The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [31]
In the parc fermé before the race, a sports agent saw me leaning over my car at the tail end of the pre-formed grid. I tried hiding but he caught me.
‘I see you’re going well then!’
I smiled through clenched teeth. ‘I won’t be here long.’
At the rolling start, the cars sped into the first corner in side-by-side formation and slithered into the turn as they lost down-force in the hole they cut through the air. The volume of air being pushed in all directions was enough to barge neighbouring cars aside and affect their handling.
I felt the changing air pressures immediately in my inner ear. By nosing inside the car in front you could use the air buffeting from your bonnet to kick out his tail; by running outside you could suck away his air and make him ‘push’. To exacerbate your opponent’s handling problems, you sat in the same position for a few laps until his tyres burnt out.
My dog of a car floated like a butterfly in the wake of dirty air behind the other racers and stuck to the track like a squashed toad. In ‘clean air’ it was rubbish, so I had to leapfrog from one victim to the next without delay. The drivers made it hard. When people moved over on me I stuck my nose into their side and pushed back; they called it ‘rubbing’. I had a few close encounters with the wall, and at 160mph it puckered up your ass cheeks tighter than a lobster’s en route to the boiling pot.
This style of physical racing really suited me and before I knew it the race was over. Having started eighteenth, I finished on the podium in third.
If I was lucky, my performance might secure a drive for the following season. The prize for winning the Championship was a test in American NASCAR.
I still spent hours, days, months on the phone calling teams and looking for sponsors. Nothing. I offered advertising agencies the marketing opportunity of a lifetime to back the first British NASCAR Champion. I hit the Yellow Pages and talked the hind leg off alcohol firms, factories and pizza chains. Even as I did it my objectives felt increasingly shallow when I considered the host of causes around the globe that money could be more fruitfully spent on.
After another day of having the phone slammed down on me, the manager of a local automotive company gave me some air-time.
‘The last racing driver who asked me for sponsorship was Damon Hill,’ he said. He was nibbling the bait; time to reel him in.
‘Of course,’ I enthused. ‘And he went on to win the World Championship.’
‘Yeah,’ he chuckled. ‘The answer’s the same now as it was then. No.’
Perhaps publicity would help attract sponsorship. I thumbed the Rolodex and spoke to every men’s magazine editor in the galaxy, then the TV executives. I did a screen test with Channel 4, had an interview with Fifth Gear and drove a Ford Focus for some bloke at Dunsfold. Nothing had come of it.
I maintained a punishing physical training regime in the expectation that everything would work out for the best. It was like flogging a dead horse. I wondered how long I could hold out in hope of a drive without a job to support me. After seven months of climbing the walls, I knew the answer.
By March 2003 all the serious championship drives were gone, and in motor racing you were quickly forgotten. I had dedicated my life to racing, subjugated everything else that mattered and proved that I had the right stuff, but it didn’t matter.
Without a sense of purpose I had no zest for life and felt I hardly recognised my reflection in the mirror. I couldn’t bear sitting around watching life pass me by. It was time for a new direction.
I used to read about the lives of British soldiers like General de la Billière, Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Andy McNab, and I drew inspiration from their daring adventures. Even the titles of their books struck a chord: Looking for Trouble, Living Dangerously and Immediate Action. The more I read, the more I understood that military