the comforts of home.
There was a gym nearby so I used to get the tube there, but I had no idea what I was doing, I was just tootling around and believing I was getting fit. At that time Michael Schumacher was starting to win World Championships and everybody was saying what a super-fit guy he was, so off I went to the gym. I’d never been in a gym in my life!
I earned some money by buzzing up and down to work as a driving instructor at the circuits at Brands Hatch, Snetterton and anywhere else that would have me. I had an old B-registration Ford Fiesta (thanks to that raffle money), which I used to drive round the M25, jumping the Dartford Toll to save a couple of quid here and there. I was doing big mileage in my B-reg and I remember only being able to put £10 worth of petrol in at times. My wages were £43 for almost a 12-hour day, but I had a ball. Most of my fellow instructors were aspiring young drivers like me, so we would all go off in our different directions at the weekend to race and then come back on Monday morning with colourful stories of what had happened. We were all trying to forge a career, trying to keep the dream alive. I always had to work and all the guys I was instructingwith at Brands Hatch were in the same boat. It was a struggle for all of us.
In stark contrast to this were the Brazilians, most of whom would rock in with a full racing budget and turn up at race meetings driving flash BMWs or Mercedes. They were semi-professional drivers, even at Formula Ford level. I never let it get to me, in fact I turned it into a positive and used it as motivation. I was turning up in my B-reg on a wing and a prayer, hoping it wouldn’t fail me.
One of my fellow instructors was Dan Wheldon, the talented British driver who would be tragically killed in the States in 2011. The other instructors were a bit older than us; they’d tried to make a go of their careers too but had either run out of money or simply hadn’t made it, though they were still good enough to teach other people how to drive around a racetrack.
Ann and I rented a partly furnished house in Attleborough. We were stretched financially on a personal level but Ann was freelancing in PR and earning enough money so we could pay our way, and I was contributing where I could. A lot of our money would go on rent – not just the house we were living in but a TV and video player as well! It didn’t come with either but we couldn’t afford to buy luxuries like that. The house was a few miles south-west of the cathedral city of Norwich, so I could be close to the Van Diemen factory. Any racing driver will tell you how valuable it is to forge close links with the team you are racing for, getting to know the people, being a part of the team as fully as you can.
Because many of the junior racing teams were based there, Norfolk was a hub for young racers from all over theworld. I remember coming home after being at the pub with the Van Diemen mechanics and excitedly telling Ann that Jan Magnussen had been there too. He had just graduated to F1 at that stage and had popped in to catch up with his old mates. I couldn’t believe that I was actually moving in the same circles.
I spent a lot of time at the Van Diemen factory. I have vivid memories of Ralph Firman himself, a chain-smoker, always with a cigarette in his mouth, even when he stuck his head into the cockpit to ask for some driver feedback, so the ash fell off around your feet … Ralph single-handedly bringing a testing session at the Snetterton circuit to a stop when his old Merc clipped the bridge over the track and knocked an advertising hoarding into our path … Me in my B-reg Ford waiting to cross a junction near the factory and Ralph in his old tank of a Merc sneaking up behind me, sitting there behind the wheel in his trademark Coke-bottle glasses and deliberately pushing me out across the very busy A11 … Me picking up the odd extra £90 to drop his mum off at Gatwick Airport in
There was a gym nearby so I used to get the tube there, but I had no idea what I was doing, I was just tootling around and believing I was getting fit. At that time Michael Schumacher was starting to win World Championships and everybody was saying what a super-fit guy he was, so off I went to the gym. I’d never been in a gym in my life!
I earned some money by buzzing up and down to work as a driving instructor at the circuits at Brands Hatch, Snetterton and anywhere else that would have me. I had an old B-registration Ford Fiesta (thanks to that raffle money), which I used to drive round the M25, jumping the Dartford Toll to save a couple of quid here and there. I was doing big mileage in my B-reg and I remember only being able to put £10 worth of petrol in at times. My wages were £43 for almost a 12-hour day, but I had a ball. Most of my fellow instructors were aspiring young drivers like me, so we would all go off in our different directions at the weekend to race and then come back on Monday morning with colourful stories of what had happened. We were all trying to forge a career, trying to keep the dream alive. I always had to work and all the guys I was instructingwith at Brands Hatch were in the same boat. It was a struggle for all of us.
In stark contrast to this were the Brazilians, most of whom would rock in with a full racing budget and turn up at race meetings driving flash BMWs or Mercedes. They were semi-professional drivers, even at Formula Ford level. I never let it get to me, in fact I turned it into a positive and used it as motivation. I was turning up in my B-reg on a wing and a prayer, hoping it wouldn’t fail me.
One of my fellow instructors was Dan Wheldon, the talented British driver who would be tragically killed in the States in 2011. The other instructors were a bit older than us; they’d tried to make a go of their careers too but had either run out of money or simply hadn’t made it, though they were still good enough to teach other people how to drive around a racetrack.
Ann and I rented a partly furnished house in Attleborough. We were stretched financially on a personal level but Ann was freelancing in PR and earning enough money so we could pay our way, and I was contributing where I could. A lot of our money would go on rent – not just the house we were living in but a TV and video player as well! It didn’t come with either but we couldn’t afford to buy luxuries like that. The house was a few miles south-west of the cathedral city of Norwich, so I could be close to the Van Diemen factory. Any racing driver will tell you how valuable it is to forge close links with the team you are racing for, getting to know the people, being a part of the team as fully as you can.
Because many of the junior racing teams were based there, Norfolk was a hub for young racers from all over theworld. I remember coming home after being at the pub with the Van Diemen mechanics and excitedly telling Ann that Jan Magnussen had been there too. He had just graduated to F1 at that stage and had popped in to catch up with his old mates. I couldn’t believe that I was actually moving in the same circles.
I spent a lot of time at the Van Diemen factory. I have vivid memories of Ralph Firman himself, a chain-smoker, always with a cigarette in his mouth, even when he stuck his head into the cockpit to ask for some driver feedback, so the ash fell off around your feet … Ralph single-handedly bringing a testing session at the Snetterton circuit to a stop when his old Merc clipped the bridge over the track and knocked an advertising hoarding into our path … Me in my B-reg Ford waiting to cross a junction near the factory and Ralph in his old tank of a Merc sneaking up behind me, sitting there behind the wheel in his trademark Coke-bottle glasses and deliberately pushing me out across the very busy A11 … Me picking up the odd extra £90 to drop his mum off at Gatwick Airport in
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