He smiled at me and said, ‘It’s all right, mate,’ pointing towards the first man who’d attacked our car. ‘I used to be like him but I’m all right now.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Yes, and I know where he lives.’
‘Where? What on earth is going on here?’
‘He lives in the mental hospital where I live, just up that entrance there.’
At this point I heard more noise from the other direction and I turned to see the first guy throwing a brick through a house window. I jumped back in the Mini and drove straight past him and towards the entrance of the hospital at about 50mph, then jumped out and raced into their reception. I was shouting and pointing and ranting myself by this stage – I just had to get the message over that this guy was out there causing all this damage. At first, they seemed doubtful about whether I was telling the truth, but I persisted and eventually they realised the situation was serious, and some nurses and security ran out with a straitjacket to get hold of him. Thankfully, the situation was contained soon after that.
They’d tackled this man and taken him away, but when I said, ‘I need to talk to you about the state of my new car, he’s pretty much destroyed it,’ I was amazed to hear them reply, ‘Sorry, there’s nothing we can do. He’s not responsible for his own actions, he is ill.’ We could only afford third party rather than fully comprehensive on our insurance policy so someone had to pay for the damage; we certainly couldn’t afford it. They were not interested, though, so I said in that case I’d have to make a report to the police, which I did. To my alarm, the police told me it’d happened before: ‘Usually they just run up the bonnet, over the roof and down the boot, so you were unlucky.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! To be fair, the police were very good about it, but pointed out that they couldn’t prosecute a man who was medically unwell and not considered capable.
The disagreement over the costs of damage to our car went on for months until, eventually, I found out that the house whose window the man had bricked was owned by a worker at the hospital and they had been recompensed for the damage. That set a precedent, which meant that I was then able to get the repairs to our car paid for.
It was just the most surreal experience. We’d witnessed a human being having a so-called ‘brainstorm’. It was such an extreme thing to witness. It later transpired that the guy had actually broken his leg when he was kicking the vehicles. If you have never seen anything like that, it’s pretty terrifying; it was certainly an unforgettable experience, although it’s not one I’d like to go through again.
When people see sportsmen and women on the television, perhaps in a nice car, at some high-profile event, or in a big house with all the trimmings and maybe even their own plane, of course they think those people have made it and, to a degree, they have. However, in the early days of my career, we were completely and utterly skint. We had nothing, and I mean nothing. One story that Rosanne recounts about when I was going through the lower formulas really sums up how tight money was in those early days: she lined up a row of jars on a shelf, these amber-coloured glass storage jars that you could get free from the petrol station with so many gallons of fuel. There was one for the insurance money, one for petrol money, one for gas, electric, one for food and so on. They were often full of coins, just loose change, never many notes. It seems laughable now compared to the astronomical finances of some modern-day young racing drivers in their mid-teens. Bizarre almost, but that’s how it was. We were virtually penniless.
We had to be so careful with money. We had no credit cards. We wouldn’t take out anything on HP because we were worried about getting behind on our payments. We used to get a TV from Rediffusion on a free month’s trial and then, at the end of the month, go and get another free trial TV from somewhere else. In one of my earlier books, I called this period of single-seater racing ‘the hungry years’, but perhaps, looking back, I was just talking about not being able to afford to eat much! It sounds rough when you read it back, and at the time it was, but if I am being honest, I see that now as character building. Easy to say, I know, but it was, and it also meant we valued having money when it eventually came to us. Even now, I can’t go shopping and squander money – it’s just how I am. Rosanne is the same. There are issues in most modern sports with very young and talented individuals being paid exorbitant sums of money, and then people are surprised when these youngsters go off the rails or struggle to cope with being paid in maybe one week the equivalent of what most people earn in a few years. We had no such problems!
Our chronic financial limitations were a potential threat to us even getting a start in single-seaters at all. With my father not wanting to fund the move, we decided to do so ourselves. Most people would go and book a week’s course at a driving school, but we could only afford one lesson which bought me a half-day session at Mallory Park, so I excitedly went along to see what the transition from karting to single-seaters was like. I drove quite a few laps and was instantly hooked. I was also delighted to find that the car felt predictable and relatively reassuring to drive; I understood what it was doing and how to make it go faster. I felt comfortable with the experience and was excited to find out how I could go racing in one of these machines. Unfortunately, I was the only one who believed this, as all the instructors said I was useless and was doing it all incorrectly. Seems to be the story of my life . . .
So we took the plunge and bought a 1600cc single-seater race car. It was used, with several previous owners. It also ate up all our savings, about £1500. Necessarily, we also had to buy a trailer and all this cost meant we had to sell our nice Mini to fund it. Rosanne never hesitated when that became apparent, even though it was replaced by an old Maxi. Just in terms of the financial demands my aspiring career placed on us as a young couple, she was incredible. The costs of racing were always increasing, yet our incomes were very modest, mine more so than hers in fact, but she never moaned or doubted me for one second. What a lady. We parked the old race car in my parents’ garage at nights, and Rosanne would sit with me into the small hours as I tinkered away on our pride and joy. The Formula Ford cars were pretty basic at the time, but with my engineering background I was able to do a lot of the work myself, preparing the car for my first season in Formula Ford.
Rosanne’s brother had a picture-framing business and we used to make extra money helping him make the frames, then I would go out on to the late-night streets of Birmingham, trying to sell the pictures to clubs and hotels. Most nights I would work till around 3am, then I’d be back up and at work again at Lucas Aerospace by 7.30am.
During these hard years Rosanne was amazing. She worked as a British Gas home-service advisor in the day and took on evening jobs too, doing up to 80 hours a week to bring home money, virtually all of which was spent on my racing. It wasn’t a case of not having very glamorous holidays during this period of our lives – there were simply no holidays at all! That was an easy decision for me: do you want to sun yourself on a beach somewhere or do you want to be Formula 1 world champion? Even at this very early stage, it was that simple, very black and white.
All this dedication from us both was worth it because on the track I was completely focused. My very first single-seater race was Formula Libre (an open formula line-up), but my very first Formula Ford race was at Mallory Park in 1976. I genuinely felt like I was on my way. At that time, Formula Ford was probably one of the best developmental series in the world. You could have as many as 140 people entering in the series, plus all sorts of heats to get through; it was very competitive. There was some very intense racing; it was like a mini Formula 1, a very good standard.
That first season in Formula Ford, I won six of the nine races I entered. However, in order to progress I knew I needed a better car. The following year, 1977, was a big milestone because I found that better car when a very colourful Irishman called Patrick let me run one of his single-seaters, which was brilliant. Although it wasn’t the best car on the grid, it was a si
gnificant upgrade from what I was used to. We had a few reliability issues, including a driveshaft falling off after being on pole and a wheel coming off (imagine that, a wheel falling off – that would never happen in Formula 1!), but it was a great step forward, with quite a few wins in the season. I had recently been introduced to a man called John Thornburn, who was known to run good teams and had played a part in Keke Rosberg’s rise to success. Thankfully, he took a gamble on me and helped us so much, he was a very pivotal supporter and a loyal friend in these early years. After I won one particular race, John later told me he was stunned by this win because he thought the car was ‘a load of crap’. He also later said I had the ‘most potential since Jimmy Clark’.
As my single-seater career developed, I became more and more focused. One of the choices I made to hone my fitness and help push things forward was to go teetotal. As a young man I used to enjoy seeing my mates down the pub occasionally, like most lads of that age. For me, if you want to focus on doing something really special, then you have to make sacrifices. At first, I found I had a cushion in that I was able to win most of the races. I obviously had a talent that I didn’t fully appreciate in the early days, but I always wanted to be extremely fit and focused. I just wanted to win races and do whatever it took to be on the top of the podium. I was running several miles every day and going to the gym four or five times a week. I was so dedicated.
These days, I will have a small drink occasionally. I like to have a sip of champagne if we are christening a baby or celebrating something like a wedding, but it really is a sip because, sadly for me, I am pathetic with alcohol. I only have to have one glass of something and I am gone. Still, I am very cheap to take out and after a glass, or maybe two, I don’t even know where I am!
On his deathbed, my grandfather told me something which I thought was strange and amusing at the same time: ‘Nigel, stay away from the three evils: slow horses [gambling], fast women and too much drink.’ And he added, ‘If you go to a party don’t talk about religion, sex or politics then you’ll get on with everyone!’ And he was absolutely right.
As well as John Thornburn, there were other influential people who helped me in my early career, in those formative years which are so important – men such as Mike Taylor and John Crosslé, who owned race teams bearing their names. In fact, John Crosslé asked John Thornburn how good I was and he replied, ‘Well, from a Formula Ford point of view, he’s the best there’s ever been.’ With a Crosslé car on board, I took the big leap of faith and decided to turn professional. We had no money, limited resources for racing and I was quitting a solid engineering job with a bright future. However, the weekend shifts at work were a major problem in terms of clashing with races, so I had a stark choice to make – engineering or racing. It was no competition. I handed in my notice at Lucas Aerospace. I was just 24. Exciting, yes, but financially very precarious, not least because three weeks later I broke my neck in my new Crosslé car.
We were racing at Brands Hatch and I had just received the new car. There was no headrest and no proper seat, but I was very excited and keen to use it at the forthcoming Brands Hatch race. On the day, the conditions were semi-damp and unfortunately I had the most shocking accident. Basically, a driver in front of me wasn’t focusing on the slowing-down lap after qualifying, and when I came to overtake him, his position forced me straight off the circuit. As soon as I hit the wet grass the car accelerated, flew into the barriers backwards and the whiplash snapped my neck. The third, fourth and fifth vertebrae in my neck were crushed and one was split open, so I was very lucky to survive and not be paralysed for life. From a life-threatening point of view, although I have had several big accidents in my career, when you break your neck it is the most serious part of your body to damage. I was in hospital for some time and lost the use of my arms and legs for a period, which was terrifying. In the first few days, they told me the recovery time would be around six months. Then I was told I would never race again. Then they said I’d probably never walk again.
Well, I wasn’t having that.
So I discharged myself.
Seven weeks later I was back on the grid in my racing car wearing an orthopaedic neck brace.
I had missed some races but by the end of the season I had regained the lost ground, and at the last race at Silverstone I was in touching distance of winning the Formula Ford title. John Thornburn was very motivational in my early days in the lower formulas and he became a very good friend and supporter who helped enormously. He had a wealth of experience and I learned a lot from him. For example, at the race before Silverstone, I was driving very hard but we were off the pace because my tyres were so old and had lost all their grip. At the time I didn’t realise that, so I was sliding all over the place, nearly three seconds off the pace.
I said, ‘I can’t drive any harder, John.’
John just said, ‘Look, you need a new set of tyres.’
‘I can’t afford any new tyres; I just don’t have the money.’
‘Well, give this guy a ring and get some new tyres. We’ll worry about paying for them another time.’
So I got the new tyres, then at Silverstone I went nearly three seconds faster. In fact, we won the race that weekend, got pole position and fastest lap, and took the championship by one point. I’d won the 1977 Formula Ford FF1600 Championship. Across all my various races that season, I’d won 33 out of 42 starts. Despite the offer of a works car for the forthcoming Formula Ford season, I knew it was time for the next step on the ladder: Formula 3.
My experience of Formula 3 was initially very hard, not from the point of view of driver skills, but because of the financial cost. Finding sponsors was a nightmare. At one point, we wrote to over 400 companies without one single penny coming back. I’d started cleaning windows and doing administrative work to bring in extra cash. March Engineering had offered me a Formula 3 drive for 1978 provided I bring some money to start the season, so then we took the monumental decision to sell our home to fund the drive. We also sold pretty much all our worldly goods to raise cash. However, after just six weeks, when those funds ran out – every penny we had in the world, literally – they terminated the relationship, which I thought was dreadful. So now we had no money, no home; we were living in rented accommodation with seemingly no future. I can’t deny that 1978 was very tough indeed – I had some drives in the BMW County Championship, but apart from the five Formula 3 races and a short-lived Formula 2 race, that was it. Very disappointing.
Then, in late January 1979, Rosanne’s mother died of a heart attack. She was only 56. We were both devastated. She was a fabulous, wonderful woman, and for my part I felt like I had lost a second mother and a very dear friend. She’d been complaining of chest pains on New Year’s Eve, but she was sent home from the doctor’s with suspected indigestion. By the end of the month she was dead. That would never happen today, so we both feel tremendously resentful that she was taken away from us so young. We were devastated, numb, and felt like our world had come to an end. Seeing the total devastation continue through the eyes of Rosanne, her sister Sandy and her brother Malcolm was very sad.
Conversely, in my second year of Formula 3 things began to look up. I secured a paid seat with Unipart, which was a great opportunity – I got £25 a week and the occasional use of a Triumph TR7 sports car. A man called Dave Price took me on and we maximised the opportunity, even though I wasn’t the number one driver (not for the last time!). My team-mate Brett Riley and I got on very well and I have some great memories of certain races that year. However, we were using Dolomite engines which were, at best, unpredictable. You could actually have two apparently identical engines yet one would be three seconds a lap faster than the other.
That 1979 season in Formula 3 was okay; we only got one win at Silverstone and struggled with those engines, but it was all invaluable experience. The standard was very high and I was racing against people such as Nelson Piquet, so it was a fantastic apprenticeship. Off the track, one highl
ight was borrowing an old VW Dormobile that we drove down to Monaco, where I finished 11th, making me the only Unipart driver ever to qualify for a Monaco Formula 3 race. David Price very kindly let us use his hotel room for a shower! Most importantly, however, at the British Grand Prix in July that year, the Formula 3 grid was the supporting race, and that is when I met a man who would change my life: Colin Chapman.
I’d met a chap called Peter Collins on the Formula 3 circuit and he worked with Colin Chapman, founder of the Lotus Formula 1 team. At the British Grand Prix, Peter came over to me and said, ‘Nigel, the Old Man would like to meet you.’ He was with a gentleman called Peter Windsor who, like Peter Collins, would also prove to be instrumental in my career, and they are both very dear friends.
I went along to meet Colin and he shook my hand and started asking me a few questions. He asked me how I got on in the race, to which I replied, ‘I did the best I could. I had fun but we were down on power.’
‘Well,’ replied Colin, ‘I was impressed by the way you went through the chicane, your braking and the speed you carried through there. Very good.’
I was amazed that he had watched the Formula 3 race and even more stunned that he had been impressed by my performance. We chatted a brief while longer then he had to leave. I was so pleased to have met him. I knew Colin was an incredible engineer, inventor and taskmaster. Lotus had very charismatic, beautiful black and gold racing cars and was undisputedly one of the best teams in racing at the time. I knew there were a number of brilliant individuals in Formula 1 who ran their own teams – great names such as Ken Tyrrell, Frank Williams, Enzo Ferrari and, of course, Colin Chapman. These were all people who were renowned for spotting talent and then being able and willing to give that talent a chance. I had been keen to drive for Colin Chapman before that meeting, like many drivers of my age, but after meeting him I was more determined than ever.
Nigel Mansell Autobiography Page 3