My association with Team Lotus covered the period from October 1975 until May 1984. After the second season, and particularly after we lost Ronnie, I had started to get on with other parts of my life. I was still involved with Team Lotus on a race-to-race basis, depending on my availability and their needs, and sort of became a super-lurker, meaning I’d be taken care of with food and lodging when I was at the racetrack because I knew the program, I was part of it, but I pretty much had to pay my own way to get there.

At the beginning of the ’81 season, South Africa had been cancelled due to the potential breakup between FOCA and FISA, so Long Beach became the first event of that year. The race was scheduled for March 15, but on the Sunday before, I’m in my flat in Long Beach,and out of the blue I get a phone call from Lotus team manager Peter Collins telling me to go rent a box truck because “we have a pickup to make and I’ll give you the particulars when it’s all set up.” I asked what size, and he said “big enough to put a racecar in.” So I said OK, and Monday I went, with my own money, and rented a two-axle truck that didn’t require a commercial license.

After I got the truck I was told to go collect the car Monday night at LAX. Team Lotus had pre-cleared the car with customs and identified me as the person to sign for and collect the car. The car was on an aluminum pallet and they simply took a big forklift, lifted up the pallet and we were able to roll the car directly into the back of the truck. I took some 4×4 blocks and nailed them right to the truck’s wooden floor to hold the car in place as there was no provision for tying it down inside the truck. I peeked at it, of course, and it was a strange looking car, with the driver sitting way forward as they were doing then, and I thought: “Golly WOW, what are all these little springs?”

So that night the car was sitting in the truck, in front of my apartment, and nobody knew what was inside. During the day on Tuesday I tied it down better and early Wednesday morning I drove out to Riverside, getting there so early that nobody was there yet, not even security, so I just drove in unobstructed to the garage area. I was met there by Peter Collins, Nigel Stepney, Peter Wright and a South African mechanic named Geoff Hardacre. Our first problem was getting the car out of the truck, because we didn’t have any ramps. So we wandered around the garage area and found an old-style hydraulic car hoist at the end of one of the rows of garages. We took the truck over, raised up the lift gate and then put boards on the hoist and rolled the car onto the boards. Here’s a million-dollar racecar precariously hanging with its rear wheels on a hydraulic lift and its front wheels on the lift gate of a box truck.

So, with somebody on every corner, all hands on deck, we lowered it, and to our shocked amazement got it down onto the ground and were able to roll it off the lift and into one of the garage stalls to begin prepping it to run. Shortly after we pushed it out to the pit wall our driver, Elio de Angelis, arrived. Peter Collins and Peter Wright made a reconnaissance lap of the track in their rental car to see if it was clear. When they came back in Elio went out and started knocking off laps, coming in to discuss everything since this was the very first time the car had run, other than a brief shakedown at Hethel, in the UK, for a leak test and to see if the wheels stayed on.

Although they didn’t necessarily articulate it, I don’t think they fully understood what they were trying to do with the car, but they did know it wasn’t fast. It had issues. They played around with front cambers, toe-ins, trying different castor-camber adjustments trying to get the car to turn in and have some front bite. Sometimes it would push and others we would get snap oversteer.

We tested all day, and Elio wasn’t all that happy with the car. It was not quick, it was difficult to drive, and if it had ultimately been approved to race, gone through scrutineering and all, and attempted to qualify and race, it would have been pretty much of an embarrassment. We tested all day and then I was tasked with taking it up to Laguna Seca for the next day. I drove all night to get there, and was met by Bob Dance and Colin Chapman, who had flown in to Northern California. We tested all day. I was not privy to the discussions among the engineers during or after the runs, but you could tell they were not pleased with the performance. These two tests were the first time the car had turned a wheel in anger, so it was all new car sorting-out and the team was confident they could sort it out.

We packed up at the end of Thursday and Bob Dance and I drove down to Long Beach overnight, down Linden Ave. into the circuit and the garage area, and parked with a bunch of other trucks. The car was in the truck, but not in the arena where the other two cars were being prepped. We were then told to go get the car, and by then we’d made some ramps and organized a way to get it out of the truck without all the drama.

Once it was in the arena, we put fences around it and had it all covered up. Nobody was supposed to see the car, but since all the other teams were also in the arena we couldn’t really hide it from the other participants. When we took it over to scrutineering everybody immediately started gawking at it and cringing and moaning, having seen what it was. Initially, it was approved by the scrutineers on Friday, but then during Saturday’s first session it was black-flagged and we were told it wouldn’t be allowed to run, with no reason ever given.

Chapman’s press conference that afternoon was disjointed because he was so angry and filled with frustration and angst. He was one of F1’s guiding lights — with Ken Tyrrell, FrankWilliams, Bernie Ecclestone and others — a mover and a shaker who was making Formula One what Formula One was, and now to have the entire circus turn on him, that was his biggest frustration. He understood Ferrari, but not the English teams.

Elio and Nigel (Mansell) went ahead and qualified the older Lotus 81, which was very heavy and hadn’t been further developed because Team Lotus thought we were going to have a new car. They were the backups just to get the season started. Although Chapman left the circuit Saturday afternoon, took in a Lakers game and caught a flight to Washington so he could take the Concorde home — missing a GP for the first time in 20-some years. He appealed the disqualification and ACCUS agreed, so he decided to send the car to Brazil.

Two weeks later we were in Brazil, and we thought we were going to be able to run it. Once more we got a tech sticker, but the strangest thing for me—and Chapman too, I guess—was that here’s a car that was technically approved by FISA, yet local scrutineers had the power to allow it to run or not. So who’s in charge? A contemporary report notes that a protest was lodged by the other teams over the car’s legality, although they did not specify what was wrong. Then the scrutineers came back and what they did was to deflate a tire to simulate a tire going down as there was a rule saying the car could not touch the ground with a driver aboard. They went out of their way to make it touch the ground and eventually it did, so we were banned.

Another two weeks passed and we were in Argentina. Even though sponsor David Theime of Essex had his high-dollar Monaco lawyers there threatening lawsuits and everything, by that time everyone was ready to ban the car outright, and it became apparent we were not going to be allowed to run. Chapman left early again.

By that time, he was exhausted, extremely frustrated and very, very bitter. He could not believe his colleagues had done that. Of course, we all learned later their worry was that — like all of Chapman’s innovations and breakthroughs, the Lotus 25, 49, 72, 78 and 79 — everyone else would have to follow suit and take a season and a half to catch up. The worry was, of course, if this twin-chassis car was quick, or even close to being quick, everyone else would have to go in that direction, so let’s just ban it. The same thing had happened with the Lotus turbine at Indy.

When I first saw the 88, I couldn’t believe it. It looked like a space ship! It had a composite chassis with Kevlar weave. Even though John Barnard’s McLaren MP4/1 gets credit for being the first composite chassis, this was slightly before that. I had not seen a composite car. It was all very space age. The bodywork was all one long piece, if the nose were damaged, there was no nose cone you could easily replace, the whole bodywork would have had to be replaced. The sides were just like honeycomb fences. Sadly, the Lotus 88 never gets the credit for its innovation because it never turned a wheel in anger during qualifying or a Grand Prix

Personally, I wanted to see the car have its day in the sun.

As told to John Zimmermann

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This was going to be an important year for me. My win at Oulton Park, in Richard Attwood’s Cooper, had impressed the MRP gang and for 1963 I was offered a full season with them in a brand-new car. The team had done a deal with Lola boss Eric Broadley to race his factory Formula Juniors, and the new Lola Mk5A was a very nice little car, maybe not quite as good as the Brabham BT6 that Denny Hulme, Frank Gardner and Paul Hawkins all drove, but certainly promising. Our cars gave about 102–103 bhp, a really good engine maybe 105 bhp.

One of MRP’s existing drivers, David Baker, a successful businessman who was a good bit older than the rest of us, decided to hang up his helmet to become the team manager, so I took over his seat in effect, and received payment of £25 a race. There was a bit of a catch, however, as all the hangers-on at MRP were major fans of Richard Attwood and that became increasingly apparent as the year unfolded.

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Jim Crawford would have turned 70 this year. After a brief stint in Formula One with Lotus he rebuilt his career in America during the 1980s. Following a devastating crash at Indianapolis, Jim made a fairytale comeback. He died aged just 54, but the good natured and courageous Scotsman is still fondly remembered.

Mike Peers (Team Manager and sponsor)

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Our Pepsi Challenger Eagle from 1981 was sort of unique. It didn’t owe anything to Europe, it was developed right here in California. It had our own brand of aerodynamics. It had a stock block Chevrolet—essentially a sprint car engine we had done a bit of development on. It was designed by John Ward and had some aerodynamic elements that Trevor Harris kind of got us started on. It was just a very successful car. In fact, it was successful enough that it sort of ticked off the establishment in CART and they changed the rules to get rid of it.

Everyone was calling their car’s downforce “ground-effects,” and we didn’t want to call ours ground-effects because it was so different, so we called ours BLAT, the BLAT effect. They said, “What’s that?” I said, well, it’s called Boundary Layer Adhesion Technology. So we had some fun, tongue-in-cheek, in those days, in addition to being able to embarrass the conventional cars.

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Growing up as young lad near the metropolitan borough of Wolverhampton, a city in the West Midlands of England, I was interested in cars from an early age. Indeed, my father had a couple of garage dealerships, one with Ford and the other with BMC, or British Leyland as it was to become. A local motor racing hero of mine was Peter Collins who came from nearby Kidderminster, and I was also a big fan of Mike Hawthorn and Stirling Moss too—all great British drivers. Of course, tragedy struck with Peter losing his life at the Nürburgring and Mike died just a few months later following a car accident on the Guildford bypass. Mike Hawthorn was the first British World Champion, some 60 years ago now—how time passes. With the loss of these two great heroes, I was left with Stirling Moss to follow, who has become a truly unique ambassador for motor racing the world over, despite not winning a Grand Prix World Championship. I made and kept a scrapbook of his racing career, which in later life I was able to get signed by him.

Upon leaving school, I did a “sandwich course” of study in automobile engineering, which consisted of half the course work being classroom based and the other half practical “hands on” experience in the workshop—hence the term sandwich course. As I grew older, I became aware of other racing drivers around my home, and of the Midland Racing Partnership (MRP). MRP was formed in 1961 as a racing team with five drivers, each with a new Formula Junior Cooper T56. The drivers were Richard Attwood, David Baker, Bill Bradley, Jeremy Cottrell and Alan Evans. Over the years the team grew, developed and matured, through Formula Junior and into the new 1000-cc Formula Two. In 1965, my father spoke to David Baker and asked if there were any vacancies for a young mechanic or “gofer” within MRP—my father and David having met through rallying in the early 1950s with the MG Car Club. I began working for the team part way through 1965 in my spare time, evenings and weekends, and gained some valuable experience. By the time I’d started to work for the team, Richard Attwood was the main driver, David Baker was the team manager, and the other partners stayed more in the background. Bill Bradley did the accounts but raced with David Prophet, Alan Evans worked for the family tool business, “Britool,” but I never met Jeremy Cottrell.

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When the sports car scene started to heat up again in ’65-’66, I went to work for Motorsport Design in Connecticut, and we built a McLaren M6A for John Cannon. After that I was hooked on the Can-Am so I moved back to California, when I became Peter Revson’s mechanic for the T70 that he drove for Dana Chevrolet. In ’68, Dana Chevrolet quit racing, so I went to work for Carl Haas. By the end of ’68, however, Haas decided that he was only going to run one car the following year, so he let me go. Fortunately for me, Skip Scott introduced me to a guy named Ernie Cansburg, who was the grandson of Henry Ford—interesting guy—and Ernie agreed to provide a Formula 5000 car for Skip. So I went to work for Ernie, but Skip was supposed to be getting sponsorship to run the car, but couldn’t manage to raise the money. As a result, Ernie decided not to run in F5000 and he asked me what to do, and I thought, “Oh my God, I’m out of work again.” So I said, “Well, you know, you told me you have always wanted to have your own car, why don’t we build a Can-Am car?” because by then I figured I knew what I was doing. I had some good ideas about aerodynamics, and I had a fantastic grasp of the obvious, so I said, “I think I can design you a car, for the Can-Am, and we’ll put your name on it. And we’ll get a GP driver and a sponsor.” I approached Goodyear, since by then I had a good relationship with Goodyear, and they said that they’d put the money out. So I designed and built the Ti22. We started designing the car in May ’69, and by September we had it running. We got Jackie Oliver to drive it. Our first race was Laguna Seca, and while we started from the back of the grid because of some teething problems we ran as high as 7th, and finished 13th.

Really, there were two reasons for doing the Ti22. One of them was…I had discovered some of the ground-effect stuff, the aerodynamic stuff that was going on, and realized you could not have a floppy chassis. You have to have very high torsional rigidity. All of the cars that I worked on previous to that had suspension problems because of torsional weakness in the chassis. So I decided I was going to make the strongest, lightest car that I could, and Skip Scott knew the president of the Titanium Metal Corporation of America so he introduced me to him. And they agreed to fabricate some of the bulkheads and give us titanium and stuff for the parts. And it absolutely worked like crazy. The chassis tub for the Ti22 was so stiff—we tried to twist it by putting on fixtures at the suspension pickup points—and we got it to 10,000 pounds and it did not bend any part of a degree, which was far stronger than anything else at the time.

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One of the big, I can say semi-disappointments in my life was a race I had with Ken Miles at Laguna Seca in, I want to say, 1967. Anyway, we both were to race matching Porsche 906s. Ken had just come back from that controversial Le Mans finish thing that he was involved in with Ford and was going to run the second car at Laguna with me. I’d been running ’em all along and had quite a bit more experience in them, not that that really made a whole lot of difference in my opinion, because I know from my standpoint I was always able to adapt to cars rather quickly and I’m sure Ken did too. But, in any event, I was a little concerned about this event since he was a sort of mentor to me and this was going to be the first time the two of us ever raced each other in the same car.

So I went to our team owner, Otto Zipper, and asked him about it and he brought us both together and said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. There’s no rule as to who’s going to win or finish ahead of the other, but if you can’t do it cleanly, don’t do it and whoever’s ahead is ahead and that’s it.”

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My racing started during the spring of 1962 at the Goodwood racing circuit, I was racing a Lotus Elite. I went on to drive an Elan and then a Ferrari 250LM with Peter Clarke. It was in the Ferrari that I did my first Daytona 24 Hours. I shared the drive with Peter and the American driver Bob Hurt. We did reasonably well finishing in 13th place. From 1967 onward, I became associated with Bob Curl and the Nomad project, the first race was the Anerley Trophy at Crystal Palace in May 1967, where the car appeared unpainted, straight from Williams & Pritchard who made the body in aluminum.

The Nomad project could be described as the “madness” that some people have. I loved racing and to do it in my own car seemed logical, at that time. It all came about after I’d met Bob Curl. Chas Beatty looked after my Elan, he worked for the Chequered Flag, in the arches at Ravenscourt Park, Chiswick. One day, Bob came into the workshop with a model of a sports racing car—just a fiberglass puck, about a foot long. I commented that it looked very nice and Bob said he was looking for someone to build it, and the whole story went from there. I think that was the first significant time we ever met. I went forward with the project with Bob, there was no elaborate showing off, or indeed great financial structure—funds were very limited and everyone had to work extremely hard to bring the car to fruition. The easiest bit of all was the driving, the most tiring parts are the all-nighters fixing something in readiness to qualify, or race. Getting into the car was the most relaxing part of the whole thing, no matter where you were on the grid.

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Frank Falkner got me into racing way back when, he was my mentor who lived in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and was the father of my school friend. So, I think I knew Frank from when I was around 10 years old. To give him his proper title, it’s Professor Frank Falkner M.D., one of the world’s leading pediatricians. Originally from England, he was also a long time Formula One fan. When I was around 15 years old Frank moved first to Washington and then on to Berkeley. Like most teenagers, I had a battle with my parents, dropped out of school and moved to New York. A while after I moved, my parents contacted Frank and asked him if he could visit me, have a talk and generally get me back on the right track. I met with Frank and, over a beer, I told him I wanted to go racing. At this point, you have to bear in mind I’d never been to a race, never seen a race, but I’d read many of Frank’s Autocourse and Automobile Year books. Frank was also well known to many Grand Prix drivers, his best friend was Bruce McLaren, he’d raced Formula Junior, he was Cooper’s representative when the Cooper/Brabham project came to Indianapolis and he was an independent member of ACCUS (Automobile Competition Committee of the United States), so you can see he was very well connected in racing. Although reticent at first, Frank eventually said he’d try and help me achieve my dream.

Frank called his good friends, Ken Tyrrell and Jackie Stewart and they both suggested I go to the UK and visit the Jim Russell Driving School at Snetterton. Jackie Stewart had said to Frank, “Let’s find out if the lad has any talent,” which was absolutely correct. Today, when people ask me how to get started in motor racing, I tell them to go to a school and see if they have any talent, or aptitude, for racing. The caveats being if Jim Russell said I didn’t have any talent, I’d return home and finish my schooling—that was a lot of motivation. To be honest, the first time I sat down in the car it was everything I wanted to do in life.

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My fourth win at Indy was the best for a lot of reasons. The first will always have its place because of being the first, but having won on my second attempt, I didn’t appreciate what it was going to take to do it and how fortunate we were to win it that early. As I grew a little older and got a little wiser, I was able to appreciate the whole history of the Speedway more.

Then the way the race itself all came out was textbook. My normal game plan, from Day 1, never really changed. It’s the same whether it’s a 50-lap race or a 200-lap race. I spend the first half getting to the second half. Then, if we’re not where we need to be, the second half is getting to where we need to be.

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Today, I believe, drivers are arriving in Formula One far too early in their racing career. The top echelon of our sport is something they should aspire to, not arrive at due to the amount of money they can give a Formula One team, or by spending one year in one formula and moving to the next the following year, successful or not. I had a plan to my racing career. I wanted to be successful at a lower formula—for me that was Formula Renault. If I was successful I could move to Formula Three, from there to Formula Two, and so on, until I eventually got to Formula One. If I found that a particular formula was too difficult for me then I would stay until I was more confident and successful. I wanted to move gradually, step by step, rather than the giant leaps they seem to take today.

I consider myself very lucky to have started as a mechanic for my great friend Jean-Pierre Jabouille. He was and remains one of my best and closest friends. We met at school, we were about 14 years old, and our lives have been intertwined, in one way or another, from then on. He was racing and I had nothing to do, my studying was not too good. I wanted to do something to help him. I did not know much about cars or mechanics but Jean-Pierre taught me very good about how to look after a racing car. The first car we had was a Renault 8 Gordini, then a Brabham, followed by a Matra. The Gordini we used to hillclimb. I followed him for about a year and thought that motor racing was a really good life. I also thought that perhaps, one day, I would like to try racing too. I had a few lessons at the famous Winfield Racing School.

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I was approached by Theodore after the ’82 British Grand Prix. I’d begun the season not even knowing if I was going to make it to F3, and here I was being offered an F1 drive—for three years, starting the next weekend. It sounds good on paper doesn’t it? But no one was deluding themselves that this was a top drive; it wasn’t. Everyone who had driven the Theodore that year had struggled in it; it was miles off the pace of the serious teams’ cars, but it was an opportunity I might not get again.

I was unsure of what to do and asked a lot of people whose opinion I respected. Most said I had to go for it. John McCambridge was one of the few who said I shouldn’t, that being down the wrong end of the grid might hurt my reputation.

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I first drove what was to become Graham Hill’s 1966 American Red Ball Special Indy winner at the Brickyard, in a test organized by George Bignotti, during the latter months of 1965. George was the very distinguished chief mechanic who, I believe, holds the record of seven Indy 500 winners. He had a long association with Bowes and that is why he was with John Mecom in 1966. I was due to compete in the 1966 500-mile race, but in September 1965, Mosport intervened where I had my massive accident when a front wishbone broke while I was testing my Lola T70 Can-Am car. The accident put my whole immediate racing program in doubt. I had to focus on being fit for the main team I was contracted to, Ferrari and their racing campaigns. My fight to get fit to race for Ferrari had to exclude my appearance at the 1966 Indy 500. Once I regained sufficient consciousness to be aware of what was going on around me, we had discussions, while I was still in hospital in Canada.  It was there and then that I said that Graham Hill should replace me in the car to contest the Indy 500. That’s how Graham came to drive the car—leading ultimately to his victory. All of this had grown out of my long association with Lola and with Eric Broadley.

Of course, a great deal happened in 1966 and Graham won the race; and Jackie Stewart had nearly won it until he had to quit. The two cars were going very well and it looked like there might be a Lola one-two.

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George Lister & Son was a very old engineering company in my hometown of Cambridge, starting in 1895. I joined them in 1947, having done two years training at the Technical College, as their only apprentice. At that time, Brian Lister, grandson of George and son of Horace, had just finished his duties in the Royal Air Force. I’d always been interested in cars and engines. Brian noticed this and asked if I’d like to work on his Morgan 4/4 after work, during the evenings. So, I worked as an apprentice for the business during the day and then went to another property owned by Horace Lister, the Boat Yard, where Brian kept his Morgan, at night. We’d work on the Morgan and fettle it for Brian’s racing and various motoring events he’d enter. I’d cycle home, some five miles, sometimes at midnight, and have to be ready for work again early the next morning. Brian’s aim was to lighten the car as much as possible to aid his competition chances. Lightening components was his obsession, among others, so the flywheel was taken to the works and skimmed as much as possible, anything that could be lightened was drilled and worked on. That’s how my “racing career” started with Brian Lister.

In the beginning, Brian had an array of cars, including the “Toj,” or Tojeiro-JAP to give it its proper name, and a Cooper MG. I’d often go to John Tojeiro’s garage, near Cambridge, to collect various parts. Realizing he was paying someone else to do a job the Lister company was more than capable of, Brian decided to build racing cars and manufacture parts himself. I enjoyed working on these until I had to leave Lister to commence my National Service—I signed on for three years, rather than the compulsory two, as this gave me an extra six pence a day. Brian, in the meantime, had formed a separate company, which he named Brian Lister Light Engineering Limited. In April 1955, back from my National Service, I joined the new company and worked on the racing side full-time. Brian was deeper into his racing competing with a Bristol by then with a certain Archie Scott Brown. My first job was to collect the Bristol, MVE 303, that Archie had just won the British Empire Trophy with at Oulton Park, from Brian’s home in Cavendish Avenue, Cambridge, and bring it to the works. Incidentally, the car was stamped as chassis BHL2 and Brian liked the number 303 for the sports cars he registered—associating them with the speed of a .303 bullet. The relationship between Brian and Archie was intense, there was a terrific bond between them and that’s why Brian never, ever, got over Archie’s death. Anytime Archie’s name was mentioned in his presence, even until Brian himself passed away, there would always be a tear in his eye, his candor would change and he’d become very emotional—he just didn’t get over it.

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I defected to Ford racing with Alan Mann, driving Lotus Cortinas, Mustangs and Falcons. In formula racing, I was driving for Ken Tyrrell. Ken expected feedback from his drivers during testing, qualifying and races. Without this feedback, it was impossible to set up or improve the handling and efficiency of a car. It didn’t matter whether I was driving an F2, F3 or FJ car, when I took a car out on the track as soon as I got back to the pits I was asked about the car’s performance. Did the brakes need adjusting? Was the roll bar correct? Were the gear ratios right? Formula One today has some of the most sophisticated and technical equipment to tell them what is right or wrong with the performance of the car. However, it still comes down to what a driver can feel through the “seat of his pants” that tells the most.

Rootes had replaced Norman Garrad with Marcus Chambers as competitions manager. I suppose because of my three years previous experience and for continuity purposes, I was asked, by Rootes, to drive the Sunbeam Tiger in the 1964 Le Mans. Hindsight is a most wonderful thing. In retrospect, records show I should have walked away from it, but I didn’t, I accepted. My first experience of driving the Sunbeam Tiger was at the official Le Mans test weekend. Using the qualities taught and insisted by Ken Tyrrell, I took to the track. My idea was to push the car as hard as possible, “wring its neck,” tell the mechanics what adjustments were required and go forward from there. I soon found that the brakes were far from adequate and there was an oil surge problem. Traveling down the Mulsanne and through Arnage, the oil needle fell and the red light came on. Back at the pits, I conveyed my thoughts. Not wishing to apportion blame to anyone, the car was not changed from the first time I got into it to the last. This was very disappointing for me. It has to be remembered that the project was a little, if not wholly, rushed. Careful consideration was given, even up to the night before the race, to withdrawing the entry. My teammate for the race was Jimmy Blumer; he had similar experiences driving the car as I did. Sometimes in racing you can be given a real “pig” to drive, and this was one of those.

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The 1970 World Cup Rally (WCR) has gone down in history as the longest and toughest rally ever. Criss-crossing Europe in five days the route took competitors to South America for another arduous three-week route to Mexico City. Tish Ozanne contacted me in October 1969 to see if I’d be interested in competing in this long distance, “London-to-Sydney” type rally. World Cup Football themed, the rally was to start in April 1970 at Wembley Stadium, London—venue of the 1966 victorious England team—and finishing at the Aztec Stadium, Mexico, location of the 1970 soccer World Cup finals in June. Tina Kerridge joined Tish and me, we ran as a three-driver team, one driving, one navigating and the other trying to rest. On paper it was to work on a rota system. At 47 years of age, Tish was the eldest and most experienced rally driver of the three of us, having competed successfully on a number of national and international events including the Monte Carlo Rally. Tina, the next eldest, had entered a number of production car trials, stages, rallies and speed events. I was the youngest of the three, indeed one of the youngest entrants of the entire event. At 25, I’d had several seasons campaigning in Formula Three before changing to club rallying in 1966 at the wheel of a Hillman Imp, and obtaining my International Rally license in 1967. For us all, this was to be “the” ultimate event of our careers.

Our car was to be one of the first of the new Austin Maxis off of the production line at the British Leyland (BL) works at Cowley, Oxford. Tish, purchased the car from Marshall—the BL main dealer in Cambridge. It was her car, but Marshalls was “on board” to provide the necessary upgrades and preparation for competition in the WCR. Although we were private entrants, we did have our car prepared much to the same spec as the two works cars. Indeed, Peter Baldwin, who was allocated as our chief mechanic, spent many hours at BL’s Special Tuning Department at Abingdon, Oxford. His team also included Ray Brand, Tim Reynolds and Richard Watts. While the difference between our rally-prepared Maxi and those on the road was immense, underneath it all it was a Maxi. After all the preparation and glitz and glamor, the rally was soon upon us. Having been given the number 20 we were among the first of the 96 starters in line to drive away from magical Wembley Stadium on our epic journey to Mexico City, 16,179 miles away.

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Like many motor racing fans, my original dream of becoming a World Champion racing driver started when I was a small boy, aged about five or six years old. How this was to become a reality was beyond dreams, I was the son of a Lutterworth farmer and far removed from the sport itself. In later years, once Dad let me loose in the farm Austin A60 pickup across the tracks and fields, I would drive as I believed a World Champion should, flat-out on the straight and cutting the apex of a corner just right to continue maximum speed, or induce a four-wheel slide. I remember that it oversteered wildly everywhere. As time went by, my dreams dwindled somewhat with a reality check, but I remained massively interested in racing cars and indeed studied mechanical engineering as a result. I was fortunate enough to get a job with the late, great, Tom Wheatcroft at his Donington Museum restoring the cars. Working in Tom’s proximity was a real eye-opening education for a young lad.

As my work and education continued I enrolled in a mechanical engineering course at Loughborough University. Part of this course had to include some industrial work experience, and I found myself working for March Engineering at their Bicester HQ. Tom Wheatcroft had a significant hand in my being there, as he was at the point of buying a March F3 car for Roger Williamson—his deal to buy the car included my work experience! I remember him saying to me, “Ay up lad, if you want a job there, I’ll make sure Max (Mosely) gives you one. If I’m buying a car for Roger they can give you a job.” It was typical Tom. So, that’s how I ended up working for March Engineering.

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The possibility of working with Ferrari surfaced in mid-1996. Michael told me at the end of 1995 that he was leaving Benetton to join Ferrari. I was aggrieved about this, more with the team than Michael. He had a problem with Benetton over money and it was not handled properly—he felt he had been misled and deceived. The mystique of Ferrari was very powerful and he saw it as a great challenge to help them back into winning ways again. He certainly found the environment there very different from what he was used to—and he and chief engineer John Barnard just did not gel. Around the middle of that year, 1996, Willy Weber, Michael’s manager, asked me on the telephone to talk with Jean Todt of Ferrari at the Monaco Grand Prix. By that time our Benetton team was not winning races and, despite promises to the contrary, I was not being given the authority to fix it.

I went to see Jean in the Hôtel de Paris. When I tapped on the door to his room it mysteriously opened, with him hiding behind it so he could not be seen by any interlopers! He was only wearing only his underpants because he was in the middle of changing to go out somewhere. That was a fairly unusual introduction… But we knew each other from his tenure as head of the Peugeot World Sportscar Championship program, and he explained to me that Ferrari would like me to join their operation. Certain options in John Barnard’s contract provided an amicable way to let me come in and the offer was also extremely lucrative. I very much wanted to work with Michael again—I had always been interested in Ferrari per se—so why not? I told Benetton that I was leaving —which caused a kerfuffle. The Benetton family became involved and tried to correct the breaches in my contract. However, I was determined to leave and the contract was ended. At the end of 1996, I joined Ferrari on a three-year contract. John Barnard wanted to continue to operate in the UK, while I would work in Italy. I admire John immensely—but he had tried to work with the design office in the UK and the race team in Italy and it was certainly a difficult arrangement. In the Ferrari road car division, I discovered Aldo Costa, who had been with Minardi. Jean Todt had asked me who else we needed and I had replied, “Rory Byrne for sure.” Six weeks after I made the leap Rory also joined us (from Benetton), which was really great news. With John Barnard buying the Shalford works in England for his own future projects, it was an amicable takeover and we were able to start building a team based solely in Maranello.

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In modern Formula One terms, the young driver Max Verstappen is creating a storm in the motor racing press due to his tender years and being at the forefront of Grand Prix racing—I believe he has just turned 19-years old. It reminded me of my dad, known to many simply as “Rivers,” and the then Captain Malcolm Campbell at Brooklands in the 1928 JCC Junior Grand Prix, racing the Delage. Long before my time, Dad’s story of how he, as a 16-year-old schoolboy, won that race still resonates with me to this day. He was a regular visitor to Brooklands, as my grandfather had struck up a bond with a number of well-known people in the motor racing fraternity, including Wilbur Gunn of Lagonda, Harold Yarrow who drove a Napier and S.F. Edge (whom grandfather recalled as being an unreasonable and bad-tempered fellow). Captain Campbell’s secretary, Joan Taylor, was a good friend of the family and particularly good to Dad. Through this friendship he got to meet Campbell, who in turn was happy to meet a young lad with so much knowledge of the sport. So much so, Dad would often have a paddock pass to the famous Brooklands Circuit given to him by Campbell, though my grandfather wasn’t too keen on the noise and smell of Brooklands. It was due to this friendship that the following took place.

In 1928, Captain Campbell had purchased two of the works Grand Prix Delage racing cars along with a large crate of spares. At that time, the Delage was the car to have, it was by far the fastest and most successful racing car in the world, having won nearly all of the races the previous year and driven by the most successful driver of the day, Robert Benoist. The Delage was a straight-eight, supercharged, 1.5-liter, single-seat racer with the engine and gearbox set at an angle and the driver seated by the side of the prop shaft. Unfortunately, being a single-seater car, there was no room for a mechanic in the cockpit. Campbell insisted he run the car in the headline race, the Junior Grand Prix. However, the regulations required Campbell to carry a racing mechanic too. Due to the cramped seating, high position of the oil tank and insufficient leg room, neither Campbell’s chief mechanic Leo Villa, nor the second mechanic Miller could squeeze into the available space. It looked very much as though Campbell would have to use his Type 39 Bugatti rather than the Delage—this really angered him—even though he’d won the previous year’s 200 race at Brooklands in the ’39.

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I could talk about David Purley, or Dave as I’ve always known him, all day long, but for the sake of this piece I’ll restrict it to a few lines to give readers a glimpse into my view of a truly great character and a very good friend. As boys, we both lived in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, or “Bloody Bognor” as we called it—not too far from Goodwood. I lived on the west side at Pagham, in fact I still have a property there today, and Dave lived on the east side at Middleton. We knew each other probably from the age of 16 or 17, I think he was two, or three years younger than me. He was a real “lad about town” as his dad was very rich, owning the LEC Refrigeration factory, and provided employment for many of the local people. From our first meeting it was clear that Dave wasn’t going to follow the “normal” route anywhere. He was a man’s man… and a woman’s man too. He would always make his own decisions and do what he wanted to do. He would always turn up at the local disco on a smart ’bike, but not superly dressed, usually just T-shirt and jeans and the obligatory crash helmet—he was a “natural” on his machine. We became really close—indeed, he married my girlfriend!

A couple of years passed and then by degrees, especially when I got into racing, we’d not see each other for maybe months—of course he joined the Army, progressing to the Parachute Regiment and saw battle in Aden. I recall one particular incident when he came to visit my house on Boxing Day, we’d have a small party after the local festive “pram” race. He arrived in his father’s Mach 1 Mustang. We went for a drive on what would be fairly deserted village roads, given the time of year. I was at the wheel. I took a lovely sequence of sharp “S” bends a little too wide and fast, when out of the blue a motorcyclist appeared in the middle of the road heading straight for us—he obviously didn’t think there’d be any other traffic around either. Fortunately, with a great deal of opposite lock, I managed to miss the cyclist. A rather relieved Dave said, “That’s my dad’s car Derek; you can’t drive it like that. I’ll get you back for this one day.” Ultimately, he did. He landed his plane in a field just by the front door of my house—the single engine light aircraft owned by the family was called the “Reims Rocket.” He said, “Come on Derek, let’s go for a fly.” We flew to a place called Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, a two-hour trip by car and ferry, but just a few minutes by plane. We landed at a local airfield and had a couple of pints and a pie in the local pub. On the way back, Dave asked me to put some books lying on the floor under my seat, his request had no meaning until he said, “We’ll do a few acrobatics.” It was a beautiful day, clear skies. He did a couple of rolls and loop-the-loops, by that time I wasn’t feeling too good—the drink and pie wanted to revisit!! I asked him to land on the beach and I’d watch him. “Just getting you back for Boxing Day,” he said with a big grin on his face.

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I grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland, far removed from motor sport, and my parents strongly disapproved of my even being interested in the sport. As my mother one day said to me, “It’s not as if you’ll ever take part.” How wrong she was! From the glamor of Goodwood, to the challenge of the Nürburgring, to the forests of Wales, to the sand dunes of the Sahara, I most certainly have taken part.

Along the way I met and conversed with Ayton Senna, Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Frank Williams, Paddy Hopkirk, Eddie Irvine, Derek Bell and many more. I worked for Eddie Jordan, Peter Gethin and Jonathan Palmer. I’ve raced with a former Williams Grand Prix star as my teammate. I’ve competed in Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship with the Race-2-Recovery team of injured servicemen. I’ve been paid to drive Aston Martins, Ferraris and Porsches on European circuits. I’ve featured on Motors TV. I’ve been pit crew, mechanic, marshal, organizer, competition secretary, instructor, racecar importer, journalist, team owner, legal advisor and sponsor. I think that all adds up to “taking part.”

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One of the highlights of my many years of racing has to do with the 1966 Trans-Am Mustang that Jerry Titus (1928-1970) drove to victory for Ford and Shelby. Ford was tied up at the end of the series with Dodge, and as a result Shelby built this special, one-off car, which was able to do almost the same times at Riverside that the more powerful Shelby Cobra 427 racecar could.  I purchased the car after going to Shelby’s shop, adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport, when I met with Carroll directly. I was put in touch with Carroll by Pete Brock, who worked for Carroll and designed the very famous Daytona Coupe that went on to win internationally. He set it up with Carroll.  I told him that I knew that they were selling most of the later team cars— the ’65 and ’66 289s.  For the 289s, Shelby wanted $4,000 and for the bigger Cobras, the 427 racecars, he wanted $5,000. Then he had three cars that were the Daytona Coupes they had run in Europe very successfully, but in those days, a year-old car was just that, a year-old car, and really didn’t have much value. To think that I could have bought one of those Daytona coupes for $6,000!

Carroll told his right-hand man, Lew Spencer, a well-known racer himself, “Lew, take Ted down, show him the cars and sell him a car.” Lew was the one who took me down and told me what the prices were and what cars were available. Lou asked, “What kind of racing are you going to be doing Ted?” I said, “Well, I want to take the car to Mexico.  My father is very ill and I have to go down to Mexico to take over his business, and I want to continue racing.” I had been racing quite a bit in the years just prior to having to go to Mexico, and I told him that most of the races there were either in the streets, in vacant sub-divisions, or at the Grand Prix circuit, which today is called Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, after the two young Mexican race drivers, Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez.

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Many might find it unusual that the 58-year old son of legendary racecar driver Dave MacDonald had never driven a race car on a racetrack, but it’s true.

Going fast has always been in my blood—as evidenced by countless speeding tickets—but it’s only in the past five years that I’ve reentered the racing community and become active at local events.

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It started with a phone call from the photographer/journalist Bernard Cahier. He said, “Carl Haas has a problem. Brian Redman flipped his car at the Mont Tremblant Can-Am. Are you interested in driving for Lola Cars in the States?” I talked to Carl Haas the next morning and he said that “there is a ticket for you at the airport, and could you come right away?”

That was how the relationship started. I had met Carl and his wife the year before at Riverside, but this was the beginning of us working together. They picked me up at the airport, and everything was very straightforward from then on. I had been doing Formula 5000 races, and I think that is where he first saw me and thought we could work together. I believe he had talked to Rolf Stommelen as well, but he was not available.

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At the end of the 1972 season, I left BRM to join Don Nichols and his Shadow race team, my brief was not only to design a Formula One challenger, but also to work on a new sports racing Can-Am car, the DN2. Shadow had competed in the Can-Am series prior to my working for them. The brief was for the car to be designed and built in the UK and shipped over to the U.S. once complete. I had a minute team, but was ably assisted by Andy Smallman and John Gentry. The power unit for the car was a twin-turbo, 8-liter Chevy V8 engine capable of giving 1,200 hp—a mighty power plant. One of the biggest challenges for me was to transfer all that power onto the circuit without any mechanical issues in the transmission. Rolling starts, central to the Can-Am race regulations, were of great assistance—a standing start would be quite unimaginable with all that torque. I employed the use of Hewland’s LG500 gearbox and hefty universal joints and driveshafts from Hardy Spicer to deal with the 1000-lbs-ft of torque generated. Another issue was the huge amount of fuel the car was required to carry, 100 gallons. Having worked previously on the BRM P154 Can-Am car, my first layout sketch of the new car was over a print of that car. Having said that the new car would be  markedly different, more of a wedge shape and chisel nose section. Imperial College, London—a facility I’d used many times in the past, and would use in the future—helped considerably yet again with the necessary wind tunnel work. Center of gravity (GC) caused some debate and scrutiny with particular reference to the siting of the twin turbochargers. The norm with many rival teams, including Porsche, was to mount these high above the gearbox—this compromised the CG, as the weight was too far rearward and behind the rear axle line. My idea was to mount the turbo units separately, one each side of the engine adjacent to the stubby exhaust outlets, exiting from the side of the car, and as low as possible. From a chassis design point of view, I was very pleased as it gave a lower CG, less weight and good aero. The first people to convince were the U.S. engine manufacturers who were, at best, skeptical. Dyno tests proved my theory correct as the engine produced more power, even with the short exhaust system, which they believed would restrict power. I was extremely pleased that my layout was not only neat, but also effective. Competitors soon copied this, which is always a great compliment to any designer, not only in period, but modern turbo racing cars adopt my layout today—it has certainly stood the test of time. The acid test would be racing. It would be Mark Donohue who completely dominated the 1973 Can-Am series driving Roger Penske’s Porsche. Despite a season of unreliability and low power output from the engine, we were very pleased that Jackie Oliver had podium finishes in Edmonton and Laguna Seca. The 1973 season was a difficult one for us, but there was light at the end of the tunnel with a new UK factory works based in Northampton.

The 1974 season was bittersweet. Don Nichols had signed Peter Revson to drive for the team with Jean-Pierre Jarier as his number two teammate. The traditional opening South American Grands Prix in Argentina and Brazil gave us optimism of what we could expect for the remainder of the season with Peter running up with the leaders in those initial races. The next Grand Prix was at Kyalami, South Africa, so prior to the race we decided to do some testing at the circuit with Revson. Both car and driver were working well and producing some great times. Peter wanted to “go for it,” trying some high-speed laps. He left the pit lane and sadly didn’t return. Following a suspension failure, he’d crashed into the Armco on the far side of the track and although rushed to nearby Johannesburg hospital, he sadly succumbed to his injuries. The low, wedge-shaped DN3, together with the relatively high barrier position had conspired to produce this devastating outcome. I can honestly say I’ve never felt so isolated and so far from home in those initial hours and days following Peter’s accident. As a designer and engineer I felt so responsible, it was a difficult time for me on many levels, including my return to the Shadow factory at Northampton. My worries and concerns were soon extinguished as team members on the floor and management, including those associated with Shadow, were very kind and supportive through this dark time—my relief was immense.

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As a result of my 1967 win in the Kyalami Nine Hours, in South Africa with Jacky Ickx in the JW Automotive Mirage M1, John Wyer signed us to continue our partnership the following year. Wyer’s 1968 entries were Ford GT40s, splendidly liveried in what became the most iconic team colors ever, Gulf Oil cerulean blue with a broad orange stripe. Less providentially, John Cooper also hired me (for £500) to drive in selected Grands Prix.

The 1968 Spa 1,000 Kilometers pitched Wyer’s GT40 against Alan Mann’s fast—though unstable and temperamental —Ford P68 sports prototype, driven by Frank Gardner and Hubert Hahne. Frank had handily out qualified us by four full seconds on Saturday, but on race day Spa’s great leveller materialized—hard, implacable rain. This was perfect Jacky Ickx weather.

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I’d raced the Cosworth-powered Ensign N174 at the 1974 USGP at Watkins Glen, it was my fourth time in the car and fifth Grand Prix I’d entered that season—I’d driven a March 731 at the British GP at Brands Hatch—entered by Dempster International Racing Team—but this was the first race I’d qualified to start. I think there were 30 cars and the fastest 25 got grid positions and I was 22nd so near to the back, but the non-qualifiers included the likes of Tim Schenken in a third works Lotus 72, Hans Stuck in a works March and Jean-Pierre Beltoise in the BRM.

I was so pleased even to get onto the grid in the Ensign! In the race, I had to make a pit stop on the first lap. There was a problem with the pressure release valve, and I lost four or five laps. Once fixed, the team told me to go out, even though there wasn’t much chance of me being placed, and just have some fun driving the car to the finish. I found myself four or five laps behind the leaders and hooked up with Chris Amon, who was driving the BRM P201. We were both tail-end Charlies, but played around and appreciated our own race. I’d overtake him and he’d overtake me until the conclusion of the race. For me, it made for a bit of excitement in an otherwise uneventful afternoon. Although meaningless, we enjoyed the dicing.

The post My Two Races appeared first on Sports Car Digest.

My very first experiences in a racing car were in a Lotus Seven. In fact, prior to purchasing the Lotus I went to Lotus and asked for a job. I thought I must know how they build these cars if I’m going to race them. I was conscious too that I had to learn how to set up the car, vital if I was going to look after it mechanically myself. The other problem, being French, I had to learn the English language. So, 1960 was a very busy year for me, moving to England, working at Lotus, learning the English language and, lastly, joining the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School at Snetterton to learn how to drive racing cars. I was just 19-years old at that time—many would say young and foolish!! Jim Russell taught me well, the schooling idea was really good. We’d learn racing lines, how to brake, how to overtake and how to drive fast and remain in control—the system worked very well and many of the star names graduated from schools like Jim’s. I did a number of club races and visited many of the great English race circuits, like Aintree, Oulton Park, Silverstone and, of course, Snetterton.

I watched motor racing at Snetterton too, and well remember some of the good drivers of the day in Formula Junior—that would be in 1961—I remember the Team Lotus boys, Pete Arundell, Mike McKee and Trevor Taylor, particularly Trevor Taylor and his brother Mike, who was his mechanic. Trevor was so much fun, always laughing and making people laugh. He was a very good driver too. When his helmet went on he was a racing driver, not a joker! Trevor won the Lombank Trophy Formula Junior race at Snetterton in early 1961. The master of Snetterton was, of course, Jim Russell. He not only raced at the circuit, but taught drivers to race at the same circuit—he knew the place like it was his home. Trevor told me a story about Jim Russell. Knowing Jim was the man to beat at Snetterton, Trevor asked Jim where the braking point was for the first corner, Riches. Jim told Trevor there was a white stone several meters from the corner and this was an ideal braking marker. Trevor thanked Jim for telling him. During the night, between practice and race day, Trevor and his brother Mike, who were sleeping in their van, decided to gain an advantage by moving the white stone further away from the corner. This would mean that Jim Russell and those who also used the white stone as a braking marker would slow down earlier for the corner than necessary. Knowing the stone had been moved, this would leave Trevor room to brake later and gain an advantage. All went as planned and Trevor won the race. Gamesmanship, I think he called it.

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The first time I recall sitting in a racing car was as a child at the BRM works at Bourne, England, this would be in the late 1970s. It was one of the then-current F1 cars, the Rotary Watches Stanley BRM P207. This would be toward the end of the life of the team. The opportunity arose because my father, Rick Hall, worked at BRM as an engineer. I remember meeting the drivers of the day too, Larry Perkins and Conny Andersson. The thing I recollect most about Conny was his huge hands…they were massive. Little did I know what that first sit in a car would lead to! I don’t recall meeting Louis Stanley at that particular time, that came later in my life. Many may think it would be a simple progression for me from leaving school to go straight into mechanical engineering, but actually I became a plumber, gaining my City and Guilds qualifications and working for my uncle. From there I went to Australia for a few months working on a cattle station—this was for a customer of Dad’s and a good friend of the family, Brian Auger, who’d emigrated from Norfolk, England. Brian had had a good number of racing cars, including a Ford GT40, Gulf Mirage, a McLaren M8 and M9, some really nice cars, which he sold while here in the UK. Visa issues made me return to the UK after around my initial six-month stay.

My racing began in karting and later with an MGB GT, competing in MGB Car Club events, and my first racing sponsorship came from a family friend. He had a double-glazing company, he’d let me have “2½” toward my season’s racing. I initially understood it was to be for £2,500, but after a protracted period of negotiation found it was for just £250!! In anticipation of the windfall I’d spent nearly £180 on some big stickers for the car, when reality struck I had just £70 left—a life lesson learned. I raced the MGB for a couple of years and won a few trophies and a championship along the way. Now working for my father building and maintaining racing cars, I’d rebuilt a Tecno F3 car, with a 1,000-cc “screamer” engine. On completion I was told “you’ve built it, you may as well drive it.” I tested it and that really was the start of what I do today. I went on to race the car in some HSCC events and enjoyed the competition.

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It is early 1964 and having recently qualified as a doctor, I had signed up for a short-service commission as medical officer for the Royal Air Force in Changi, Singapore, to start at the beginning of the summer. But there was a problem; I had an obsession for motor racing. As an impoverished student, I had learned the rudiments by racing a variety of Ford Ten specials in UK club racing, but I was driven by the urge to compete in an international race “before I settled down.”

For the previous four years, Formula Junior—one of racing’s greatest creations—had been the gateway for nearly all of the drivers, designers and constructors into Formula One and beyond, but was now split into Formula Two for the professionals and Formula Three for non-graded drivers. Formula Three was for single-seaters with similar restrictions to the old Formula Junior as to the use of various production car related parts, and limitations on engine modifications, brakes, transmissions, wheel widths, etc.

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