Читать книгу Andy Priaulx: The Autobiography of the Three-time World Touring Car Champion - Andy Priaulx - Страница 8

‘Well, so what, Priaulx? Oh, you won a few hillclimbs, racing against old farmers, eh? Who the hell do you think you are?’

THERE IS AN OLD SAYING IN MOTOR RACING: ‘Standing still is like going backwards at 100 mph.’ In other words, you have to make progress all the time or you will soon find yourself left behind. It is perpetual motion. Everyone else is trying to go faster the whole time, so the moment you slacken off you will be overtaken. I think you get the idea.

The same kind of thinking dictates that once you have climbed your first mountain, you need to decide which one is next and then go out there and do it again. There is no room for sentiment. And there is no time to take a breather. Jo and I knew that because we had been climbing for years and fighting all the way. So, on the way back from that fantastic first European Touring Car Championship title win in Dubai in 2004, we knew that the next big challenge would be even tougher: we had to be faster, stronger and even better organised if we were to return the following season and ‘do it again’ – in other words, retain that championship crown.

Being from Guernsey was a big help, of course. We were not about to lose our heads, celebrate too much or lose touch with the earth beneath our feet. We had only to mention that kind of thing and we both knew what it meant. We had been through so much together, over so many years, that we were not going to get this far and then waste it. After all, had it not been for Jo and our respective families, I do not think we would have succeeded.

The Guernsey blood in our veins was a real strength not just then, as we enjoyed success, but all the way through. And it still is. When I left home in 1997 and towed that caravan to Silverstone, it was not just the end of the first part of my life; it was the start of the second. But in both I continued to be true to my Guernsey roots, and am proud of what I’ve achieved on behalf of my home island.

The day I arrived in Portsmouth and began the journey up the A34 was the beginning of my passage to independence, adult life and my own form of success. I had done well in the British Hillclimb Championship, while living at home and supported by my dad and family, but I had not really done anything in the eyes of the people involved in the single-seater racing heartland of British motor sport. I like to think I had actually ‘turned professional’ in 1996 – a year earlier – when I visited my granddad, Skip, in hospital after he became ill. I remember thinking then, at his bedside, that I had to do something special with my life. For a year, I tried to do some racing in Formula Renault. I had some sponsors, but not, by a long way, the whole package. My father, Graham, had to guarantee loans and helped me out every way he could. Even though I had stopped working for him at the garage he still let me sell my own cars on the site. Jo’s mum and dad were great, too, even loaning me the first £2,000 I needed to buy a car and get started. I was wheeling and dealing, cleaning cars for my dad, trying to hustle up sponsorship and fit in some races to prove I had the speed and talent. I thought that was tough – but nothing like as hard as it turned out to be the following year when I did get to Silverstone. Until then, I did not believe it could have got any worse for me or that I could have been more desperate. I was wrong. Very wrong.

I had made some contacts during the previous year, when I was trying to get myself a drive. One was Mike O’Brien who ran the Speedsport Formula Three team. He was a guy I admired in the same way as I did Nigel Mansell. Both have done it all for themselves, battling up from the bottom when they did not have enough money to go racing, and yet proving just what can be achieved with a never-say-no, never-say-die attitude.

After sleeping one night in a lay-by on the side of the road, somewhere on the journey up to Northamptonshire, I arrived at the Home of British Motor Racing full of hope. After all, I was the reigning British Hillclimb Champion. I may have started my first Formula Renault race at Thruxton at the back of the grid, but I think I had managed to secure a podium finish before the end of the season. I was not a complete novice. I believed in my speed. And I had talent. The only problem was that I was the only one who really knew that.

I had a good feeling about Mike O’Brien. He had managed to sponsor himself so I knew he would be my first port of call at Silverstone. So he had this guy turn up in a Volvo estate with a caravan in tow, and declare: ’I’d really like to go racing!’ and ’Where can I park this thing?’ and ‘Can we do a deal? If I find any sponsorship from the street then I’ll put it into your team.’

And, in fairness, Mike replied: ‘Yeah, I’ve got an area behind the back of the workshop.’

So I went round the back and it was, well, a working backyard, covered in oil stains, hardly pristine, various tins and drums thrown about and a few other bits of debris blowing around in the wind on top of the remains of some oil-soaked gravel that had seen better days. I do not know what I had in mind before I left home, in terms of a place to park the caravan and live, but I remember thinking this was something else. It was hardly a leafy, manicured camping and caravan site. But it was available, and it was in the middle of Silverstone. Mike’s boys told me I could hook up a cable through their rear toilet window for power and so there I was.

The old yard was called the ‘clinker yard’ and for pretty obvious reasons: it was where Mike and his lads did all their engine-oil changes. There were containers everywhere. It was pretty scruffy but I knew it was the closest I was going to get to motor racing with a Formula Three team.

Mike helped me out. I would open my door in the morning, go out of my caravan and into the workshop to see these beautifully painted Formula Three cars. They just looked stunning to me. It was an all-new experience. I had never seen anything like it before.

Mike was very kind and I was very grateful for that. We got along well and became friends, me living in the ‘clinker yard’ and doing all I could to help out, and Mike giving me some tips, guidance and helping me to find sponsorship. I was skint, of course, and I needed some money not just to race but to live. Mike helped me find a job as a driving instructor at Silverstone and later, when she arrived from Guernsey to join me, helped Jo get a job in the Silverstone ticket office that eventually led to her working in the British Racing Drivers’ Club admin department. But, for those months before Jo came over, it was just me and me alone trying to get things going – and it was at this time that the nickname ‘Pikey Priaulx’ started being used around the place. I did not really mind too much, although I worried it might hinder me in the sponsorship market!

I had a few sleepless nights when I first got to Silverstone. Not only was I worried by the huge challenge I faced and the lack of cash, but also the place seemed to be stalked at night by wild animals and birds. It is not until you sleep outdoors, or in a caravan, that you realise how much wildlife there is and how much noise they all make. The worst came, I think, from the foxes. And it was absolutely freezing cold a lot of the time. I just curled up and hoped for the best.

The first night was the most awful. It was really, really cold and I was lying there in my bed, on my own, tight like a ball with my socks and everything else on. The foxes were making those screaming noises – I think it is something to do with mating! – and I had never heard anything like it before in my life. I was petrified. It sounded like somebody was dying or something. It was also the start of the British motor racing season for which I had no money at all. But I knew I had to get over it.

I realised that to reach the next level in my racing career required a huge investment in myself, and a lot of personal commitment. However, I had known that for a while before I had taken that decision. I remember saying to myself: ‘How can I expect people to sponsor me if I’m not prepared to take the financial risk myself and put everything on the line?’

I spoke to Jo, and to her parents, and my dad, who always supported me. I said: ‘Listen, I’m going to leave the business and live in England – for the racing season.’ And Dad replied: ’Well, how are you going to pay the mortgage on the house if you are not going to be here working? You’re going to be living away.’

So I said: ‘We can rent the house out and we’ll just go in the caravan.’ Eventually, the finance figures were so high that we had to sell the house. That’s why Jo stayed behind at the beginning, in order to handle all that while I went off to pursue my motor racing career.

Selling the house meant we could pay off all the debts I had built up from the previous year when I was commuting back and forth to the races. I owed money to the Formula Renault team, not least eight grand’s worth of accident damage I had picked up rolling the car after suspension failure during testing at Oulton Park. In the end, Jo moved up to Silverstone to be with me but, for a long time, I was on my own. All we had was that caravan, but at least we had sorted out everything else so we could start afresh.

It was a good feeling not to have those debts anymore but, at the same time, I felt bad because I did not even have a drive. I was a racing driver, living in a caravan at Silverstone, but without a team or a car. And that is where Mike really helped me. I started talking to the teams all around Silverstone, looking for a chance, but I was a man with no fixed abode and not much else. No wonder everyone gave me funny looks at times.

I am an easy-going guy, but I do have a sense of purpose. It may have seemed as if I had been driving down the road with no real destination in mind, but it did not feel like that to me. I started telling people my story and making friends. Of course, they all wanted to know who I was and what I was doing. So I told them: the drive from Guernsey, the night in the lay-by, the dreams…For a long time I was lonely and sad. I was fulfilling my dream, living at Silverstone, but I was not happy. How could I be?

I woke up some days and could hear the sound of Formula One engines testing around Silverstone. ‘Wow! This is it. I am here and living my dream.’ Then there were other days, when it was pouring with rain, that I looked out of the window of a steamy caravan, condensation everywhere, and I asked myself: ‘What am I going to do?’

At least I knew I was heading towards something. Until that time, Guernsey had been my limiting factor because I had been trying to mix motor racing with my life there, when the former demanded 150 per cent of my attention. It would be very different later once I was established in racing and married with a family. Then, Guernsey brought me something in terms of health, happiness and speed. But in those early days it had been a hindrance.

I had no money, had incurred huge expenses getting from and to the island and did not have the contacts and connections that I needed. I simply did not understand at that time what it took to become a professional driver. I had raw talent with a great feeling for a car, but did not understand things like racing lines, or setting up the car for high- or low-speed, or high- or low-grip configurations. It had to be learned, all of it.

Let us say hillclimbing was table tennis, and I was a top table tennis player. I’ve got great ball control, a great eye for the ball and I hit everything back. Then, one day, somebody gives me a tennis racquet and says: ‘Right, go and play at Wimbledon!’ Well, I am going to be in trouble. So I reply: ‘Hang on a second, I’m just hitting a small ball. This is a bigger ball. And how do you serve and all that?’ That’s what it was like. I had a good eye for the ball but no understanding of how, or what it took, to become a professional. I had to learn it all.

It was no wonder, then, that I felt like a bit of an outsider. I was very fortunate. I had spoken a lot with Mike and he gave me some belief and hope that something might happen. Mike had battled to get to Formula Three level and was now managing Darren Manning, who himself was racing in Formula Three. I would watch him and think to myself: ‘I can be like that.’ My connection with him became stronger, but at first I think he must have just felt sorry for me.

I had been talking to Mike before because, after my initial Formula Renault season the year before, I had been in contact with all the Formula Three teams. Maybe he saw a kindred spirit in me, another guy like him who was prepared to do anything to make things happen.

I recall having a few designer clothes and put them in the caravan cupboard. At least in there they would stay reasonably clean. They were for my meetings with potential sponsors – when I had arranged them. Every day I got up, washed, shaved, splashed on some aftershave and started work. I hooked up my computer to the power; obviously, I had no access to e-mails and the internet but I could write letters on the computer and make telephone calls. I just got on with it. So, from nine in the morning I sat at the front of my caravan, working at a desk – which was actually a bed – writing, making notes and planning how it was going to happen.

The glow of self-confidence I enjoyed from being crowned British Hillclimb Champion seemed to last for about five minutes. It should have been a glorious step in my career. But that is not what happened. I realised it soon enough, of course, and 1996, 1997 and 1998 were real backdown-to-earth years. I soon found out that hillclimb success meant next to nothing in circuit-racing circles – although I did receive an offer from Paul Stewart Racing to join them in 1995, but turned it down for financial reasons. I soon realised that I was an absolute nobody when it came to proper professional racing in mainland Britain. The attitude was ‘Well, so what, Priaulx? Oh, you won a few hillclimbs, racing against old farmers, eh? Who the hell do you think you are?’

I knew I had to build myself a reputation all over again and the only way to do that would to be to win races and grab podiums every week. In that respect, 1996 had been a complete failure and had not given me any platform for the following year when I left home. In that first year, I had been trying to make a name for myself but, in truth, even getting a drive proved difficult. I did a few races, thanks to people like Mike Knight, of the Winfield Racing School at Magny-Cours in France; Tico Martini; Andrew Green, a private sponsor of mine from Jersey; and Masters International, in Formula Renault with Martello Racing – but it was tough going.

I started at the back of the grid at Thruxton and knew there was only one way I could go from there. True enough, I did get better, but it was a very slow process. There were accidents, bills and rising costs. Then Jim Gillespie, the manager of The Mallard hotel in Guernsey, began to help and we borrowed money for the second half of the season when I switched to Startline Racing. That was when my father stepped in as well. My teammate was Malaysian driver Alex Yoong, who later raced in Formula One. He drove the new car while I had the older model. But it was not long before Jim lost interest and I was left to make the payments on my own. It was very tough but I managed to run in the Formula Renault winter series and produce my first strong finish in a championship before all the money ran out. It was then myself and Mike O’Brien had our first talks about possible Formula Three deals.

I had dreamt about all this but I hardly did anything to prove I might be the next Nigel Mansell. I had tried to reach Formula Three, thinking I was ready for that next step. I had been handling Formula One engines in hillclimbing so I figured I should be able to drive Grand Prix cars on circuits. That was the mentality I had. Looking back, it did not matter one jot because I did not have the money to make it work. In hindsight, what I should have done was win the British Hillclimb Championship with ex-Formula One engines and then start at the very bottom of the circuit-racing ladder in Formula Ford. That way I could have progressed steadily, and built up both a reputation and those all-important sponsors.

It is easy to see now what I should have done now but at that time it was not so clear. So, in 1997, I tried to do some B-class Formula Three races. It was not a successful venture, however. I ran out of money, found some sponsors, paid for a few races…and ended up being nowhere. It was tough. I was learning everything the hard way.

That said, one positive thing did come out of the year. I built up some good friendships and, through one, I had a race with Speedsport at Silverstone. Mike O’Brien gave me the chance and, as luck would have it, it was held on the full Grand Prix circuit.

It was not the British Grand Prix support event, but it was still a decent race. I qualified nowhere and looked doomed to struggle again. But fortune smiled on me when it rained heavily throughout the race. I just got that car moving and cut right through the pack.

In fact, I think I might still hold the Speedsport Formula Three record for the most positions made up in a single race. From almost last on the grid I finished tenth. It was quite a large grid with some big players including Formula One-quality guys like Mark Webber, Enrique Bernoldi, Nicolas Minassian and Darren Manning. And I was able to catch these guys because it was wet and I was sliding the car around. I outbraked Guy Smith to take one position. At that time he was winning races and had a reputation far superior to mine, but there he was disappearing behind me.

In the rain, it’s less about what car you are in and what you know about driving, and much more about raw instinct. And I had plenty of that. The result made me think I might just be getting somewhere again. The whole team was very pleased. Mike was happy for me but did not want to seem too impressed because that would have meant my not having to provide as much sponsorship money for the team the following year!

At the end of the year, I became involved with TOMS Toyota in Formula Three. Basically, they were looking for somebody to pay for a drive – that was all. They did not come to me because I was good – they did so because I sounded like I was desperate and they needed money. So my dad borrowed some funds, I found some sponsors, other people chipped in and I managed to buy two races.

I was thrilled, but – what a surprise – things did not work out. The car had too much downforce and I was just doing the odd race. I was competing against people who had been in the car all year so I didn’t really stand a chance.

By now, aged 24, I was engaged to Jo and we were looking forward to a Christmas wedding. I was delighted about that, but my so-called professional life was nothing like as happy as my personal one. The races with TOMS had gone ‘pear-shaped’ and the accompanying tests had not fared well either. I really needed to impress in my last test with TOMS following the final race of the season. So I hired a driver coach, a guy called John Pratt. It was the best thing I could have done.

The two-day test at Croft in November, ahead of the classic end-of-season Macau race, was for all the top Formula Three runners from the British Championship. It would give me a real benchmark of where I stood. I needed some straightforward unbiased feedback, an honest opinion and some good advice. John was great for me. He pointed out some basic errors in my circuit driving technique – all due to a lack of experience – and helped me fix them. The next thing I knew I was going faster and faster. I rediscovered my speed. My lap times were good, certainly comparable with the leading pack of British Formula Three drivers and my confidence was restored. The decision to hire John and attend the test had been vindicated. It was a good day and almost deserved a celebration. The only other good news we had around that time came when Jo got promoted from the ticket office to BRDC race admin thanks to Mike O’Brien. It paid the grand rate of £4 an hour!

The boost I gained from that test gave me the lift that, after months of living in the caravan, I badly needed. But I knew it would not signal the end of my problems. Jo and I were planning our wedding, but we still did not have any money. Around Silverstone I was still ‘Pikey Priaulx’ and would stay like that until I moved out. I felt as if I could compete at a high standard but just didn’t have the money to go any further. So, unless something dramatic happened, I could see it would be difficult to start the 1998 season as we packed up our life at Silverstone and went home. However, we left all those worries behind us briefly once we were back in Guernsey where Jo and I were married on 27 December 1997 at St Martin’s Parish Church, with our families all around us.