When computers first began to be used in schools, I was a teacher and attended courses and seminars on the bright future we had in store. Not only did most of the predictions come true, but they hardly scratched the surface. There was one widely-touted theory, however, which I thought was nonsense; it was that, before long, we would not have books, but would read from a hand-held machine. Nothing can replace a good book and Phil Kerr's autobiography, To Finish First, demonstrates why.

It is a pleasure to hold in the hand and just to leaf through. The selection of illustrations (240 spread over 385 pages) is stunning and the level of reproduction is superb. Michael Turner, a long-time friend, has contributed not only paintings, but also photographs to supplement Phil's own collection.

The other thing which sets this book apart from the Internet is the amount of unique information in context and with perspective. The Internet is great for delivering facts and opinions, but we not only use it in a different way to a book, we read it in a different way.

Phil is a New Zealander who formed a close friendship with Bruce McLaren when they were both teenagers and racing against each other. Phil was a pretty useful driver, but he realised that Bruce was the real thing. Jack Brabham took a shine to them when he arrived to race in New Zealand and there has never been a more canny operator than Jack.

Bruce came to Britain on a driver scholarship in 1958 and Phil joined him a year later - it took three days flying. Jack found him work to do and, barely out of his teens, Phil was charged with converting a warehouse into Jack's new enterprise, a car dealership.

Phil tells this as though it were the most natural thing imaginable for someone so young to be to be given such responsibility by a World Champion. The strength of this book is that it's like sitting in a pub with a really interesting guy. It took me ages to read because it was to be sipped, not gulped. It was bed-time reading, though it was useless at inducing sleep.

Being associated with Jack meant Phil spent a lot of time at Cooper. He shared a flat with Bruce and accompanied him on trips to Europe. Phil has the ability to put the reader in a particular time and place, his observations are acute, his memory sharp and he has wonderful personal stories to tell, like the fact that Denny Hulme refused to wear shoes until an incident involving a heavy object and Denny's feet.

He was with Jack in the final days at Cooper and then with him at the beginning of Jack's partnership with Ron Tauranac, the early days of Motor Racing Developments (which marketed cars called 'Brabham') and the Brabham Racing Organisation, which was Jack's team. The only year that Jack drove works Brabhams was 1970; until then BRO bought cars from MRD, they were private entries. Jack actually had to wait in line for a new model because MRD operated a policy of first come, first served.

His friendship with Bruce was enduring and when McLaren set up his own organisation, it was not long before Kerr joined and he became joint Managing Director, with Teddy Meyer, until Marlboro engineered the takeover by Ron Dennis. The story covers Can-Am, the Indianapolis 500, Bruce's death, World Championships with Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt, and the arrival of Bernie. For more than twenty years, Phil was at the heart of motor racing.

This is not a history book, it is the personal account of a man who lived through interesting times. We tend to think of McLaren, Hulme and Amon when looking at the contribution New Zealand made to motor racing, but Kiwis were everywhere. When Phil arrived in England, New Zealand had three million people and sixty million sheep. He and Bruce were among the first.

A few years ago, I was in the Drivers' Centre at a Goodwood Revival Meeting and stopped to chat with Rob Wilson. We were joined by Howden Ganley and then in walked Eoin Young and Michael Clarke. I was on my home patch and was out-numbered four to one by Kiwis.

Many youngsters from Australia and New Zealand came to Britain as 'OE', Overseas Experience. Alan Jones financed his racing by converting a large Victorian house and packing them in with B&B. There were streets in London where VW Caravanettes were for sale. They started in the Mother Country, bought a used Caravanette to do Europe, returned to London and sold it. To get a job at Brabham or McLaren, you said, 'G'day. g'donya.'

Kiwis, in particular, were fine mechanics, they had to be. In New Zealand you could hold a driving licence aged 15. Spare parts were heavily taxed and and there wasn't a dealership around every corner. Besides, if you said 'customer service' at a British car factory, they would escort you from the premises for talking dirty.