STEPPING INTO THE DRAGONS’ DEN

Formula Ford racer Rob Hall was looking for a way back onto the national scene after finishing second in the local Castle Combe series in 2007. His solution to the problem was to try to sell himself on primetime TV in front of a panel of entrepreneurs on Dragons’ Den the following year.

The seed of the idea was sown on a train journey made by Hall and some of his mates to Cardiff to watch a few stages of Rally GB.

“We were talking about how I could raise some money on the train,” recalls Hall. “Someone said I needed to get myself on TV and then someone else shouted out Dragons’ Den, and it went from there.”

Rob’s father David, himself an FF1600 racer in the 1980s, took up the challenge. He had to wait until his son was 18, but they made it onto the show and asked for just £50,000 to part-fund a season in a Duratec-engined car in return for 50% of his future earnings.

“To be honest we weren’t really after the Dragons’ money; we were after their contacts,” says Hall Sr. “I’m not sure we got that across and we walked away empty handed.”

The TV appearance did, however, open doors. The show was seen by Irish Formula Ford racer Noel Roddy and resulted in the loan of a Mygale that Hall Jr raced sporadically over the next five years. It was aboard this car, a Duratec SJ00 converted to Kent-spec, in which he finished fourth and then second in the Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

“We thought it as worth a punt,” says Rob, who also appeared in the follow-up Dragons’ Den: Where

are they now? show. “I had my 15 minutes of fame and I guess it got my name out there, because that’s how the chance to race the Mygale came up.”