RACER’S EDGE
Peter Windsor on John Surtees
Warwick Farm, Australia, 1963. We could see the grand prix cars away over there, beyond the grass and the white horse-track railings.
“There! Over there by the Lola! John Surtees! Light blue overalls, white helmet with the blue stripe! He’s gesturing to his mechanic! Look! The mechanic’s pouring water or something all over his back!”
“…give me those… By Jove, you’re right! Yes. He’s getting his mechanic to soak his overalls before he climbs into the car. It’s so hot! Can’t imagine how hot it’ll be for the drivers. Would you like a drink, old chap…”
This was no time for water. I grabbed the binoculars again and trained them on Surtees. Now he was scuffing his boots on the Tarmac and clapping his gloved hands. The Lola, dark blue with a red stripe around the nose, sat low and svelte – tiny, even, alongside Bruce Mclaren’s Cooper. First one leg over the cockpit, then the other. The engine noise began to build. Two mechanics pushed the Lola forwards. It stuttered and then burst into song. I could hear the revs, rising and falling, rising and falling. They pushed the Lola backwards again, into position. All around them the other mechanics were doing the same.
Keith Reagan at the microphone: “Two minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Two minutes. They’re clearing the grid for the Australian Grand Prix. On pole position, John Surtees in the Bowmaker Lola. Next to him, Bruce Mclaren, the New Zealander. Next to him, on the outside of the front row, our own David Mckay. And don’t forget Jack Brabham at the back of the grid in his new car. All engines appear to have been started. One minute! The one-minute klaxon is sounding…!”
My hands sweated as I gripped the old binoculars. I edged forward. Then the crowd around stood as one. I could see nothing. I jumped up onto my seat, gaining some height.
“And the flag goes down! It’s a great start by Surtees! He leads the field into Paddock Bend. Then it’s Mckay, Bruce Mclaren and Graham Hill’s up there in the Ferguson…”
It was a long, hot, dry afternoon. John Surtees led the grand prix for much of the distance but then faltered to finish second; Jack Brabham scored a momentous victory.
The remaining two events on the day’s programme – for Touring Cars and then Sports and GT cars – seemed to take an age. The crowds finally began to edge away from Warwick Farm. “Can we go, Dad? Can we go now?” “Come on. Not too long now. And if you see any of the drivers, don’t forget to be polite…”
Ampol, Shell, BP, KLG, Total and Dunlop flags fluttered in the early evening air; white canvas awnings were still stretched across the grass paddock. The sun was low now, tinting everything gold. A shoulder-tap. “Look, Pete – over there. Isn’t that John Surtees?” I sprinted across the grass. “Mr Surtees, could I have your autograph please?” “Certainly,” he said, smiling down at me. “Now, what’s your name and how old are you?”
“I’m Peter and I’m nine years old. And today was the greatest day of my life.” “Well, that’s excellent,” he said, eyes sparkling. “Now you work hard at school and then one day I’ll see you at another race…”
I stared at the glorious, gorgeous blue Lola. Could there be there anything more beautiful in the world?
John would return to Australia with his F5000 car for the 1971 Australian Grand Prix. Dark blue with a white arrow running from nose to cockpit. The same white-andblue helmet, except that now it was a Bell Star, not an Everoak.
By then, I was press officer at Warwick Farm. With my buddy Colin Piper, we gravitated to John’s area in the paddock, chatting with Bernie Ferrie, his mechanic, helping them with local contacts and logistics. This wasn’t the John Surtees I’d seen and met at that Australian GP all those years ago; that John was etched in a different time. This John was a hero, too, however – an engineer/driver-battler who fussed about his car, his cream Nomex overalls always bearing the scars of patches of oil or smears of grease, an artisan for whom the act of driving seemed to be… almost an afterthought.
The more so when, in the years that followed, I left Australia for the wider world. I stood next to John on the pitwall, as Mike Hailwood glided towards certain victory at the 1972 South African Grand Prix with the Surtees TS9B; I stood at the back of the Surtees pit a little while later, watching John, his head down, focus on the cause of the tiny failure that had cost Mike the race.
It was an engineering thing, not a driver-emotional thing. That was the John I now began to know. “Come on. Let’s pack it up. No point in dwelling on it…” In England, I drove my Vauxhall VX4/90 to the Surtees factory in Edenbridge one frosty morning. John wasn’t in, but it didn’t matter. I bought five Team Surtees cloth badges (white oval with a red arrow), two pairs of John Surtees driving gloves and earned myself a free Team Surtees pamphlet.
I stood back in awe as the agile Matchbox Team Surtees TS10 F2 cars ignited another part of my being. The Lola, yes; but now these TS10S. There was a simplicity of form, an elegance of engineering, that at last seemed connected. The F1 Lola, the 1964-66 Ferraris, the Lola T70 Can-am car, the Cooper-maserati in its late-’66 form, the ‘Hondola’, the first Surtees F1 cars: it was as if the flux of all their functional beauties had flowed inevitably into the TS10S.
So much so that you were lured into undervaluing the driver and the man. Until you watched him on a quick lap, leaning on the front, perfectly-balanced through Cascades at Oulton Park. And you remembered. Remembered the staggering recovery from the horrendous Mosport ’65 shunt that gave us 52 years more of John Surtees. Remembered him outpacing even Jochen Rindt at Cooper, from race one. Remembered him conquering such foes as the wet, and the Nürburgring, as if they were just low hurdles.
He’d stand at the Goodwood Revival in black motorcycling leathers, signing books, photos and posters until the last person had left. No thoughts of ‘protecting his brand’; no dark looks for the ebay-touts. Always the smile. Always the readiness to enchant the nine-year-old with the programme and the pencil.
And always with the courage that gave us those amazing years after Henry.
“JOHN WAS AN ARTISAN FOR WHOM THE ACT OF DRIVING SEEMED TO BE… ALMOST AN AFTERTHOUGHT