Читать книгу Every Split Second Counts - My Life with Fast Carts, Fast Women and F1 Superstars - Martin Hines - Страница 7
ОглавлениеYou Never Forget Your First Time
She didn’t realise it at the time, but Mum was about to say the nine words that would change my life for ever: ‘You can have one of those if you like.’
I looked across at Dad and we grinned at each other. Fantastic! We were going karting.
The garage just round the corner from where we lived in Church Crescent, Finchley, mainly sold sports cars but they also stocked TAB karts, and, as soon as they opened the following morning, Dad did a deal to buy two. Our nearest track was Rye House, at Hoddesdon in the Lea Valley in Hertfordshire, about thirty miles away, and the next couple of days dragged by until we could get there to put them through their paces.
I remember the moment I first drove a kart as though it had happened this morning. I can still feel the vibration that rattled every bone in my body; can still hear the glorious roar as the engine responded to my foot on the pedal; and, most of all, can still see in my mind’s eye exactly what I saw as I set off down the straight faster than I’d ever travelled solo. Straw bales were just a blur as I careered round corners that loomed up far more quickly than I expected and exerted forces on my body that I’d never experienced before.
Watching from the sidelines, I’d thought of karts as superior toy cars. It was only when I drove one that I realised they are so much more. Karts are an instant cure for constipation. When you’re that low to the ground – in those days it was one or two inches; today it’s half an inch – you see the world from a whole new perspective. You don’t sit in a kart – you are part of it. The front wheels are an extension of your feet; the back wheels part of your shoulders. It’s nothing like driving a car. You can’t see as much, you have no suspension to smooth out the bumps and you don’t have that solid shell protecting you from the wind, the rain and being hurtled through the air if you crash. The lower you are, the more sensation you have of speed, so, when you drive a kart at even 50 m.p.h., you feel like a worm with a rocket up its backside.
I was hooked.
Ironically, Mum had picked karting because she hoped to distract me from my dream of becoming a speedway rider. She’d worried about me ever since she had seen me practise my cornering technique while tearing round the back garden on a moped. In one spectacular slide I managed to put the bike and myself through a neighbour’s fence. Mum’s plan worked to an extent, because I never did race on a speedway track, but my love of living on the edge couldn’t be stifled, and I’ve had some spectacular crashes in karts, some of which I was lucky to walk away from alive.
Karting was like a drug and I couldn’t get enough. That day at Rye House was the tentative start of a career that lasted more than forty years and saw me pick up at least one major championship in every decade. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve won more titles than any other driver and that I’ve beaten guys who went on to become top names in Formula One. But my obsession went beyond driving. Within a few weeks of buying those TABs, Dad and I had started a business that became Zip Karts, and we’ve been at the sharp end as karting has developed from simple beginnings to being recognised by motorsport’s governing body, the FIA, as one of their major formulas. We led the way in superkarts. I was the first driver to average over 100 m.p.h. around Silverstone in a kart and went round the world demonstrating that gearbox karts are as spectacular – and as fast – as most other machines on four wheels or two.
The business has been my passion for nearly half a century. It’s earned me a good living, made me some good friends and one or two enemies – but the latter are mostly among people who found they couldn’t keep up. The track at Rye House has also played a very important part in my life. Dad took over the lease soon after we started karting and in 1968 he packed the place for the only 100cc World Championship to be held in Britain. The Zip factory is still only a few minutes’ drive from the track where I first spotted the talent of youngsters I have helped on the way to motorsport superstardom: top drivers such as David Coulthard, Lewis Hamilton, Gary Paffett, Anthony Davidson, Jason Plato, Oliver Rowland and my son Luke, who shook off the trauma of an accident that almost cost him his life to become a leading touring-car and GT driver. There are others who may not yet be household names but are on their way, people such as James Calado, now driving Formula Renault, Oliver Turvey, who is in Formula Three, and Mike Conway, the Formula Three champion of 2007.
People say that, if I had a 10 per cent share in the drivers I have helped launch, I could retire. But that’s never been the aim. The goal has been to work with talented young drivers, get them in a Zip Kart and win everything there is to win.
It’s fair to say karting took over my life. It has taken me to the heights while providing enough kicks in the pants to stop me getting too cocky. It helped me through personal tragedies I thought would destroy me. Because of karting I have travelled the world, got to know a lot of interesting people, including some exceptionally beautiful women, and even entertained a future king and his brother. The buzz that captivated a sixteen-year-old on his first drive has never left him. I guess I’ve gone through life with a rocket up my backside.
