HOWDEN GANLEY’S MUSINGS FROM OUR MAN IN THE NORTH

(BT21/20) now restored to better than its former glory. At lunchtime there was a talk by two of the drivers (also racing that day) who were part of the movie Rush – Nick Colyvas, who drives the Shadow DN5 once raced by Tom Pryce and Chris Locke, who has the Lotus 77 with which Mario Andretti won the Japanese Grand Prix.

Along with their talk, which drew a standing room-only crowd to the drivers lounge, they showed a behindthe-scenes slide show of the movie being made. They had both elected to drive their own cars in the film, and in the Q and A session Nick reckoned that most of his scenes finished on the ‘cutting room floor’ but Chris in his Lotus featured prominently. He was pleased when Ron Howard, the director, told him just before the final scenes “You have a really cool car”, which I guess is the Hollywood view of a Grand Prix car. As Nick is an orthopaedic surgeon and Chris is a lawyer, they have a joke which says that whenever Chris races in Europe he takes his surgeon with him, and Nick takes his lawyer! I was to meet up with them again at Monaco.