Grand Prix: Formula One in the deadly years - Paperback

by Richard Melville (Author)

Grand Prix: Formula One in the deadly years is the story of a Formula One motor-racing driver in the deadly years of the 1970s. In what could have been his last season, William Archer is confronted with problems largely of his own making, causing infighting in his team, while overextending himself financially and emotionally. He had agreed to buy and develop an island off the coast of Central America, which he could ill afford, and where he runs into the murky world of Central American politics. He has never won a Formula One World Championship, although he has come close many times. He is a risk-taker, always going for the win, rather than playing the odds, like lesser men. He fights to win in his last season, and deep down knows that if he doesn't stop, his odds of surviving are at best two out of three; while realising that if he does win, the financial enticements for the next season could be too much to turn down. His refuge is his boat Imperialist, a one hundred foot ketch on which he spends as much time as possible. After years of one woman after another, he finally meets someone whom he can neither take nor leave. The author shares his experiences, through Will Archer, of driving single-seater racing cars, crossing oceans in yachts, flying planes, and developing property in Central America, accurately putting the reader in the driver's seat of all three, while affording him an insider's view of Central America, the good, the bad, and the ugly