TOMMY BYRNE: “I DON’T KNOW WHERE MY DRIVING TALENT CAME FROM”
Motorsport of course is not short on tales of great ability not getting its deserved outcomes due to circumstance. But surely none of these tales are as extreme as Tommy Byrne’s. And extreme in more than one sense.
The ‘greatest racing driver you never saw’ strapline from his autobiography is apt. A working-class child of Dundalk in Ireland, who did not even get started in a racing car until the age of 18, discovered he had a driving knack that observers, without hyperbole, ranked with the top echelon such as his near-contemporary Ayrton Senna.
Just like Senna, Byrne bagged junior titles routinely, displaying Senna-like self-assurance along the way. However, unlike Senna, Byrne’s trajectory faltered just as he reached Formula 1 in 1982, with a dead-end F1 seat with Theodore, a cringeworthy meeting with McLaren boss Ron Dennis, and then an end-of-season McLaren test at Silverstone, which has become enveloped in myth and legend. Whatever did go on that day, one thing beyond dispute was that Byrne armed with top-level equipment was fast. But no opportunities followed.
Byrne’s trajectory then took a madcap turn, with drugs, a move to America where he distinguished himself in Indy Lights, then a spell in Mexico in the 1990s where things got truly surreal...
Even with all this though, for some time Byrne’s tale seemed lost to history. That was until first an autobiography, ‘Crashed and Byrned’ written with Mark Hughes, then a film based on the book reignited interest in Byrne’s story.
These days he’s a racing instructor of renown at the Mid-Ohio school in the States, and getting considerable enjoyment from it. He took some time out – including from moving house – to answer Motorsport News readers’ many questions. Byrne these days does admit at least one thing he’d do differently if he had his time again, but we discovered a man without an ounce of self pity.
Question: When racing in Mondello Park in FF1600 was there any other driver you felt was as good as you with the ability to go to F1?
Daithi MacAmionn Via Facebook
Tommy Byrne: “I’m pretty sure I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time. You mean in Ireland? I don’t know. You know to be honest I just wasn’t even thinking about that, I was only thinking about myself.
“After 15 laps I thought I was the best ever”
Tommy Byrne
“When I drove the car in Mondello in 1976, I did Mondello school for 15 laps, my plan was going to America as a welder since I was 15 years of age, that was my goal. I was a mechanic, and that’s what I loved to do, I was always going to be a mechanic. And then, 18 years of age I went to Mondello and drove the school car for I think it was 15 laps, and then when I went home that day for some reason in my mind I just thought I was the best driver ever and I decided then instead of going to America for welding I’d just become a racing driver.
“I had no idea, I didn’t know anybody in it, in 1976 I
