Star Rating:

Crash and Burn

Director: Sean O'Cualain

Actors: Tommy Byrne

Release Date: Friday 2nd December 2016

Genre(s): Documentary

Running time: 86 minutes

This documentary on the so-close-but-yet-so-far career of Drogheda-born race car driver Tommy Byrne takes the viewer from Byrne's early days driving banged up Mini Coopers in local races to Formula One, a feat he managed in just under four years. But just as he "came within fingertips of the pinnacle", Tommy's wave broke and rolled back. Never one to play the game or keep his thoughts to himself, Tommy's abrasive attitude tended to rub the suits up the wrong way, even almost coming to blows with teammate Ayrton Senna.

"A little bastard," is how a local remembers a young Byrne tearing up and down the Drogheda streets. "Wild", "unorthodox" and "he may have just gone too far" are other theories (from Eddie Jordan, Martin Brundle and more) as to why Tommy's career stalled just as it was destined for glory. Tommy, who frankly admits that he wasn't the nicest guy to get along with, reckons it was down to his reluctance to do what was expected: "I got beat by the system," he says but the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. After the fall from grace it was off to America before a brief stint racing in lower echelons in Mexico for corrupt gangsters brought his once promising career to an undignified end.

Not just content into dipping into Byrne's personality and tracing the trajectory of his career, Crash and Burn (thankfully no terrible pun in the title) is also a fascinating insight into the world of low level racing. It's up to the driver to acquire the sponsorship, which then funds the team, but such was Tommy's raw talent that owner Van Diemen, who took a punt on the young Byrne, allowed him to race without garnering sponsorship (another thorny issue for Senna, who felt Byrne was getting a free ride). With the prize money from one race pumped back into the team to fund another race, it was important for Byrne to not only win every race but to "blitz them" and impress potential sponsors. When not on the track, Byrne was in the bar, hitting on as many women as he was drinking pints.

Cutting from archive footage of his races (home videos shot by friends and family document the risks he took on some of those corners) to animated sequences (the Mexican scenarios are strange) to interviews with him today (he's largely based in America training young drivers), Crash and Burn finds today's Byrne happier but still aggrieved to have been cheated out of what he feels was millions. The acerbic nature is still there, scolding a pal for not taking better care of his trophies stashed in the attic.