a little bit.

The feeder series to IndyCar,

Indy Lights, or ARS, as it was initially called,

Tommy did very well and he wasn't in the best cars,

wasn't in the best teams.

He takes pretty much any opportunity that anybody offers him

and he makes good use of them and he does well.

In turn number 11, his final pass through here,

this is the man who is going to win the race,

Tommy Byrne charges the line and takes the checkered flag.

It's going to be fun.

I'm used to that.

Tommy enjoyed the American adventure and...

the parties and the lifestyle.

I won a bunch of races hung over in America.

It was just a matter of, you know,

just... having a bit of fun

and winning some races at the same time.

He just hung it out there,

and wasn't afraid to tell you what he thought.

And, guess what? That is what I liked

about Tommy from the very first day.

There's wasn't a lot of guys who were earning money,

maybe two or three others in ARS/Indy Lights Championship,

so Tommy was, you know,

knocking down a nice bit of coin each year.

I didn't get it.

I thought it was a big mistake.

I think he should have stayed in Europe.

For me, there is no way you can come from there

and go back to Formula 1.

You know, if you are good enough,

and if you are fast enough, and certainly Tommy was,

a little window of opportunity will always open.

It always does.

By the time Ayrton Senna left Lotus,

he actually put a word in

to the Lotus boss, Peter Warr,

that he should look at Tommy,

but Tommy's exploits in America didn't even register.

Eddie Jordan kind of half convinced me

that there was a chance of me still getting into a Formula 1 car.

I think we talked to one team, Tyrrell,

and I think they wanted a couple of million pounds,

so, I mean, it just wasn't going to happen.

I went over and back to Tommy a lot in America.

He would enjoy himself. He would...

talk about the dreams that he still would have,

and his dreams now...

After Tommy didn't make it in Formula 1,

his dreams went into other things.

Different things that he would say,

"I am going to do in life."

This is my old house.

Got married and I bought this '87.

When I came back from racing, this was my haven.

I loved it.

Well...

This place hasn't changed much!

Fifteen years, huh?

Last time I was here.

Spent a lot of good years here, ten good years.

You know?

Kind of sad. Sad and happy.

Or happy and sad. Yeah, look at that tiki hut.

They are under there.

[child laughing]

[nostalgic music]

[mimicking revving]

[laughing]

This is my home. My kids...

grew up here, on the lake.

They learned how to swim here.

These guys would run around naked.

It was just, it was perfect.

It represents what I always wanted in America.

When I was doing really well,

we had parties here, down here on the beach,

and this was the life.

I just went racing and came back to this.

It was...

It can't get much better. It was brilliant.

In America, I only made half the effort.

Half my effort was okay.

You always think you're going to get $1 million,

there's still always a chance, you know.

I was only one deal away from the big time.

Are we ever going to see Tommy Byrne in an IndyCar in the near future?

I hope so.

I'd like to get into an IndyCar and maybe do well,

rather than just get into a car

just to say, "Hi, I drive IndyCars."

I'd like to do well, it would be nice to get into a good IndyCar team.

If you think about any category

of major motor sports in the world today,

you have IndyCar, 24 seats,

you have Formula 1, 22 seats right now.

Sports car racing, eight to ten seats.

The total amount of that is less than 50 drives available globally

at any point in time, no matter what generation it is.

That's not very many.

These people have been lining up for the last two hours

to get an autograph from these drivers.

These guys have to do what they're told

to a certain extent for the sponsors.

You're going to piss off somebody

if you try to be your own personality,

so, basically it's all fake.

There's only a small number of teams

in IndyCar that have the finance

to take on a driver,

and Tommy would have come with a name.

Other young kids in America that were coming through

were dedicating their life to it,

but for Tommy, it was something he did at the weekend.

Not from Monday morning at eight o'clock when you got up,

"How do I be a better racing driver?"

That was a question he probably didn't ask himself, ever.

I can't do this alone, this is not...

Tommy was always running at the front, he'd always win

two, three, four races a year.

Tommy was always a factor every weekend,

but winning the Championship would have been

the leap that he needed to get into IndyCar.

I've been gloved within an hour,

we'll know who the new ARS champion is.

In the three years I did full-time ARS was '87, '88 and '89,

and I was going into the last race every time

with a chance of winning the Championship.

Tommy Byrne is really Mr. ARS.

He's run every year of ARS

and he has done just about everything that you can do.

He knows he has a chance

to really go and win the Championship,

he's been trying for it for four years.

I was leading the race,

the last race of the year in California,

and I was driving the shit out of it.

But this is the battle that's been joined

since the drop of the green flag.

Gary, something has happened directly behind you.

It looks as if one car has gone off the course out of turn number 11.

John, does it involve Byrne, maybe?

I think something's wrong with Byrne.

I don't know how Arthur Abrahams got over on that part of the...

Oh, Tommy Byrne has nowhere to go.

Arthur Abrahams...

And your thoughts at that point

when you realized you were about to lose the Championship?

I don't think I can say it on TV.

Oh, bleep! [laughing]

So that day I lost the Championship

and $80,000

and the Triple Crown, and... I lost a lot,

and the chance to get into IndyCars.

You know... So I lost it all in one day.

It just wasn't to be.

I don't think we ever had a conversation

that just said, "Hey, where are we going here?"

Is this our life?

Are we going to be able to maintain our position in motor racing?

I think...

I think I realized it a little bit sooner than Tommy,

I mean, he was able, through his results,

to keep the ball rolling a little bit longer.

I kind of peeled off the track a little bit before Tommy did.

...right on level.

I should have stopped, you know, in '89 and got a job.

It just wasn't to be. And at that stage now, '90, '91,

I do a couple of half-assed races

and when I was lapped by my team-mate,

Vince Neil from Motley Crue,

I knew it was kind of all over at that point.

And then, that was it.

Probably started drinking a little bit too much at that stage

and smoking the pot.

I would say at the end, I was just worn down at that stage.

Things weren't going too good at home,

you know, with my wife. It's like...

...in his room. Taylor!

There was some issues, you know. I was coming to the end.

And it was just... always hanging over your head, you know.

And no money whatsoever. Hadn't got a pot to piss in.

So I had to do something.

You had different categories across the globe,

you would have Formula 1 at the epicenter

of world motorsport.

You'd have IndyCar in America

and then as you come down the ladder

to the different categories that you would parachute out to,

and you'd then drop down to another level

and then another level,

and then somewhere below all those levels

was racing in Mexico.

[complex music]

I got a phone call from Alberto Lozano, my team owner.

He kind of invited me down

and he ended up giving me $2,000 a race

and the full mini bar and all expenses.

So, I mean, I was making decent money.

Took a very dark turn in Mexico

because the sort of characters

that were able to fund Tommy's racing were...

unusual.

I was only in Mexico.

The first visit, I met this guy, Orchio.

But I would just mention to Orchio that

if we had an Italian engine,

I think we could win that next race.

So then, he would go to my team owner

and buy the $30,000 engine.

So he put a lot of money into the team that way.

Don't ask where the money came from and...

don't ask about the lifestyle around it,

but Tommy had to fit in with that in order to...

continue getting drives,

which he happily did

until it got too crazy even for Tommy.

Pretty good.

Mexico was just a total mess.

It was just partying and whores.

That's all Mexico was.

But he wasn't paying for whores, I can assure you.

Somebody else was.

It was very, very crazy.

It was a lot of drinking down there,

a lot of partying down there.

Just lots of it.

And they're very wealthy.

I just went along with it. What I was supposed to do?

There was a room

that you nearly could not get into

because of boxes of beer in the house,

all got to do with his sponsorship.

The guy was living an oblivious life at that point.

Where he thought he should be

was world champion, and here he was,

he was stuck in a rut with a drug baron in Mexico,

not really a nice place to be.

His contemporaries, who he'd completely blown away,

were now F1 drivers, earning vast fortunes.

So that would have hurt and that kept the wounds alive.

I can't think of a driver that was at Tommy's level

that's ever ended up

on the margins of racing like that.

He fell probably further than anybody's fallen.

Probably could have stayed in Mexico longer,

except Orchio had his...

We had a bunch of girls in the house

and next thing is we hear gunshots upstairs.

And then Orchio comes to the top of the stairway,

completely naked,

and he's got a gun in his hand.

And I'm going, "Jesus, Orchio, ¿qué pasa?

You crazy..." He goes...

[gunshot] And he shoots at me and missed.

And the girls are running down the stairway, naked,

tits are flying everywhere.

And they're running past me, "Tommy, help me, help me!

He's loco ! Very loco !"

And that was, "To hell with this."

I turned round back in the room and locked the door.

That's when I left and I didn't go back.

And then Alberto called me two weeks later

and he said that Orchio was dead.

Yeah... He drowned in his swimming pool.

[somber music]

When I came back from Mexico,

it was over, I didn't race again.

Most of your life's behind you

and it didn't work out the way it should have.

There's no more racing, there's no more winning

and then our relationship was gone to shit.

We were done.

And then, it all fell apart... here.

People get fed up, you're complaining,

you're calling people, boo-hoo.

You know, lost my wife, she left me, and..

People really don't care, you know,

I was one of those boo-hoo type guys.

Well, I did all the begging.

I did use all that stuff, "Please come back,"

you know... da-da-da-da-dah

That didn't work.

I didn't have the kids for a while

because they were with their mum, and it was hard.

Just lying there on the couch with my beer

and you'd look over and they weren't there anyone.

That was probably the worst part for me.

I went out to visit him

and he was living in a caravan beside a lake,

and he didn't want me to come with him

'cos he didn't want me to see what he was doing

and he was gathering ferns, he was working as a laborer.

I just couldn't get going,

I just couldn't get going. It was easier to drink and smoke pot

and do my work out in the woods

than it was to, you know,

to go back

looking for racing jobs, go back on the road.

He says to me,

"You probably think I'm a failure.

You probably think I'm a terrible failure." And I said, "Tommy,

we've all got things

that haven't worked out for us in our lives,

the dice might not have rolled well.

But everybody respects the talent you have,

everybody respects what you've done,

and more than that, it's you that you like,

not the fact that you drove a bloody Formula 1 car."

[thundering]

He was very low.

I don't know how he really got himself back together.

I just really don't know.

[thundering continues]

I was losing my kids, you know.

Even though in the end I ended up

getting custody of the kids,

but it was rough.

It was nothing...

That's when I needed some stability, job-wise.

[somber music continues]

When I started working with him,

here at the Mid Ohio Sports Car course at the school,

he was still a pretty bitter guy.

It was hard for him to still kind of admit

that his racing career is over.

And maybe Tommy coming into that group of guys

who were so comfortable with saying,

"Yeah, we used to do that,"

it kind of let him realize that the past was the past.

And I think that in and of itself

added stability to Tommy's life, and it...

It's probably not too far out to say it...

it could have saved his life.

In '94, when I started working with Ohio,

sometimes I would do...

I think I did 120 days one year

and then I was starting to do some

little bit coaching on the side.

The thing was that, in '94, '95, things were getting better

and the house was gone, renting and stuff,

so things were, for sure, picking up.

And then, of course, I met Michelle.

And that was my old girlfriend of mine from '84.

I met her again and then things obviously got

a lot better with her.

The boys were there, growing up, it was kind of cool.

In 1998, we met again, and...

he was more serious, Tommy, still joked around.

But there was an underlying seriousness,

maybe a sadness.

But I don't think that that sadness

is following him around now.

I'll wear it tonight.

As time went on, I think he started realizing

maybe how he should have handled his career,

what he should have done.

But I think he's able to let that go.

But you know what?

I personally don't think he's ever going to get away from it.

But the racing is part of him.

It will always be part of him.

I don't think he can ever...

He cannot box it up

and put it away like memorabilia.

It's part of him.

A lot of people think I'm a millionaire.

Aren't you a millionaire?

No. Not really.

I'm just giving an example of...

what it's like sometimes being sort of a superstar.

But I don't think I am alone.

Yet.

[complex music]

It's very easy to be critical

of the things around Tommy

that didn't give Tommy what he needed,

You have to ask you a question.

Did he not wanted that badly?

Did he give up everything for it?

Sometimes you just have to play the game.

I often ask, "Did Tommy ever play the game well enough?"

I did chase.

I just didn't chase their way.

I had my way of doing it.

Every day I thought about getting to the next level,

every fucking day.

I just did it a different way.

I do know one thing.

Nobody gives a shit.

I was pissed off too long.

I'm worn out, it's time to move on,

because I'm not pissed off anymore.

I met a lot of people on my way and I made a lot of friends.

It hasn't been a terrible life.

I just lost out on about $100 million.

That's all.