NEW GIRLFRIEND TO THE RESCUE

Johnny Mowlem had a mega deal on the table.

His problem was the three grand of the required five he was missing in his quest to get out in a Class A Formula 3 car for the first time at the end of 1995. But when he recounted his tale of woe on a first date, he ended up coming away with an interestfree loan for the said amount.

The luck of a poorly funded driver who’d managed four class victories in Class B F3 for year-old cars over sporadic campaigns in 1994 and 1995 was that his new girlfriend was a successful TV actor and presenter. Fiona Lee-fraser, to use her stage name, may be known to readers of a certain age as Laura Regan, daughter of headmistress Mrs Regan, in the BBC children’s soap Grange Hill circa the late 1980s.

“I don’t remember it quite like Fiona does, but she says I gave her a real sob story and that I was dropping some pretty heavy hints,” recounts

Mowlem. “It might actually have been our second date, though I always say first date because it makes for a better story.”

Mowlem’s dream drive in the DAW team’s Dallara-mugen Honda F395 for the nonchampionship race at Donington Park didn’t go to plan, however. He didn’t make it away from a grid that also boasted Juan Pablo Montoya and Memo Gidley: he stalled the thing as he adjusted his foot on the clutch ready for the getaway.

“It was probably the lowest point of my motorsport life,” he says. “I’d scraped all the money I had in the world together and borrowed three grand off my new girlfriend, then missed out on a big opportunity to further my career. I thought, ‘I’m going to stop all this bollocks.’”

It didn’t end up all bad for Mowlem, though, as he went on to have a successful sportscar career. Oh, and he married that girl!