MOTOR SPORT FLASHBACK
MICHAEL GOES IN SEARCH OF HIDDEN TREASURES AND ONLY JUST MAKES IT TO HIS FIRST GRAND PRIX…
My old mate the late Eoin Young had a knack for connecting highly specific memorabilia with people who he’d met who had highly specific interests. His great friend Nigel Roebuck, the esteemed Formula 1 (F1) writer, recalled a trip that he made to Paris in the late ’80s: “It was — as trips with ESY [Eoin S Young] always were — extremely convivial: ‘Don’t know much about wine,’ he would say, ‘except how to drink it …’
“One day, we went to a favourite haunt of mine, a dusty little shop — now, sadly, long gone — called ‘Le Sportsman’, which was in a backstreet somewhere near the Eiffel Tower. It sold sports memorabilia, and, over the years, I’d spent countless hours in the shop, delving through boxes of programmes and photos and newspaper cuttings. It didn’t surprise me that Eoin was captivated by the place. When we arrived, I sorted out where the racing stuff was, and we set to going through sundry boxes. In one of mine, I came across something that was of little interest to me but which I suspected my friend — in my experience, a dealer without equal — might just find to his liking. It was a special edition of a Parisian newspaper — Le Petit Journal — printed in commemoration of the very first motor race, run from Paris to Rouen in 1894. Remarkably, it was in very good nick; even more remarkably, it was astonishingly cheap — 100 francs, which was then about 12 quid. I handed it to him, and when he took in what it was, he started stammering incoherently; when he noted the price, he momentarily lost the gift of speech altogether, which was quite unusual …
“We carried on going through this mass of material, both of us setting aside quite a few items, but I could tell that Eoin’s interest had piqued and that he was anxious to get back to the hotel to make a phone call as soon as possible. ‘I know just the bloke for the Paris– Rouen thing,’ he gabbled in the taxi … And so he did. As soon as we were back, he dialled a number in California, and, by now, he was coolness personified. I remember Eoin’s patter. ‘I’m in Paris — and, at great cost, I’ve just come across something you may feel you need to own …’ After hearing a description of the item, the man on the line asked if the cover of the newspaper could be faxed to him (that dates the story, doesn’t it?). This was duly done, and we sat there in the room, waiting for the return call from the US. It wasn’t long coming; the client clearly did feel he needed to own this piece of history — how much was it?
“‘Well,’ Eoin said, ‘what would you consider a reasonable sum?’ ‘Four thousand dollars,’ the
man ventured. ‘Isn’t that amazing?’ our friend responded. ‘The very figure I had in mind …’ We had a particularly convivial dinner that night.”
We see it with all sorts of things — one man’s trash … Some five or six years ago, my wife saw a dirty and chipped bit of porcelain in a charity shop in Taupo — the lid was taped onto the base and even at 50c she was in two minds. But she made the purchase, cleaned it up, and liked the end result. In 2015, she tucked it in her luggage when bound for Britain, in the event it might be of interest to the folk on the Antiques Roadshow. It rather was. What had been left uncared for in a thrift shop turned out to be a French ‘Sèvres’ pot from 1770, which, had she sold it for the ascribed value, would have paid for her flights — thus, as the Chuck Berry song goes, “It goes to show you never can tell”. So when someone has something of genuine provenance, and therefore probably of some value, and they willing donate it, then that’s pretty special — which is what Pat Kerr did in mid May. New York–born Pat is the widow of Phil Kerr, whose life on the inside of motor racing was intertwined with the careers of Bruce Mclaren and Denny Hulme. She was a motor racing junkie long before she met Phil, initially as a spectator and then as a most accomplished photographer.
The unique treasures that Pat has vested on the Bruce Mclaren Trust include a leather helmet bag with ‘B MCL’ on it, Bruce’s Gulf jacket, a Bell Helmets jacket with ‘B Mclaren’ on the label, and a set of the distinctive Cebe goggles that he was fond of wearing. In addition, Pat handed over various documents to Bruce’s sister Jan and his nephew Paul Hunter — including a signed contract between Bruce and Carroll Shelby: “Shelby shall pay to Driver the sum of $9,000 in consideration of Driver’s services in racing and/or testing”.
F1 in France!
This month marks a return for the German Grand Prix (GP), after missing 2017, but more amazing is that, in 2018, F1 is back in France for the first time in a decade — this from the nation that gave us that magic term ‘Grand Prix’. Since 2008, the world of F1 has visited such motor racing power bases as Korea, India, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, yet the original nerve centre of the automobile, and motor racing, has gone without. In the early days of the World Championship, there could be as few as six races counting towards the title, but, in 1958, things really stepped up, as there were 10 (if Indianapolis was excluded), including a one-off trip to Morocco.
In those early days, the Championship was massively Euro-centric. Take that big year of 1958, for example — between round one in the Argentine and the season finale in Ain Diab, ‘the circus’ visited Monaco, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Britain, Germany, Portugal, and Italy. The first visit to the US wouldn’t come until December 1959 (when it was famously won by Bruce Mclaren), while it would be another eight years until the first Canadian GP. That year, 1967, also saw the first South African round. Mexico joined the show in 1962, but, year in, year out, the certainties were always Britain; France; Germany; Italy; and, of course, Monaco. Apart from one exception in 1980, the Italian GP has been held at Monza since the 1920s, while the Monaco GP round-the-houses circuit has been used since 1929 and has been a regular part of the World Championship since the start, except for three occasions in the early ’50s. The British GP bounced around between Silverstone and Aintree in the ’50s / early ’60s, and then Brands Hatch became an alternative, but it has been locked in at Silverstone since 1987. The German GP was at Hockenheim from 1977 to 2006 with a single exception. It was cancelled in 2007 and then alternated
The unique treasures that Pat has vested on the Bruce Mclaren Trust include a leather helmet bag with ‘B MCL’ on it, Bruce’s Gulf jacket, a Bell Helmets jacket with ‘B Mclaren’ on the label, and a set of the distinctive Cebe goggles that he was fond of wearing
with the new Nürburgring for seven years, wasn’t held in 2015, and seemingly might not be held in 2019. It is hard to fathom that a country that has given us not only a heavy helping of the most aspirational cars on the planet but also world champions such as Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel could struggle to draw enough of a crowd. Yet, across the border in Belgium, Spa is — year in, year out — packed to the gunwales, more so since the rise of Max Verstappen, which has meant legions of Dutch fans flocking there.
Circuit Paul Ricard
The French GP has been all over the place, and perhaps the fact that there has never been an established ‘home’, in the way Silverstone and Monza are for the British and Monaco GPS, respectively, is part of the reason why a World Championship round went missing. Reims and Rouen alternated to host the GP in the early days, then the ultra-challenging Circuit de Charade was tried, before a move south to the ‘state of the art’ Paul Ricard in 1971. Next, it headed back north to Dijon, before settling, seemingly for political purposes, at Magny-cours from 1991 to 2008. For 2018, the French GP returns to Paul Ricard — about half an hour north of Toulon — which is where I attended my first-ever GP, 35 years ago, on a day when things didn’t go according to plan.
I’d spent a fair chunk of my first 25 years on the planet looking forward to my first F1 GP, and 17 April 1983 would be the day I had looked forward to for so long. Circumstances dictated that my wife and I would fly down to Toulon on the morning of the race. I didn’t have a great flight, and Sandy offered to drive. However, given that neither of us had driven ‘a leftie’ before, no matter how rough I was feeling, driving on the wrong side of the road to the French GP was a ‘man’s job’. After all, our rental was a Renault 5 Le Car — now, you don’t throw the keys to one of those to just anyone. The directions seemed straightforward enough, and we had plenty of time, so bring it on. It was a right out from the airport followed by another right down a narrow lane. Somehow, the wipers started when I indicated, and changing gear with the stick seemed a lot more effective than with the window winder. Along the narrow lane, there was grass right up to the edge of the seal — I thought the grass was level with the road, never imagining that it could be long grass growing in a ditch. “Michael, you’re a bit close to the ditch!” said my wife. I was still thinking, What ditch?, as Le Car fell into it.
There we were, on route to my first GP — a day that I’d been looking forward to for the best part of a quarter of a century, and I’d tilted the rental car. We’d travelled no more than a kilometre and were still within sight of the airport. Man, the door of a car is heavy when you need to push it up! We were completely uninjured, but there was no way of knowing how bad the car was. The calmer of the two of us reminded me that we’d just passed a service station. Pumped full of adrenalin, I sprinted back in hope of an English speaker and a tow truck. There was neither, so it was communication by sign. Pandemonium followed as the mademoiselle chattered into the phone. I imagined every form of rescue vehicle to be descending on our little white Renault — Inspector Clouseau might even turn up.
As I stood waiting, the realization hit me that my first GP would have to be another day. At that moment, I heard a ‘toot toot’ out on the forecourt. I looked around and saw my wife in the car that I’d put into a ditch not five minutes earlier, waving and motioning me to get a move on. I didn’t stop to look for the hidden cameras — it simply couldn’t be real; surely, Le Car was now a pile of junk. I yelled out something like “Is OK”, ran to the driver’s door, and was firmly told to “Get in the other side, I’m driving”.
There wasn’t a mark on the car. How had she done it? The story unfolded: a pretty girl leaning against the side of an acutely angled Renault as a rugby team in a bus on its way to a game happens upon her. The bus stops and from it emerge a couple of locks and props. They take a corner each and lift ‘ le car’ from ‘ le ditch’. Big smiles all around — lots of shoulder shrugging, no doubt — big boys get back on bus, and wife goes in search of husband. After the explanation, not a lot was said as the petit blanc auto was driven through mountain passes with the aplomb of someone who’d driven left-hookers all her life. I sat alongside thinking, here’s me, as a boy, dreaming of driving in the first GP I attend, and I can’t even guide a 1.1-litre Renault down a straight piece of road.
I’d spent a fair chunk of my first 25 years on the planet looking forward to my first F1 GP, and 17 April 1983 would be the day I had looked forward to for so long