DRIVEN TO CRIME
I vividly recall post-race-meeting gatherings back in the 1980s at The Kentagon or The Green Man, listening to colourful stories often led by Gerry Marshall and fuelled by rounds bought by C&SC’S Mike Mccarthy. Roy James, Colin Blakely, Nick Whiting and Vic Lee were regular subjects at the bar, and now at last there’s a book recording the more desperate methods of unscrupulous drivers and team owners in their efforts to go racing. I’ll wager you’ll struggle to put down Crispian Besley’s engrossing first publication.
Across 480 pages, this thumper of a title covers 90 sagas of fraud, swindles, drug-dealing and murder, from March F1 sponsor Akira Akagi to drug baron Charles Zwolsman Snr. There’s a high percentage of dodgy American characters, but English motorsport features strongly, including Roy James, the gifted silversmith turned getaway driver who was as quick on track as he was for the South West Gang. After serving 11 years for his role in the Great Train Robbery, James returned to racing aided by friends and sympathisers, but his outings were mostly disastrous, including taking out Nigel Mansell at Mallory Park.
American exploits include the George dynasty, famous for running the Indy 500 but also for the dramatic shooting of the hot-headed racer Elmer George. Having married Mari Hulman, the daughter of wealthy track saviour Tony Hulman Jnr, George was involved in a succession of aggressive incidents on- and off-track. In 1976 he went totally off the rails when his wife filed for divorce. A row with her suspected lover turned into a shootout in which George was killed, but his adversary was cleared due to ‘justifiable homicide’.
Other altercations include Bertrand Gachot’s clash with a London taxi driver in 1990, when his use of CS gas (illegal in England) for protection led to an 18-month prison sentence. The nightmare was worsened when Bertrand was held in the notorious Brixton prison, where one warden tormented him with reports of the brilliant young German who’d taken his seat at Jordan. Despite a successful appeal, Bertrand found himself on the F1 sidelines and his motorsport career never recovered. One of the first people to meet him on his release was Michael Schumacher.
The most bizarre sponsorship saga featured in the book involved the selling of electronic organs to churches. The business even extended to F1 sponsorship, with Southern Organs appearing on Dave Morgan’s Surtees in the 1975 British Grand Prix. When the £5million borrowing scam was exposed, lay preachers Sid Miller and John Bellord vanished to the barren Priest Island in Scotland and weren’t discovered for eight months.
The diverse stories range from Juan Manuel Fangio’s kidnapping in Cuba in 1958 to Charles Brockett’s insurance fraud, his deception exposed to the police by his estranged wife because she suspected he was hiding her painkillers.
You’ll be talking about this gripping book of racing rogues long after you’ve finished reading it. As with many sporting domains, the desperate side of motorsport often makes for the most riveting stories, as Crispian cogently proves. MW £40 Crispian Besley, Evro. ISBN 9781910505700
‘One prison warden tormented Bertrand with reports of the brilliant young German who’d taken his seat at Jordan’