DOWN THE PUB

Age: 62 Lives: Jersey F1 driver and Fford champion

He had an epic season in 1976 “In 1976 I raced in 63 races in Formula Ford in a Hawke DL15 and won 32 of them. I did a bit of Formula Ford the season before, but I was pretty much straight out of stock cars where I’d been British and world champion.”

The cars were easy to run “It was possible to do that many races in those days with a man and a van and we ran it very cheaply. The cars were fairly simple so you didn’t need these big teams running you and you could run them out of a Transit van. I think that’s why the formula was such a success. We were lucky in that we had a good car that was easy to drive and easy to set up, because we were just amateurs at that stage.”

He had loads of rivals “The racing in Formula Ford in those days was phenomenal against people like Rick Morris, Derek Daly, Bernard Devaney and Jim Walsh. Jim was the king of Silverstone, but I’m sure I beat him there! Actually, I’ve no idea if I did. Jim was obviously really quick at Silverstone but he was also quick at other places as well.”

It was a very busy year “We decided we wanted to do all the Formula Ford championships, so we did the European Championship, the British Championship, the Townsend Thoresen Championship and the DJM Records Championship. But I think I stretched myself a bit and I only won the European, although I was second in the Formula Ford Festival.”

Silverstone was the highlight “It was just about the sheer competitiveness of the category and I think Silverstone was the pinnacle of all the circuits because the racing there was just so extraordinary. On the last lap going into the last corner there would still be 15 of us and the front six, seven or eight would just spread out across the track and the one who could hold out the longest before getting on the brakes would win.”

He learnt a lot “It was brilliant racing and very exciting and probably the best racing during that era of Formula Ford. It was good for me as it was cheap and affordable.”