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Werner was whipping through the forest towards Indianapolis corner at 220mph. He lifted to turn right and the rear suspension collapsed. The rear hit the floor, lost aero grip and sent him into a horrific spin. He flew across the gravel, back on to the track and cracked into the wall at over 100 times the force of gravity.

Spencer was the first of our crew on the scene. ‘Luckily Werner’s head took most of the impact,’ he said later. ‘And there was nuffink in there to damage.’

The car was toast but Werner spent several minutes trying to get the engine going in spite of pleas from the officials. He only gave up when Spencer assured him the car was actually in two pieces.

Regardless of how the suspension fault occurred, my gut feeling was that the Ascari project was at an end. It couldn’t carry on without a major sponsor. We’d needed that Le Mans result. Come July, I was looking for a job.

I phoned every team in the book for a drive, in every series from Le Mans to Formula 1 to NASCAR. One call paid off in September just a few days before the inaugural Indycar race in the UK. I’d been bugging the life out of the organisers for a drive, and at the last minute the Series Director rang and asked what I was doing that weekend.

‘Coming to Rockingham to watch the Champ Car race.’

‘Well, bring your helmet and overalls, there’s a drive for you in the support race.’

Rockingham’s newly formed programme was based on NASCAR, America’s most popular racing series. One in three Americans was a fan; viewing audiences were enormous and the sponsorship and advertising revenues ran into billions of dollars. The stadiums, cars and fan base were all vast.

The formula for success was simple: they raced stock cars based on America’s three most popular sedans that were virtually identical in performance and available to anyone. These agricultural machines were built of tube steel, with clunking metal gear-shifters straight off a Massey Ferguson and snarling V8 motors. The circuits were mostly ovals where you only steered left. The cars were set up with most of their wheels pointing that way – so much so that you had to steer right just to drive one in a straight line.

Much to the amusement of the Americans, the UK series was called ‘Ascar’, prompting the enduring question: ‘You race Ass-Car?’ The packed grid boasted top British drivers like World Rally Champion Colin McRae, Touring Car Champion Jason Plato, some F1 testers and competitors from the USA.

They raced wheel to wheel at Rockingham’s 1.5-mile Speedway at continuous speeds of up to 180mph. Rockingham was purpose built in an industrial backwater near Corby, Northants, a town famous for … not very much. The stadium rose out of the ground like a modern Colosseum amidst a sea of tarmac parking for thousands of spectators. It was American-style BIG, with packed grandstands just metres back from the action. The track was wide enough to fit six cars side by side with gentle banking to assist the flow of speed through the four corners.

Europeans largely regarded oval racing as boring, having only seen it on television. When you attended a live race, you realised the droning pack of cars were largely out of control. It was a thrilling high-speed spectacle. The question wasn’t whether they would crash, but when and how hard.

My car was owned by Mark Proctor, a Goliath of a Yorkshireman who also competed in the series. It was his spare, and looked like many of its vital components had been cannibalised. I sat inside its spacious cabin behind a steering wheel big enough for a bus and rearranged some electrical wiring that dangled from the roof. I resolved not to judge a book by its cover. The old girl might have it where it counts.

She didn’t.

After missing the test session with an engine problem, I got to grips with my first stock car in the open qualifying session and discovered why NASCAR racers described understeer as ‘push’. Whenever I went hard into a corner, the apex