Starting out in commentary - my story

I am often asked how I got into commentary in the first place, and it is a tale I have told, in varying degrees of detail, on many occasions. As I explained a while ago, (here) I first went to a motor race when I was ten years old, with my parents. As I grew up and became more independent, I began to take myself along: at first on public transport, which was a nightmare, with Sunday bus and train schedules and the remoteness of most circuits making visits to anywhere except Crystal Palace a near-impossibility. I did make it to Brands Hatch a couple of times, but once I was old enough and more importantly, able to drive, then having my own car opened up a world of possibilities.

Through the late seventies then, I drove all over the country to watch Formula 3, Formula 2, Touring Cars, Sports cars, and of course, Formula 1 - I would attend not only the British Grand Prix, but also any other F1 race that might take place within these shores. By the time the British Grand Prix came around in 1980, I had been to Silverstone, Mallory Park, Thruxton, Oulton Park and Donington; as well as Monaco, Monza and the Österreichring.

As far as possible, I would always position myself as close to a loudspeaker as I could - and I would always keep a lap chart, in order to keep on top of what was going on. I nearly always attended race meetings on my own - so the commentator came to be my friend. One of the first things that I would do on buying the programme would be to look to find out who the commentator was. So if I did not know the faces of Brian Jones, Norman Greenway, Neville Hay or Peter Scott-Russell, I certainly knew their voices. The presence of Anthony Marsh meant that it was a major meeting, and if Jean-Charles Laurens was there, to inform the “French-speaking spectators”, then of course that added a very exotic, foreign flavour and you knew you were at a truly International Event.

So it came that at the British Grand Prix (at Brands Hatch) in 1980, I became increasingly irritated with Brian Jones as he failed to provide the information that I wanted. So irritated did I become, that I decided to put pen to paper and write to him. (On a whim, I also sent a copy to Motoring News, which published it in the week following the Grand Prix.)

All credit to Brian, then, as he replied within a week or so to my letter - defending himself in some areas, and admitting fault in others - and trying to explain the complexity and pressure of his job. He also invited me to see him, in the commentary box, at some point when next I would be at Brands.

As things turned out, I didn’t go back to Brands for the rest of 1980, but in May 1981, I phoned up in order to try and organise a corporate event at the Motor Racing Stables skid pan. In those days, Brian’s day job was taken up running Motor Racing Stables, and I of course instantly recognised his voice as we talked about how and when we might be able to organise something. We agreed that he would send me some information, and he asked for my name and address.

“Paul Truswell,” I said.

“Paul…, wait a minute,” Brian replied and in my mind’s eye I could see his pen pause in mid-air. “Weren’t you the chap who wrote me that snotty letter after the Grand Prix last year?”

“Yes, that was me,” I replied.

“And I sent you a reply, didn’t I?” Brian went on.

“You did,” I said.

“I invited you to come and see me in the commentary box, didn’t I?” Brian said.

“Yes, I know,” I said, “but there just hasn’t been the opportunity since.”

“Well, what are you doing this weekend?” asked Brian.

“Coming to Brands Hatch?” I suggested. Before the deal was fully done, I had to undertake to make myself useful, doing lap charts, helping sort out paperwork and so on, and as a result, Brian organised that passes be sent to me, and graciously allowed me to spend the whole day in the commentary box with him. We got on extremely well - having spent the better part of ten years listening to him commentate, I knew instinctively what he was about to say, and tried to provide him with the appropriate piece of paper at the appropriate time, in order that he might not be left with an unfinished sentence. For more than a year, I helped out with lap charts and so on, without having any ambition to pick up the microphone myself.

However, the layout of the box at Brands Hatch meant that the commentator had to descend a ladder, walk through the timekeepers’ box, and then go down a further two flights of stairs, to interview the winners after each race. Brian thought it would be a good idea if I could “fill in” for him, while he was out of the box, by reading out the result of the previous race, or reading out the grid positions for the next race. As the absence of any such information being read out over the PA had been one of the reasons for my letter the previous year, I was happy to do so, on the understanding that by the time the next race started, Brian would have got his breath back and be ready to talk again.

Brian had other ideas though, and encouraged me to keep the headset on and commentate on a race on my own. Gradually I began to do more: either he and I would share a meeting between us, commentating on alternate races; or I would go out to Westfield Bend and commentate from there when the Grand Prix circuit was in use. But at the bigger meetings, when a more experienced commentator went out to Westfield, then I would return to lap-charting duties. As my circle of contacts increased, so I found myself more work, and started doing lap charts at Silverstone, for Ian Titchmarsh.

I must admit, I was inspired to a certain degree by Jeremy Shaw, who proved to me that it was possible to do a “block” lap chart at a long-distance race, provided there was someone else helping by doing a “running” chart. In the days before electronic timing, and computer screens providing the positions in real-time, an up-to-date lap chart was the only chance for the commentator to be able to follow what was going on in the six hour, 1000km races - even into the mid-1980’s.

When Jeremy emigrated to the USA, I was one of very few who was prepared to take on the challenge of a long-distance lap-chart, and I even managed to ‘sell’ a couple of them to Quentin Spurring, to assist him in writing his race report for Autosport.

Ian and Brian are very different types of commentator, with very different ways of working, but I learnt a lot from both of them, and received a huge amount of help and encouragement too. After Keith Douglas retired from commentating, I took over at Stowe Corner for Silverstone Grand Prix circuit meetings. I also worked a lot with Robin Bradford, who at that time was organising a good deal of motor racing commentary in the UK.

When Radio Le Mans started looking for experienced voices to cover the twenty-four hours, it was a logical choice to use Ian Titchmarsh and me as a double-act - by that stage we would cover nearly all the endurance sportscar races in the UK - Ian with volumes of paper and reference books to complement his encyclopaedic knowledge, and me with my stop-watch, exercise book and lap charts.

So thanks, then to all those I have named above - for encouragement, advice and inspiration. It was never an ambition for me to do what I do - rather I just stepped in, listened and did what I felt needed doing. I think it was all worthwhile - and I hope you agree!

Postscript - on the subject of thanks, there are two others who deserve mention: firstly John Hindhaugh, who has continued to invite me to participate in Radio Le Mans broadcasts; and secondly my wife, who has allowed me to continue to indulge in my hobby despite the increased responsibilities brought about by household and family!

24hours - One team. One target.

A film by Tim and Nick Hahne, presented by Stereoscreen.

I recently came across this DVD, and I am so glad I did. First and foremost, there are so few films about the Nürburgring 24 hours, and with the ever-increasing profile of this race, it is about time someone stepped in to fill the void. The trouble is that Tim and Nick Hahne’s film sets the bar at a pretty high level and I fear it might discourage others from trying.

The film tells the story of the Schnitzer BMW team, as it faces its big target: winning the 24 hours at the Nürburgring in 2011. Having won the race the previous year, expectations are high, and without wanting to spoil the plot for you, it was always going to be a big challenge for Charly Lamm’s team in the face of the competition from Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes and Audi.

The film follows the team through its preparation: testing at Imola, in the workshops at Freilassing and finally at the Nürburgring for qualifying and the race. We get ‘at home’ glimpses of life with the Priaulx family in Guernsey, see Jörg Müller and Augusto Farfus tearing up the streets of Monaco on their scooters and hear Dirk Adorf explaining his passion for the race as he prepares his tea.

Best supporting actor is race engineer Jacques Hendrikse; the Dutchman playing a role of which Jack Nicholson would be proud - grumpy, but wise; a father figure in whose hands the team can safely place its trust.

The Oscar performance though, comes from Charly Lamm. A familiar face, but beneath his craggy visage are a love and passion for endurance racing (proper racing) that shines out from the screen like xenon headlights piercing the dark of the Eifel forests. I defy you to watch to the end without a lump in your throat, if not a tear in your eye.

Musical accompaniment comes from Toussaint, supplemented by the vocal talent of Sara Lugo, which certainly adds to the atmosphere. Personally, though, I found the complexity of the score a little obtrusive and at times distracting; but that could have a lot to do with my own musical preferences, and certainly doesn’t devalue the quality of the show.

You can watch either with English or German narration, but in either case, you probably need to have the subtitles switched on, as so much of the film is spent with the likes of Lamm or Priaulx speaking their native languages. But it works far better to hear them speaking than to have their voices dubbed - to understand fully what they are saying you need to hear the excitement and emotion in their voices.

I have only one real warning and that is that the film is very light on technical detail - the depth of emotional content comes at that price. You are not really told at any point what the team is doing, or why. But this is not a film to give away any engineering or strategic secrets - rather it gets to the heart and soul of endurance racing in general and the Nürburgring in particular.

If your video and DVD collection contains too many Le Mans films (like mine does) then this is a wonderful addition to it. It may not be the best film you’ve ever bought (that is anyway a matter for lively debate) but I would be surprised if you don’t go back and watch it over and over again.

Find it on Amazon, or http://24hours-der-film.de. It is also available on Blu-ray if you are so equipped.

When you've watched it, let me know what you think below.

Heroes and winners.

A couple of things in this month’s Motor Sport got me thinking. The first was in Nigel Roebuck’s column: “Who was your personal hero?” he posed to drivers, in an attempt to find out more about the character of his interviewees. His underlying theme was that, these days, few drivers had personal heroes; instead they spent their formative years focussing purely on karting and the learning of their craft. As a consequence, they often lose sight of the bigger picture - and lack a knowledge of the history of the stage on which they perform.

It got me to ask myself the same question, though, and I couldn’t really find anyone in particular; certainly not one that inspired me beyond all others to acquire a lifelong interest in this sport. Probably just as well really, as with his passing, I would hate to think that I might not want to follow motor racing any more.

There are many candidates: stars of the motor-racing world while I was growing up and getting to know motor sport. I’m not sure that Jim Clark quite made it onto my list - he was killed when I was 11 - and unfortunately he wasn't at either of the Formula One races that I saw before that day in April 1968. But somehow he never really inspired me, not until later in life when I found out more about him. The problem for me as a “pre-teen” (not sure that was a term that had been invented then), was that Clark was too good. If other things were equal, then Clark would win; and where was the fun in that?

I was a big fan of the Lotus 72 when it appeared in 1970, and having seen Jochen Rindt triumph (somewhat fortuitously, I’ll admit) in the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, I was devastated when he was killed at Monza later that year. I’d seen Rindt in Formula Two races at Crystal Palace, where he was of course king, and had read of his supremacy in the category. To my simple teenage mind, that he would win a world championship in such a marvellous car as the Lotus 72 was only right and proper.

Emerson Fittipaldi was another of my first heroes. Having seen him race through Formula Ford and Formula Three at Crystal Palace in 1969, to have him seal Jochen’s championship by winning at Watkins Glen in what was only his fourth Grand Prix - that was wonderful. And it was in a Lotus. There was always something special about Lotus. Much more so than Ferrari. And at least one could realistically aspire to owning a Lotus. And so I did, later. I'm still saving up for my first Ferrari.

Inevitably, then, many of the heroes of my youth were Lotus drivers: after Rindt and Fittipaldi came Peterson, Ickx, Andretti: winners every one of them. I never really took to Mansell though, nor Hunt before him - my Englishness did not extend to jingoism. Then there was Senna. Ah, yes, Senna. By the time Senna arrived in the UK, I had already started my journey in the world of commentary, which provided me with greater opportunities to get to know the man behind the helmet; to see my heroes as human beings, that one could actually talk to... I did speak with Ayrton, several times, and he remained a hero - albeit not one without flaws: maybe genius would be a better term.

And as I got involved in the sport, so the people that I got to know became my heroes. Drivers that weren’t such household names, but ones that I could have a beer with and respect. People whose skill and craft I could understand: Gerry Marshall, Barrie Williams, Tony Lanfranchi, Karl Jones, Patrick Watts. As my knowledge deepened, so my taste for the history developed, and I found out more about Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio, Tazio Nuvolari, Jean-Pierre Wimille. Somehow the term ‘hero’ seemed far more appropriate referring to drivers of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. Martin Brundle (also in this month’s Motor Sport) says “…the (Formula 1) cars (of today) are too … easy to drive…” To my mind, to be a hero, you have to overcome adversity, and somehow Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton et al have all had it too easy. Like many of today’s celebrities, whatever their heights of achievement, they have not truly had to struggle.

And in that light, my own personal heroes shine less brightly. Motor racing is sometimes a small and insignificant world.

The other bit of Motor Sport this month that caught my eye was the letter from historic racer Malcolm Ricketts, in which he quotes the late John Dawson-Damer: “the better guys will always win, but the winners are those who can run their cars well, look good, sound good, enjoy themselves and be an entertainment to those who come to have a look. It is not racing, it is motor sport, and that is the difference.”

It’s an interesting thought, and I value it for its depth - for it is not obvious, and not, it seems to me, a view that many will agree with; today the perceived wisdom is that winning is everything and learning how to lose gracefully doesn’t seem to be a highly-prized virtue.

I believe it should not only be applied in the field of historic motor sport, but also to the contemporary scene. It goes at least part of the way to explaining why folk compete in an HRT or a Norma. There is something a bit special about the very activity of driving a car fast that starts the adrenaline - like going on a roller-coaster ride, you don’t necessarily have to win to get a rush from the activity. It’s the attitude of not giving up in an endurance race when you lose an hour repairing something and then go out and drive like crazy for the rest of the race in order to finish sixteenth. Or something like that. You don’t have to finish first in order to be a winner.

1971

I was having a bit of a spring clean recently, and in the course of re-organising my book-shelves, I came across a copy of Anthony Pritchard’s 'The Motor Racing Year No. 3'. Sadly the cover has come under attack from some paper-eating animal, but the pages are still intact, and I was drawn to Part 2 - The Sports Car Year. It is fascinating looking back, and I wondered what might be learned from examining the state of sports car racing forty years or so ago and comparing it to the state we are in today. That there was a (World) Sports Car Manufacturers’ Championship was not remarked upon, nor was the fact that it took place over eleven rounds in which Le Mans was round nine, and the final race of the season was before the end of July. Different days indeed.

However, Spa, Le Mans and Sebring were all on the championship trail, all venues steeped in sports car racing history. There is something very reassuring about consistency of this nature - it makes you feel that the subject of your interest is more worthy, more honourable, in a way. It reminded me of Andrew Marr's recent documentary about "The Diamond Queen", in which we are told of the Queen's constant presence over the last sixty years: despite all the changes in the social and political background, the monarchy has always been there and somehow one thinks it will always be there.

Not like sports car racing. Or is it? I found particularly fascinating the doom-laden tone of much of the text of the time. Take this, the introduction to chapter 6: “The 1971 season was not exceptional by any standard, as one vital ingredient for exciting motor racing was lacking, the absence at most races of any serious opposition to the overwhelming Porsche onslaught.” Audi’s approach to 2012 may not be such an onslaught, but it struck me as ironic that, forty years later, there are strong parallels.

That's the beauty of looking back - as any student of history will confirm; you find uncanny similarities with the past, as well as unexpected and unpredictable contrasts.

Then there is the review of the Le Mans 24 hours race itself: “Le Mans has degenerated into a long, tedious marathon of attrition, with most of the faster cars retiring and with very little interest or drama except in the first few hours.” Pritchard continues: “The 1971 race attracted the worst entry for many years,” but goes on to assert that the ACO had seventy-four entries from which to pick the fifty-five starters. Seems strong enough a level of support to me, but there seemed little space for optimism in 1971. Is that true in 2012?

In 1971, Motor Sport's DSJ wasn't even at Le Mans, covering instead a non-championship Formula One race at Hockenheim. The 24 hour race was reported for Motor Sport by Andrew Marriott, who wrote:
"Undoubtedly, Le Mans has lost much of its old magic and in this, the last year of the present 5-litre cars, there were few high spots as the most famous of all sports car races played itself out.

Don't you just love the closely packed text?

"The 1971 Le Mans 24-Hours will go down as one of the less memorable races for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the main one was that, with a couple of minor exceptions, there were no really new models in the race.

"Yes, the Le Mans magic has faded, and several of the old faces were missing including MOTOR SPORT's Continental Correspondent who was giving the race a miss for the first time in almost twenty years."

The zenith of Group C is far in the future, the complete disappearance of a world championship in the 1990's unimaginable, and yet, here we are, approaching the eightieth running of the great race with its popularity intact and probably, if anything, on the increase.

In his Continental Notes in MOTOR SPORT's July, 1971 edition, however, Denis Jenkinson did suggest, that with the introduction of the 3-litre formula for sports cars, scheduled for 1972, an era could be envisaged in which Grand Prix and Sports car racing would be able to converge: "Could we possibly be entering on a new phase of equality between Grand Prix and Sports Cars where the best of both worlds are combined into a one-type racing scene, with the scrapping of the Drivers' World Championship and the Manufacturers' Campionship, and the introduction of an overall Racing Championship for the best team (and/or driver) in motor racing."

Hardly. And now Formula 1, as Grand Prix racing seems to have become known, is further from any other form of the sport than even Jenks can have expected. But Sports Car racing still fills an important niche, with the ACO particularly willing to encourage and embrace new technologies with relevance to road car development.

Just as today, the 1970's were full of economic uncertainty, a severe fuel crisis, and the ACO had to react to world events with innovative regulations, often in the face of conflicting direction from the CSI (the then sporting arm of the FIA).

Apart from the sheer joy of wallowing in history, I think the point I am trying to draw out here is that ever since the announcement of the World Endurance Championship for 2012, media outlets have been portraying the negative aspects. Such is the nature of the media. I would not pretend that everything is necessarily as rosy as it could be. But by examining the past and understanding it, you become better placed to make the right decisions in the present to the benefit of the future.

In general, interest in sports car racing is high. The organisation is trying to make things better, not worse and I believe that, from a technical point of view, sports car racing is in good hands. What I sometimes doubt is when political or sporting decisions are made, they are frequently off beam - full of shortsightedness or riven with unintended consequence.

What we need now is wisdom and a strong nerve - not just in sports car racing, but in the world in general. 1971 gave us the Porsche Curves, and a 24-hour distance record that survived until 2010. I hope that 2012 can provide similarly iconic legacies.

Reflecting on Dubai and Daytona

January. Usually a pretty quiet month, motor-racing-wise. If I don’t go to the NEC for the Autosport show, then there’s usually not much reason to worry about motor-racing things. This normally means that I can devote myself to family matters, and the panic that goes with having a son whose birthday is three weeks after Christmas. This year has been different, though. First of all, I was asked if I would attend the Dubai 24 hour race, and this was swiftly followed by an invitation to the Daytona 24 hours, covering both as part of the Radio Le Mans team, which would be broadcasting for the Motors TV coverage of these events in Europe, as well as other outlets, too numerous for me to keep track of.

Luckily, my dear wife expressed little objection to my flying off to both these events – although to be fair I think she would have rather have me stay at home, but understands my passion for the sport, and knows how grumpy I would be if I would have stayed at home. And I never like to turn down an invitation.

Dubai and Daytona lie roughly on the same line of latitude - Dubai is about four degrees further south than Daytona, which is roughly the same amount that Le Mans is south of Silverstone. The Dunlop Dubai 24 hours is organised by the Dutch Creventic organisation, and encourages the participation of amateur, privateer, drivers and teams. These days, the Rolex Daytona 24 hours is a Grand-Am race, and is in many ways a pale shadow of the race that I first visited in 1990, which was then a full-blooded prototype rehearsal for Le Mans.

Despite now taking place for the seventh time, Dubai suffers from not having the same heritage as other 24 hour races that I attend. Even the Silverstone 24 hours has echoes of Willhire races of the 1980’s. And I would also suggest that, despite having a climate that makes being out-of-doors a far more pleasant experience in January than it would be in England, Dubai’s location is not really appealing.

I had never visited any part of the Middle East before, so everything was new to me. On arrival, I had an open mind, and the welcome was warm in all senses. But the Gulf of Arabia is bordered by not much more than desert. As one of the ‘Emirates’ in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Dubai shares the same motor racing history as Bahrain or Abu Dhabi. In other words, very little heritage and lots of inherited wealth. There was a certain overt opulence about the place that was somehow tasteless, and materialistic poverty was never far out of sight. It was probably little different from the discomfort I would feel if I would attend a parent’s evening for students at Eton college, but that may be as much a reflection of a xenophobia on my part as anything else.

I think the location of the circuit, a little way away from the city centre might have also a part to play in my lack of enthusiasm for the place. The drive from hotel to track was through half-completed building projects, some seemingly abandoned, along roads still under construction. And at the circuit, many buildings are also as yet incomplete, giving the place a somewhat unready feel. Despite the warmth of the temperature, looking out across the desolate landscape didn’t do anything for the soul.

Daytona, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. I do like Florida, having been many times, for business, pleasure, and to visit the Daytona International Speedway – where I have now seen five twenty-four hour races, and once (in 1993) the Daytona 500 Winston Cup race. Although I prefer the Gulf (west) coast of Florida to the Atlantic side, I know of few places more pleasant in the early months of the year to go, in order to escape from grey, dreary and damp England.

Daytona has history, in racing terms. From tales of land speed record attempts on the beach to legends like ‘King’ Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and ‘Fireball’ Roberts, images of cars racing past a blurred ‘Daytona USA’ wall appeared in Boys’ Own annuals of my youth. Arriving at Daytona for the first time and seeing the towering main grandstand rates as high in my memory as my first visit to Monza, Monte Carlo or Le Mans.

Those with good memories will recall that I wrote some “Rumblings” following last year’s Daytona 24 hours. (It’s here if you want to remind yourself). My issue then, as now, is more with the race than with the place. As with the geography, so with the races at Dubai and Daytona: there are some similarities and there are some significant differences.

The 24 hour races at both Dubai and Daytona have some rather artificial rules, which may detract from the purity, but each in their own way add to the strategy and interest of the race and the entertainment it provides. In Dubai, there was the concept of ‘minimum reference lap time’, which was the lap time, faster than which you were not supposed to go. Ten ‘exception laps’ were allowed, but after that, drive-through penalties were handed out. As a consequence, once you had fallen behind, it was mighty difficult to catch up again, especially as the cars with the fastest ‘reference lap time’ fell out of the race early on.

On the other hand, at Daytona, arcane safety car procedures meant that catching up with the leader was merely a matter of waiting for the next full course caution period, when the leading cars (in each class) would be lined up nose-to-tail for the restart. Unless you were in a situation where you were about to fall off the lead lap, or in a position to unlap yourself from the leader in order to get back onto the lead lap, there was little point in trying to really go for it and establish an advantage. Much better to hold station, play follow-my-leader, and save the big effort for the final dash to the flag.

Both formats required sharp minds on the pit wall making the tactical decisions, and in both races the winners deserved the spoils of victory, in my view. Crucially, though, both races held the spectators’ interest throughout. The fact that cars which stopped out on the circuit could be brought back to the garages to be worked on; the fact that, at Daytona, you could benefit from the ‘free pass’, or ‘lucky dog’ to get back onto the lead lap, all meant that there was always action on the track, and a race result that was uncertain until the very end of the race.

Opening up a race in this way may seem unfair on teams which spend most of the time dominating, but it ensures that runaway victories do not happen, which in turn reduces the number of fans that leave before the end of the race, and keeps the competitors and drivers happy.

What made both events especially enjoyable, though, was hosts who genuinely wanted to make their guests feel welcome. Whether the guests were spectators, entrants, drivers or media, one could not mistake the helpful attitude and the eagerness to make a good impression. Despite its heritage, its atmosphere, and all the other things that go to make Le Mans the greatest race in the world, it is a lesson that one day might need to be learnt. Times change.

An afternoon with...

Just after Christmas, I had the opportunity to spend several hours in the company of Hugh Chamberlain. Hugh and I go back a long way, to before the days when he won the FIA World Endurance Championship for Group C2 cars with his Spice, through the early nineties, which included a rather sordid evening in the Shark Lounge at Daytona Beach, to his more recent appearances at Le Mans in various ‘consultancy’ roles.

I hope Hugh needs no further introduction here, and I hope that one day his book will appear… it will make fascinating reading. I visited him at his house in rural Hertfordshire, and as it was the first time that I had been, I was first given “the tour”. As we wandered the spacious grounds of the grade II listed cottage, Hugh told me how he bought the place.

“It was on a handshake,” he began, and I could feel one of Chamberlain’s stories about to start. “I’d been in the pub all night, and this chap, who I knew quite well, from the pub, was telling me that he wanted to sell, and he particularly wanted to sell it to me. ‘I want you to have it,’ he told me,” Hugh said, pointing his finger and looking me in the eye. “Well, the following morning I had a call from him, telling me that he would be contacting his solicitor later on to get the process started. … it was all news to me! I got on the phone to my solicitor and told him to stall, under no circumstances was he to do anything. After a few weeks, we had managed to agree on a price, and Small (Hugh’s wife) and I have been here ever since.”

As I already mentioned, the location is extremely rural, but there are three pubs close by. Hugh continues his tale: “Well, I asked the landlord of my pub what he knew about the chap, and he just told me that I didn’t want to buy his place because of the drains. ‘The drains?’ I said, ‘how can you possibly know about the drains?’”

“So then he told me how the chap had a bit of an alcohol problem, but that his wife didn’t know about it, so he and the landlords of the two other pubs nearby had an arrangement to leave bottles of scotch for him in the hedge over there,” Hugh indicated the hedge which ran alongside the road that I had used a few minutes earlier. “Anyway, the landlord had said to him ‘how do you stop your wife from finding the empty bottles?’ This chap, the chap I bought the place from, had said, ‘oh I just throw them in the septic tank!’”

Hugh continues: “So when we moved in, one of the first things I did was to drain the septic tank, I’d never lived in a place without proper drains before, so I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I thought that it would be a good thing to do. And when it got down low, all there was to be seen were empty whisky bottles. I don’t know how deep it went, but I do know that the whole of the bottom portion of the tank has just got bottles in there. So I just left them!”

In the garage are Jaguar XK120, a Triumph TR3 and a Mallock U2, formerly raced by Creighton Brown. Hugh’s regular transport, a Jaguar, sits outside. “They are all runners, but I have to confess that the XK120 hasn’t been out for a while. It is taxed, though; I want to give it a run later this year.” There is also another garage (“a shed,” according to Hugh), which houses various historic motorbikes (“black and white motorbikes,” he says).

Inside the cottage is a veritable treasure trove of racing paraphernalia, memorabilia and other stuff. The walls have various pictures of importance or significance to Hugh – I spot the FIA prizegiving at which he received the 1989 C2 Championship award.

“Yes, Nick Adams was there as well, of course, very pleased with himself. And afterwards, we went to the pub (as you do), and Nick has had a few, and his French, you know, it got better the more booze he’d had. Anyway, he wasn’t quite sure of the French for ‘Champion’, so like most well-educated Englishmen, he just spoke English with a French accent. So there he is, dancing on the table, shouting out to anyone who cared to listen that he was the “Champignon du Monde… je suis un champignon du monde!” We didn’t have the heart to tell him that champignon meant ‘mushroom’!”

There is also an autograph on the wall, which I recognise as that of Fangio. Clearly, a source of some pride for Hugh. “We were at Spa, and we’d just won the World Championship – for the team, we hadn’t won the driver’s title at that point, and he was walking along behind the pits. Well I said to him, “you’ve won all those world championships, and we’ve just won this one, would you mind signing something for me?” Of course he didn’t speak a word of English, but he had a translator who went nearly everywhere with him, so he agreed. And I went back to the truck and the only piece of paper I could find was the back of one of our publicity brochures. So that’s what he signed. A great man.”

An awful lot of time was spent discussing Hugh’s most recent project, which involves a prospective LMP1 entry in the World Endurance Championship. This is a tale that will have to wait to be told until more water has passed under the bridge, and at the time of writing, it is still unclear where it will finish up. But like all of Hugh’s experiences, you live through it merely by listening to the man talk about.

The final story relates again to that World Championship, as Hugh removes the trophy from its cabinet to show me. It is best described as a typical FIA trophy from it era. Lots of artistic shiny metal on a fine presentation stand. “So we got it back and were showing it round to all the boys (at the factory)”, Hugh is giggling as he speaks. “And one of the blokes looks at it points at the metal swirls which adorn the bottom part of the trophy and says: “Cor, who did the welding on that!”

A great enthusiast, a great raconteur, and, yes, a great man in his own right.

An evening with...

Before Christmas, I mentioned here on the blog that I had had the opportunity for a dinner with the three Audi Race Engineers from the 2011 Le Mans race. Thanks to a chance conversation with David Ingram, followed up by some meticulous planning by Martyn Pass, I was able to spend a light-hearted few hours in the company of Kyle Wilson-Clarke, who engineered the no. 1 car of Mike Rockenfeller, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas, Howden ‘H’ Haynes, who was on the no. 3 car which Allan McNish drove, and of course, Leena Gade, who was in charge on the race-winning Audi R18 of Marcel Fässler, Benoît Tréluyer and André Lotterer.

In a forthcoming issue of Racecar Engineering you will be able to read some of the results of those conversations, but in the meantime, I have the opportunity to share with you some parts that won’t make it into the magazine, but which are too good to waste.

Most of my readers here will probably have seen Audi USA’s film “Truth in 24”. For many viewers, ‘H’ is the star of the film - and having now met him twice, I am convinced that what you see in the film is no act. Haynes has led a life devoted to motor sport (apart from brief dabbles with girls and a spell in the military) since his first visit to a race meeting, the day he left hospital after his birth, 33 years ago.

Indeed, he was named after Howden Ganley, but as ‘H’ says: “there were some raised eyebrows at the name, because no-one in the hospital knew who he was!” Haynes’ mother and father were both involved driving in sprints and hill-climbs, before moving on to circuit racing, so a life around motor sport was very much his upbringing. The story comes from the family folklore that Haynes senior was pretty dedicated to his racing.

“My mother and father were at the airport after their wedding, waiting to go off on their honeymoon, when my dad got a message from his father that some pistons had just arrived, so he rushed home to rebuild the engine, leaving my mother at the airport with the suitcases!”

Inevitably, Haynes spent many of his early years getting involved in the family’s racing exploits. “From as old as I can remember, I was working on cars - as soon as I was old enough to hold a torque wrench, I was doing the wheels up,” he says.

“Dad was a very committed racer,” he goes on. “I remember my mum and I had been out once and we got home to find that the sofa wasn’t in its usual place in the lounge. My mother said: ‘where’s the sofa?’ and my dad just looked a bit sheepish and said that he really needed a new set of tyres for his race car, but there wasn’t any money left and this chap had made him a really good offer for the three piece suite…”

Whether he acknowledges it or not, his upbringing has certainly left its mark on his character - his approach to racing, even in the role of an engineer, is uncompromising; although his career path, despite his unorthodox youth, was more conventional. He graduated from the University of Wales with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, during which time he also designed and built a National Supersports (Clubmans) car for his father’s race team.

“I got a scholarship at Reynard before I went to University. I didn’t want to go to University,” he says, “because I already had a job: I’d designed two sports cars (we were beating the Mallocks), but for me, University was something I needed to do, to get a qualification, but I didn’t really want to do it. I spent University designing the next car for Zeus - it was a two-litre sportscar. When I left Uni I went back to Reynard, but in the evenings I was doing stuff for Zeus.”

Through contacts that he made at Reynard, Haynes found himself at Team Bentley at Le Mans in 2001, through to the car’s triumph in 2003, and thus he became known to Joest Racing. A role as Assistant Race Engineer at the Veloqx Audi squad followed, which led (via Champion Racing) to Haynes working as race engineer on Joest Racing’s R10, R15 and R18 cars at Le Mans.

If you look closely on the “Truth in 24” film, you’ll see Leena Gade sitting on H’s left through the 2008 Le Mans race. In 2011, Leena became a star in her own right, and if you haven’t already seen it, check out this year’s short film from Audi, “13.854 seconds”. For me, the most memorable part of the film is when André Lotterer is passing the unrecognisable wreckage of the number 1 Audi. Viewers can hear André on the radio, saying: “… who is it?” There is an emotionally charged moment of silence, followed by Leena’s voice replying: “André, it’s Rocky.”

For me, this cameo is an illustration of how close the “Audi family” operates. Although Howden, Leena and Kyle all work for Progressive Motorsport, on a contract basis for Joest Racing, who are Audi Sport’s partner in Sports-Prototype racing, you would never be able to tell, walking through Audi’s garage, who belongs to which organisation. The Audi family is a very strong ethos within the organisation, to a large extent driven by Dr Wolfgang Ullrich, Audi’s head of Motorsport. “There’s a danger, with all the success we’ve had, that we could be regarded as arrogant and insensitive,” Martyn Pass, the team’s UK Press Manager says. “Dr Ullrich is keen to ensure that Audi is a team with a human side.”

The 2011 Le Mans 24 hours was an excellent example. After the two accidents which removed McNish (Haynes’s car) and Rockenfeller (Wilson-Clarke), all eyes in the Audi garage turned to Leena. Having assisted Haynes for three years on the pit wall, she was no stranger to Le Mans, but this was her first time there in charge of a car as Race Engineer.

Wasn’t there a temptation to move across the pit wall and move Leena aside? “No,” replies Haynes without hesitation. “I just told her that I was there if she needed me and left her to it. I got my head down and had a kip.” Leena casts a sharp eye at H, who responds with a quick shake of the head that suggests that, this time, he is joking.

We move on to discuss the tactics used by Peugeot in the last hour of this year’s 24 hours, when the Peugeot driven by Marc Gene in particular, was accused of blocking the leading Audi. “It was a war,” says Leena.

“I think if the roles had been reversed we might have done the same thing,” opines H, “we’re racing after all, and racing is all about winning. You use whatever tactics are open to you.”

Kyle appears to disagree: “I think that’s the point at which Dr. Ullrich would take the decision though,” he contends. “I’m not sure that he would want to win under those circumstances.”

Another interesting view is expressed by both Haynes and Gade about racing in America. “The yellow flags make it cool,” says H. “That’s the point at which you can take a decision and gain an advantage. Look at what Allan did at Petit Le Mans in 2008, when he pulled back two laps. There’s no way even he could have done that without using the caution periods correctly. That’s where we make the difference.”

Leena takes up the theme: “I remember there was one of the European Le Mans Series races at the Nürburgring, when we were just waiting for the end of the race. There was simply nothing happening.”

This reflects a different view of endurance racing in the 21st century, more akin to the view of a sprint racer. Every lap counts, every decision is crucial and the battle for the lead is intense, throughout the race. The days have long gone when at Le Mans, the Team Manager would work out a target lap time, in the hope that by restricting its pace, the car would last until the end of the race. Haynes again: “I know that’s what they used to do, but I’ve never done that; I’ve never run to a pace. It is always flat out.”

Where Haynes is rather old-fashioned though, is in having a stop watch. “You should never rely on the timing screen,” he says, “what if the power goes down, for example at Spa in 2010?” Haynes times every lap, and has taught Gade and Wilson-Clarke to do the same. “Every track I go to, I write out the points on the circuit map where I can talk on the radio to the driver, so I don’t interrupt him when he’s flat out through Beckett’s.”

It’s the type of attention to detail that makes Haynes one of the most sought-after Race Engineers in motor-racing.