Tyler Alexander: A Life and Times with McLaren

Well, what an amazing, thoughtful portrait of the career of Tyler Alexander. I worked with Tyler (and a lot of other very talented guys) in the 80’s at Mayer Motor racing. Although Tyler’s talents were above and beyond in racing his greatest benefit to me (and I suspect many others) was being a mentor in how to live my life with great work ethics and integrity, which I hope I have passed on to my children. It’s true Tyler seemed to have no ego - he was the same to everyone and had a calming presence in all situations, which is more than I can say about Teddy.

I should note that I have had the pleasure of briefly meeting Tyler Alexander at the Indianapolis airport on a Monday morning following the 2007 or 2008 Grand Prix. Many of the McLaren team members were lined up to check into coach class. There were recognizable by their uniform clean cut appearance and their Hugo Boss made travel uniforms and luggage. I had bought my daughter the "Mac and Lauren" book set written by Lisa Dennis, the now ex-wife of McLaren CEO Ron Dennis. In one of the books, there was a spread-page overhead view of a pitstop and I suggested to my daughter that she ask the McLaren guys for autographs on that page. In the stratospheric world of F1, where contact between fans and the team is difficult at best (the Ferrari team had their own private departure lounge) the first man my daughter approached squatted down to get eye level with her and explained that he did the left front wheel and he autographed just over the wheel. He then got all of his buddies to autograph their spots too. One man, a data engineer, asked if he could draw on the book, to show the data port. Then he got his boss, Tyler Alexander, who was standing in the First Class line to come over and autograph it too. That was a very special thing for them to do.Tyler Alexander's book is thick and heavy, printed on high quality paper with great photographs, many by Tyler Alexander himself. The book is a linear history of his life in racing, from the SCCA to Can-Am, F1 and Indycars. Alexander was involved at the very start of McLaren's (the man and the team) history, and it is here that he provides us with the most amount of detail and the most color.Alexander is a man of many talents and is driven to do his best all of the time. He describes the all-nighters required to rebuild a racecar or diagnose a gearbox issue. He takes us with him on the incredible travels required to run races in both the US, Europe and Australia and New Zealand - often in a very short period of time. He takes us also into the tragedy that occurred all too often in racing in the 60s and 70s. The death of Timmy Mayer, which lead to his involvement with McLaren, and many of his friends along the way, Bruce McLaren, Peter Revson and Ayrton Senna included.Alexander changed with the times - from doing whatever needed doing, from sweeping up to welding to machining to making himself an early adopter and expert in data engineering. He ran McLaren's "Battle Stations" - the huge complex of servers required to analyze the data from the car's telemetry.As a Formula 1 fan for more than 40 years, I eagerly read the book and it was fascinating to learn the background on some of the events that I remember watching on TV. The only reason I didn't give the book the full five stars is that Mr. Alexander gives his impressions of several key players pretty short shrift. I know he still attends races and I suspect he'd like to hold on to his FIA credentials, so we don't get a lot of information about his relationship with Ron Dennis or Bernie Eccelstone. We do know that he doesn't care much for Ferrari or for Michael Schumacher (for good reason).I will say that if you are a fan of Formula 1 and/or McLaren, this is a book you must add to your library.

Outstanding insiders view of the international racing world. Mr. Alexander is truly an example of the dedication and effort required to be successful in the top echelons of auto racing. Very enjoyable read! I had the pleasure of meeting Tyler, in 1967 at Daytona, when I was a member of the Shelby American crew, and Bruce McLaren was driving one of our cars in the 24 hour race.Mark Popov-Dadiani

This book give great insight into and lifts the curtain about the McLaren racing machine. Tyler Alexander is one of the few Americans to have an extended career in F-1. The book gives detailed accounts of several seasons in different, top level, racing series. I have found it a quite enjoyable read.

Only disappointment is I'll never be able to get it autographed now :-(It was a gift for a good friend who shares a passion for racing and it might be one of the best gifts I have ever able to give someone!Enjoy it.

GOOD BOOK THAT DETAILS THE INSIDE WORKINGS OF FORMULA 1 AND INDYCAR RACE TEAMS

I eagerly awaited this book, pre-ordering it when announced. While it was more (pagination-wise) than expected, it was less content-wise. His memoirs of the early, formative days of Team McLaren (1960's-70's) was lacking, whether from memory or absence I don't know. At their peak (1967-70) they were involved in F1, F2, Can-Am and F5000 but he only spent about 7-8 pages for each year, discussing only F1 and Can-Am for the most part. For the '80's-2000's, when they were only in F1, he spends about DOUBLE the number of pages (about 14) for each year, years that were well covered from a media standpoint (TV, print, internet). The early period had an almost total lack of media coverage here in the US and that's what I hoped to glean from his book. And if you were looking for more if his great period photography here, you'll have to buy his previous photo book; he uses mostly stock photos here. Throughout the book there are sidebars from his acquaintances which, although complimentary, don't really tell all that much about the man, in my opinion. There's more about hotels, eateries and points of interest he experienced in his travels than engineering details about all the cars he was involved with, which to me was another disappointment. And there was a picture of Kimi in his McLaren driving suit, captioned as taken in 2007, when he won the championship driving for FERRARI. And this book lacked a good editor, as the text was a bit rambly. As I said, OK but a disappointment as well.

I so looked forward to A LIFE AND TIME WITH McLAREN. Wow, a tome from an under represented American racing insider, a career covered both sides of the Atlantic. From Who Possesses Much, Much Is Expected was my expectation. I will say whatever Tyler has, he earned them the old fashion way-the hard way with much sacrifices, but I was looking to revelations and clarities in the mode of Ermanno Cuoghi, John Wyer, and Steve Matchett. While Tyler the Man has much to be admired, A LIFE AND TIME WITH McLAREN lacks meats and flavors, and reads like a resume of Tyler's career. A case of A Man Who knew Too Much is Saying Too Little.