The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [20]
Mole lowered his specs and gave me a penetrating look. ‘Do you need a few minutes to gather your thoughts, mate?’
I shook my head. ‘Let’s get it sorted before the next session.’
I recognised Dad’s cough a mile away. ‘Mark Webber’s eating you alive coming out of Luffield …’
I was still glued to the monitor. ‘We know.’ I gritted my teeth, ‘We’ve got power understeer in slow corners.’
‘Why haven’t you done something about it then? You look dog slow.’
My heart pounded and I leapt to my feet. ‘Well go and smoke your fags at Maggots then.’ We were standing eye to eye. ‘I’m pissing on Webber through there.’
No one talked to him that way. His blood was boiling; my temples were pulsing. Silence. Dad tweaked his sideburn between finger and thumb. We would never come close to blows, but my money would have been on him if we had.
‘Give it the beans at the weekend, son.’ And with that, he left.
A couple of days later I did some media work with Uri Geller. It turned out that he was a car nut, a hazardous hobby for someone that warped metal just by touching it. I met him at his mansion on the Thames. He had a 1976 Cadillac that was covered in 5,000 bent spoons. He was a lovely guy and made absolutely superb coffee.
Uri didn’t just bend spoons; he somehow managed to draw a shape that I had only pictured in my mind’s eye: a broken arrow with a cross in its tail. He was full of common sense about sport psychology and was fascinated by my sponsor-finding challenges and my search for a competitive ride to propel me to F1. He conjured up an image I’ve recalled many times since, whenever I’ve felt frustrated: ‘Each of us resides inside a bottle that is being carried by the current of a powerful river: fate. The shore is too far away to reach, but we can rock the bottle by running at the sides and though our efforts are small by comparison to the current we can influence our direction: perseverance.’
I believed in reaching the shore.
I rang Mum ahead of the race. After witnessing my first season she never attended in person.
‘Hey, Mum, I met Uri Geller today.’
‘You’ve upset him, you know?’
‘You mean Dad? I know. All he does is criticise …’
‘He’s very proud. He probably didn’t tell you, but he said he watched you all day at some fast corner called Maggie; said that you were the bravest …’
I swallowed hard. I was such an arsehole.
‘We need more than bravery with this bucket. Maybe Uri can bend the pistons. Is Dad coming to the race?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. He’s cross.’ She sighed. ‘You’re both too alike.’
Uri arrived in the Grand Prix paddock as we were celebrating my team-mate’s birthday a few hours before the start of the race. Brian’s dad asked him to bend the knife we used to cut the cake, then rubbed it on the exposed part of the race car’s exhaust system for luck. Uri left for the grandstand, setting off a chorus of car alarms in his wake.
The race got under way. Brian and I did our best to impress the Formula 1 teams in attendance, but he started to lose power and limped back to the pits. Joe Bremner, his number one mechanic, was first on the scene.
‘What the bloody hell’s gone on here?’
The exhaust had neither bent nor cracked; it had completely disintegrated – but only where Uri’s knife had touched it. I don’t buy into hocus-pocus, but none of the mechanics had ever seen anything like it before.
We didn’t see the fabled forkbender again after that.
I spent a couple of years bouncing around America and Europe, maturing my skills alongside some truly great drivers like Scott Dixon and Takuma Sato. Scott went on to become the king of Indycar Racing. When I partnered him in Indy Lights he was one wild Kiwi who partied himself horizontal. He could also turn on the steely-eyed resolve in a heartbeat when it counted.
I also partnered Honda’s Formula 1 protégé Takuma Sato, a wily, wiry, utterly fearless Japanese. We won races in International F3 and I came second in the Marlboro Masters World Series