The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me (6 page)

The Lotus accelerated from 0 to 60mph in three seconds and took me by surprise at first. The scenery went flying by and the engine was bumping off the rev limiter, demanding the next gear. Something clicked in my brain that day, because I never sensed speed the same way after that. Once I got used to it, nothing ever
felt
fast again.

The blind crests of Donington’s Craner Curves were not for the faint-hearted as the sharp descent doubled your acceleration through a long left. In a machine like the Lotus with more relative grunt than grip, you hung your bal s over the wing mirrors to take Craners flat, then wrestled the chassis across to the left in time to put your affairs in order for the equal y hairy off-camber right known as ‘Old Hairpin’. With tyres stretched to the limit, a tiny error of timing was punished by a rapid departure from the black stuff.

I prepared for a new tyre run to see what time I could set. GT squatted next to me and rested his arm on the sidepod. If I could just impress him enough, Jackie Stewart’s staircase of talent could lead me al the way to F1. After a silence, GT gave me a warm smile. At last I was winning him over. Then he casual y said,

‘We’ve just been watching Wilson at the Old Hairpin. He’s flying, head and shoulders braver than anyone else there.’

The words cut me to the bone. I’d have preferred him to have cal ed me a raging poof.

The winter air was crisp, ripe for the engine to produce its best power. After a mega run out of the first corner I took Craners flat out with a squeak of understeer from the new tyres, without compromising my line for the Old Hairpin.

The engine bounced off the limiter in top gear, I dabbed the brake and guided my missile right, carrying an extra 5 mph. It went in so fast the front wheel floated over a blurred apex kerb. I held on, ran wide and mul ered the big exit kerbing. Dust spewed up and I knew the lap was already miles faster than anything the others had managed. I wanted to monster their times.

I left my braking super late into the next corner, a fast cresting right, at just over 140. The brake pedal hit the floor. I pumped again. Nothing. I was travel ing 60mph too fast to make it. I was leaving the circuit. By the third touch of the brakes I was skipping across the grass, spinning sideways through the gravel trap, then airborne for the remainder of my journey. I stonked into the barriers with the rear left wheel first. It ripped off the suspension, shattered the gearbox casing and whipped the nose into the wal , shattering the front wing. What a ride!

My body took the impact wel . I withdrew my hands from the wheel before it spun violently through 180 degrees, which would have broken my wrists had I clung on.

I explained what happened to Graham, who never looked up from his computer when I walked back in. ‘Did you kerb it at the Old Hairpin?’ he asked matter-of-factly as he frowned at my speed graphs.

‘Big time.’

‘Sounds like pad knock-off then.’

‘What’s that?’

The mechanics tutted behind me as they unbolted tangled remains of bodywork from the chassis and half the gravel trap unloaded on to their operating theatre.

‘Sometimes when you hit the kerbs, it knocks the pads away from the discs. You have to pump the brake pedal back up to get them working again.’ He waved a hand up and down for emphasis.

Wel , wasn’t I the moron? That kind of general knowledge would have been more useful at the start of the day, but that was how it worked with racing. You either figured it out, or got spat out.

Graham sucked his teeth with interest as he calculated my split time, acknowledging it would have put me fastest by a considerable margin. Then he looked me in the eye to ask if my neck was OK. Seemed he was warming to me after al .

The structure of the Winter Series consisted of two heats that qualified the drivers for the final at Donington – ‘winner takes al ’.

Graham taught me that there were no friends in a race and to ‘kil the car’ in the warm-up lap. The difference this made to the temperature and performance of the tyres and brakes over the first lap was significant and helped launch me into the lead of the qualifying heat.

I found myself battling with a Japanese regular from the series who was pressuring me with every trick in the book. He was tapping my rear wheel to unsettle my car into the corners, then driving into the back of me in the straights. The rev counter buzzed higher as the rear wheels left the ground. The gloves came off.

I waited until he was right up my chuff and jammed on the brakes so hard his front wing went under my gearbox and lifted me into the air. Al our shenanigans were closing the field up behind us.

He got a run on me down the pit straight, pul ed alongside and we banged wheels as we ran neck and neck towards the first corner. The third-gear right required a severe brake to avoid the sea of sandy gravel beyond. He stayed on the outside, bal sy to say the least.

I would sooner have driven off a cliff than be outbraked. I wasn’t backing down. Neither was he, so our futures merged. His front wheel caught my rear and I flew over his sidepod. We rotated around one another in
Matrix
-style slow motion, and gave the pursuing pack nowhere to go but straight into us. I was T-boned and as the spinning car flew overhead its rear wheel caught my helmet.

As the dust settled in the gravel trap I thought to myself,
Not again
. I never felt any fear when I raced, so I had to figure out a method for avoiding dumb accidents with people. I quickly rubbed the tyre marks off my helmet – otherwise the marshals would have insisted I bought another one – and trudged out of the gravel.

Graham was not amused, cal ing me a rock ape. The combined qualifying results put me in twelfth for the final race on Sunday. Overtaking opportunities in downforce cars were notoriously few, so my chances of winning were slim.

On the day of the final I arrived at the circuit early, determined on a positive result. Sir Jackie had already inspected the team ahead of his sponsors and guests, which included members of from the Royal Family. Pandemonium reigned and there were red faces everywhere. The race truck was being lifted into the air on stilts in order to rotate the wheels until their Goodyear logos al faced twelve o’clock. The floor was being washed and a gearbox moved.

Roland, the number one mechanic, was putting the finishing touches to my car’s new undertray. I brought him some tea and he surprised me with a smile.

‘You guys must hate me,’ I said.

‘Nah, mate. You’re out there to win. We don’t care how many times you smash it to bits – we’l rebuild it.’

It made al the difference having him onside. Roland increased the angle of attack of the dive plane on the front wing by raising it and screwing the bolt into its new hole. ‘Adding a hole of wing’ meant I could steer better behind the jet wash of the other racers. He asked what I thought of our chances. I told him I thought we could win.

The team’s PR lady summoned me to the corporate hospitality unit with my team-mate, reigning Irish Formula Ford Champion Tim Mul en. We arrived on the team’s golf buggy at a marquee the size of a footbal pitch for Jackie to introduce us to the sponsors.

Three hundred pairs of eyes turned in our direction from across the silver service. Tim’s rusty red suit had seen five innings too many, and my scrunched black number was more bin man than Batman. Then Sir Jackie appeared, the triple Formula 1 World Champion, former Olympic clay pigeon wizard and one of the most meticulous and successful drivers of al time.

Decked out in immaculate tartan trousers with creases that could slice roast beef, a beautiful y cut tweed jacket and a bonnie cap, Jackie had the presence of a laird. He gave us both the once over and his beady eyes fel on me like a hawk. I sensed there might be warmth behind them if you were in reach of the podium.

The PR told him our starting positions. ‘Tim is seventh and Ben is twelfth after a shunt in the second heat.’ I wished she hadn’t.

‘Looks like you have some work to do today, lads.’

Och aye, that we did.

Jackie picked up the microphone and delivered a perfectly manicured talk about the team and the format of the day. We were excused.

I knew I had to impress him if I wanted to stay with PSR, and that meant real y delivering in the final.

I had the overtaking opportunities mapped out in my mind, the perfect start and the fastest laps. Scripts rarely survived first contact with the enemy, but preparing for success improved your odds.

I strapped in and sat on the grid with nothing left to consider except:‘patience, measured bursts’.

Jackie made his extended walk down the grid, chatted with Graham for a bit before turning to me. ‘Just remember, lad, it’s what you have up here [pointing to my head], not down there[pointing to my bal s] that wins races. The difference between the exceptional y brave and the plain stupid is a fine line.’

I listened careful y to the great man’s advice, but something told me that I would definitely need my bal s for this one.

The personnel cleared the grid – bar Roland, who held the jump battery. You fel in love with that last man the way a patient loves his nurse. Before going solo into the unknown, he was your final contact with the world. He signal ed a thumbs up and cut the umbilical.

I stared at the pack of racers ahead. The green flag sent us off for the warm-up lap. Cars wove from side to side; one or two accelerated past their closest competitors and nearly col ided. Everyone had eaten their Shredded Wheat that morning; no prisoners would be taken in the main event.

The formation closed up at the final chicane. I jumped on and off the throttle and brakes to ensure they were hot as hel . I found my pair of solitary black lines on the grid.
You guys are going down …

First gear, revs to 5,400, the clutch bit.

The bright yel ow five-second board rose over the gantry. Engines began pulsing. I crept forward an inch.

Red lights came on, then straight off; release, I was gone.

Everyone else froze, I powered off the line, instantly passing two crawlers and sliding past a third as I made the dreaded gear-change through the dogleg from first to second that could put you into a false neutral, with the race passing you by.

The drivers criss-crossed, searching for track position on the dash to the first corner. A queue stacked up on the inside, so I lunged for the outside to pass two on the brakes, hanging on as we squeezed over the jagged exit kerbs. I emerged wheel to wheel with another driver as we accelerated towards Craners.

I had the inside line but on cold tyres the odds were even. He lifted first and I surged past. Sixth place already and closing on fifth.

We snaked through the back section of Donington and towards the chicane behind the pits where Jackie was hosting his VIPs. I wasn’t lined up close enough to have a pop at the guy in front until he hesitated and braked early. I accepted the invitation and zapped past. I rode the inside kerbs and slithered sideways on to the straight, adjusting my sights to the view of just four cars ahead.

My Japanese friend in his silver bul et was pushing hard behind the lead group. I gave him a few close-ups in his mirrors to let him know he was next on my menu but it was hard fol owing through the fast turns; you lost the air over the front wing and understeered wide. Running wide compounded the loss of grip because you ended up on the dirty section of track that was rarely driven on, typical y covered in ‘marbles’ –

chunks of rubber of various sizes that had the same effect as stepping on a banana skin.

After a trouser-ripping 130mph moment on the marbles, I remembered …
patience
. The opponent’s turn in was heavy-handed and would lead to a mistake if I waited. We nosed over the rise on to the back straight at Coppice, I cut the apex, kept the front wing in clean air and got a run on him.

We drag-raced to the chicane. I pul ed alongside, inches apart, and forced his hand. He braked desperately late, compromised his entry line and struggled to accelerate away. I sailed past into the next corner, the very place where we’d built sandcastles a day earlier. That left nine laps to pass two more and catch the leader.

With the race at ful pelt, overtaking became harder, as drivers picked their optimum lines and dug in, but I held an advantage under braking. The front group were racing hard for position, trying to force a way past. It was winner takes al .

I lined up on Justin Wilson in third place. I got a run on him at Old Hairpin and gave him enough trouble through McLeans to pass him on the way out.

I chased down second into Redgate and found that my tighter line into the corner was yielding a couple of tenths a lap. The cornering mantra was always ‘slow in, fast out’; taking a wider entry maximised your speed down the straight. But when the car al owed it, you could drive ‘fast in, fast out’. It bagged me second place.

I saw Marc Hynes in the distance. Mr Whippy had managed to steer clear of the carnage I caused in the heat and was chasing down another championship. I was faster, but catching him with only a handful of laps to go was a tal order.

I set fastest lap after fastest lap until I final y got to sit on his gearbox. He was sluggish through Old Hairpin. I aced it. I powered up his right side, around the flat-out kink towards McLeans. With time running out, Marc put me on the grass.

I needed tarmac to round the kink at 120. As I went sideways my life should have flashed before me, but I was treated to a close-up of his Nestlé Ice Creams livery instead. I kept enough throttle trimming the lawn to lose only five car lengths. He had to defend at the chicane. I could taste victory as we rushed to complete the penultimate lap.

As I prepared to knobble Marc with the scissor shuffle, we were red flagged. A big accident behind us meant the race was being stopped. The jammy dodger took another title win ahead of me in second and Justin in third.

GT appeared, positively beaming. ‘If you can drive like that every time you’l piss it next season.

Incredible race; Jackie thought it was fantastic.’

A dream ticket was at the tips of my fingers. With the benefit of their vast experience I would have a clear shot at winning the main title …