Meet Marc 'Elvis' Priestley: the former number-one McLaren mechanic, and the brains behind some of Formula One's greatest ever drivers. Revealing the most outrageous secrets and fiercest rivalries, The Mechanic follows Priestley as he travels the world working in the high-octane atmosphere of the F1 pit lane. While the spotlight is most often on the superstar drivers, the mechanics are the guys who make every World Champion, and any mistakes can have critical consequences. However, these highly skilled engineers don't just fine-tune machinery and crunch data through high-spec computers. These boys can seriously let their hair down. Whether it's partying on luxury yachts or gravity-defying photos aboard aeroplanes, this is a world which thrills on and off the track. This is Formula One, but not like you've seen it before.

Expanded to include the behind-the-scenes story of the 34th America’s Cup and Team USA’s incredible comeback Down eight-to-one in the 34th America’s Cup in September 2013, Oracle Team USA pulled off a comeback for the ages, with eight straight wins against Emirates Team New Zealand. Julian Guthrie’s The Billionaire and the Mechanic tells the incredible story of how a car mechanic and one of the world’s richest men teamed up to win the world’s greatest race. With a lengthy new section on the 34th America’s Cup, Guthrie also shows how they did it again. The America’s Cup, first awarded in 1851, is the oldest trophy in international sports. In 2000, Larry Ellison, co-founder and billionaire CEO of Oracle Corporation, decided to run for the prize and found an unlikely partner in Norbert Bajurin, a car mechanic and Commodore of the blue-collar Golden Gate Yacht Club. After unsuccessful runs for the Cup in 2003 and 2007, they won for the first time in 2010. With unparalleled access to Ellison and his team, Guthrie takes readers inside the building process of these astonishing boats and the lives of the athletes who race them and throws readers into exhilarating races from Australia to Valencia.

The first of three volumes chronicles the globe-trotting adventures and exploits of Maggie, her best friend and occasional lover Hopey, and their companions, Peggy Century, her weirdo mentor Izzy, aging wrestler Rena Titanon, and Maggie's new love interest, Rand Race. Original.

John Tyler finally built the life he wanted. But his past casts a long shadow. Eight years retired from the army, Tyler manages his PTSD and begins a job as a classic car mechanic. He’s a single dad to Lexi, who’s about to enter college. Life is looking up. Then, everything comes crashing down. Tyler’s former commanding officer is out of prison and hellbent on revenge. Their mutual hatred has been simmering for years. When it finally boils over, everyone and everything in Tyler’s life is threatened. He wanted to be a father and a mechanic. To save himself and his daughter, he’ll need to use the deadly skills he thought he left behind. Can Tyler stop a monster without becoming one himself? The Mechanic is the first gripping novel in the John Tyler series. It’s perfect for readers who like action thrillers with a little humor and a little heart.

A fascinating insider's look at life behind-the-scenes at Formula One. 'An essential read' AUTOSPORT 'A must for the real inside story' FORMULA 1 RACING 'Recommended for anyone interested in F1 on the inside' MOTORING NEWS Formula One Grand Prix mechanic Steve Matchett takes the reader on a compelling journey through his life in the pit-lane, from his beginnings as a young apprentice, through his time at Ferrari and BMW to his later success with Benetton. He gives eye-witness views of the great drivers, including Michael Schumacher, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. He also talks of key Benetton personalities, and explains how the team was transformed into a strong, competitive organisation, winning three World Championships. His determination and frustration in trying - and eventually succeeding - to break into the high-pressure world of Formula One leaps off the page.

A senior editor at Mother Jones dives into the lives of the extremely rich, showing the fascinating, otherworldly realm they inhabit—and the insidious ways this realm harms us all. Have you ever fantasized about being ridiculously wealthy? Probably. Striking it rich is among the most resilient of American fantasies, surviving war and peace, expansions and recessions, economic meltdowns and global pandemics. We dream of the jackpot, the big exit, the life-altering payday, in whatever form that takes. (Americans spent $81 billion on lottery tickets in 2019, more than the GDPs of most nations.) We would escape “essential” day jobs and cramped living spaces, bury our debts, buy that sweet spread, and bail out struggling friends and relations. But rarely do we follow the fantasy to its conclusion—to ponder the social, psychological, and societal downsides of great affluence and the fact that so few possess it. What is it actually like to be blessed with riches in an era of plagues, political rancor, and near-Dickensian economic differences? How mind-boggling are the opportunities and access, how problematic the downsides? Does the experience differ depending on whether the money is earned or unearned, where it comes from, and whether you are male or female, white or black? Finally, how does our collective lust for affluence, and our stubborn belief in social mobility, explain how we got to the point where forty percent of Americans have literally no wealth at all? These are all questions that Jackpot sets out to explore. The result of deep reporting and dozens of interviews with fortunate citizens—company founders and executives, superstar coders, investors, inheritors, lottery winners, lobbyists, lawmakers, academics, sports agents, wealth and philanthropy professionals, concierges, luxury realtors, Bentley dealers, and even a woman who trains billionaires’ nannies in physical combat, Jackpot is a compassionate, character-rich, perversely humorous, and ultimately troubling journey into the American wealth fantasy and where it has taken us.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841 edition. Excerpt: ...Cornish engines the piston waits at the top until this is nearly done, and then moves so very slowly as never to feel any uncondensed steam beneath it. In rotative engines the rapidity of action renders this impossible. I shall enter more fully into these questions in my next. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Scalfel. February 18,1841. STEAM COOPERAGE. Our attention having been recently attracted by the statements that have appeared of the extraordinary advantages secured by a new patent for the manufacture of staves, shingles, laths, and for wood-cutting in general, we were induced to pay a visit to the works at the Square Shot-tower, Waterloo-bridge, on Monday last. The machinery which we then saw at work appeared to us fully to authorise the expectations of the patentee Captain W. H. Taylor. The process is so simple, and at the same time so effectual, that it must cause an entire revovolution in the trades affected by the invention. The wood, having been cut from the solid timber, by means of circular saws, into blocks of the requisite length and breadth, is first steamed for the purpose of softening and seasoning. The waste steam of the engine is used for this purpose. It is then cut into leaves of the required thickness with extraordinary rapidity by one or other of two sets of machines adapted for this purpose; the one being a species of iron plane working in a vertical direction, the other a large disc, containing two cutters, and performing from 100 to 150 revolutions per minute. Messrs. Bramah and Robinson have just completed a giant machine of this kind, being a disc of thirteen feet in diameter, intended for cutting hogshead staves. Such is the dynamical excellence of the mechanical arrangements, that at the expense of but two...