Nigel Mansell Autobiography

by Nigel Mansell

  After Long Beach, they operated on me and had to put 148 stitches in and around the gaping cavity to try to pull my back into place. There was a lot of internal cutting needed and all sorts, it was a real mess. I had a 12-inch section taken away from my back because all the flesh was rotten and manky; it all had to be cut out so they patchwork-quilted me back into shape.

  Looking back at my treatment, I was effectively a total guinea pig. In fact, Dr Terry Trammell wrote about my injury as a clinical test case, because it was rare, possibly unique, that anyone had survived such a tear and cavity of that size in their back. Best of all, the injury was so unusual that it has since been named in medical journals as the ‘Mansell Lesion’. Pretty cool, eh?!

  Ten days after my operation I was racing at well over 200mph again, this time at Indianapolis, my first oval race. My back was killing me; the stitches, fluids and soreness were unbearable at times, but I had no choice. I felt I had a chance to win the title and lying on a bed at home recovering was not going to get me the points I needed.

  Following the smash at Phoenix, I was more acutely aware than ever of the dangers of oval racing. People think that because you are an elite racing driver, you don’t get nervous or frightened. Not so. In terms of my career, the races that made me most nervous were mostly the ones in America, on the ovals. Don’t get me wrong – there were, of course, plenty of times in F1 when I felt vulnerable and nervous. However, oval racing was a whole new level of jeopardy that took some getting used to.

  When I went to race in the USA I was taken out of my comfort zone. The racetracks were all new to me, the faces were as well, but I was reasonably comfortable with that change. You can switch teams quite regularly in motorsport so everything can alter overnight, and I had done that several times before. What was a particularly new challenge for me was the ferocious speed of these IndyCar races.

  During my whole F1 career, there was never a time when I felt a massive jump in terms of performance from one season to the next. The turbos were fantastic, of course, and I’ve also talked about the brutality of ground-effect cars. However, I did feel a substantial leap in terms of speed was when I went to IndyCar, on the superspeedways.

  While I was racing IndyCar, my fastest average lap was 233.75mph – that’s an average! That is close to 100mph faster than the average of an F1 car. This included two entire laps with my foot flat to the floor. That is insane. At one oval race, the slowest I came down to was 229mph! And yes, before you ask, that is scary. The top speeds of those cars were just ridiculous. The acceleration of IndyCars is slower than F1 and their ability to corner at high speed is not comparable, but in terms of sheer top speed, they are like missiles. That is why, if anyone touches another car on an oval or if there is any kind of mechanical failure, you have a massive accident. That’s before you take into account that there is a concrete wall 25 yards away from you at all times. With so much dense traffic, it is also easy to lose downforce if you get too close to the car in front, and then you are also going to meet the wall at a very high speed, sometimes peaking at 250mph. For these reasons, it is the most dangerous racing in the world, bar none.

  That made me nervous. I am not going to sit here and pretend it didn’t. I was confident of my skills, of course. If you are not confident at that level then you are a liability to yourself. However, I was very nervous of something going wrong on the car. If you are averaging speeds in excess of 230mph, and if something goes wrong – a wheel comes loose, the suspension breaks, or even just an aerodynamic piece of the car falls off – you are in big trouble. There are also other cars around you that might accidentally nudge you, or maybe experience a failure and be thrown into your path. If one or more of the above happens, then you are going to have a massive accident.

  The speedways were, for me anyway, more frightening than Formula 1. F1 was still mighty dangerous in my era, but that risk is not necessarily in your face all the time, lap after lap, corner after corner. You will go around an F1 track and there’ll be slow corners or a chicane, so you go down to 60mph and accelerate out; and, although that is exciting and challenging, it is not fast, you are not going to hurt yourself even if you make a big mistake on those slower parts of a track. With the superspeedways and oval racing, you are nearly always averaging over 200mph, so you are covering the length of a football pitch every second, for as much as 500 miles. At that velocity, things can go very, very badly wrong. There is no reprieve.

  Of course, you can’t think about that all the time otherwise you would be mentally crippled with fear. You put the fear to the back of your mind, but the knowledge of just how dangerous it is stays with you in the form of an underlying nervous anxiety. It was always there. I didn’t have that in Formula 1; I didn’t feel the same corrosive sense of anxiety that I experienced on the speedways. There is very rarely a small accident on a speedway. Fact. There is no fudge factor. You either do it right or you do it slowly. The alternative is a massive accident, as I found out to my cost in Phoenix in April 1993.

  At my first Indy 500 I managed third after a few driver errors, including a poor restart after a green flag. I was still proud of third, though, especially given the state of my back. I even kissed a wall at 220mph but thankfully got away with that, although it was pretty scary for a few seconds! However, I was back to winning ways in Milwaukee, my first oval win (the first Brit to do so since 1966, when Graham Hill won at Indy). There then followed a run of form that brought me three more oval wins (Michigan, New Hampshire and Nazareth) as well as several podiums. A mid-season push by our biggest rivals, Penske, saw them gain ground, but those oval wins and the podiums re-energised my title push. I am told that my win from pole in New Hampshire – on my 40th birthday – is regarded by many as one of the greatest IndyCar races of all time.

  By the time I arrived in Mid-Ohio I was on the cusp of scooping the title, but suspension damage after I was hit by another car dropped me to a 12th-place finish and put paid to that. IndyCar then rolled into Nazareth for the penultimate race of the season, and this is where I finally clinched the title.

  Of course, like the time in Hungary the year before, my title-winning weekend was far from normal. We turned up to qualify and it was pouring with torrential rain, which even turned to snow and sleet. Oh my word! I thought, What is going on? Due to the inclement weather, we weren’t able to do qualifying, so the grid was lined up in championship order. I remember the race was a freaking nightmare. Nazareth was probably my least favourite of all the ovals, because you were literally inches away from hitting a wall almost all the time. Holy crap!

  The high-speed traffic was so jammed all the time, the risks so high, it was horrendous. The race was fierce and included the fastest one-mile battle in IndyCar history. Fortunately, I was able to take command and the win. Only Scott Goodyear finished on the same lap as me. On the team radio after I’d crossed the finish line, I wasn’t sure if I had won because the fight for the title had been so close, but the team made it crystal clear: ‘Nigel, you are the champ!’ I was a rookie and I had won the 1993 IndyCar title.

  So, it didn’t take me three years to learn the ovals in America – I won four oval races in the first year on my way to winning the title. No one could get their head round that. I’d never been on an oval track in my life. At the first time of asking I had won one of the most challenging and dangerous motorsport crowns. This triumph made it back-to-back F1 and IndyCar world titles, and for one glorious week in September 1993, before the new F1 champion was crowned, I was both Formula 1 and IndyCar champion simultaneously – a unique achievement that hadn’t been done before and certainly not since. The revered Jim McGee was my team manager and he said that it was ‘a feat that may never be repeated’. Being awarded the Driver of the Year, as voted for by the American public, topped off an incredible year. Crucially, I also felt as though I had defended my Formula 1 title, too. That debut IndyCar championship is something I am incredibly proud of: 1993 – what a year!

  CHAPTER 16 />
  FUN TIMES IN INDYCAR

  When I was racing IndyCar, I was fortunate to get to know the great Paul Newman very well. We became good friends not simply because he was part of my team’s management, but also because of various charity projects. During our time living in America, we have been heavily involved in fundraising for all manner of good causes. One particular ongoing campaign was started to help less fortunate children enrol at the excellent St Paul’s School near our home in Florida. This was not an inexpensive school, so we raised money that was put into scholarships for students from poorer backgrounds to get the best education. One lovely idea was the so-called Tree of Life, which had bronze, silver and gold leaves that you could buy, each one costing progressively more money. This concept seemed to strike a chord and it raised several million dollars over the years – money that went into supporting the education of children who might not otherwise have had the opportunity to go to such a fabulous school. So it was a wonderful campaign to be involved in.

  Each year, Paul Newman would come to our house in Florida to help out when we held charity evenings. As part of the fundraising push for the school in Florida, we also developed a golf tournament and were very thankful that KMart and Dirt Devil, plus loads of associated sponsors of the team, donated product. We were completely blessed and surprised that Paul Newman, wonderful man that he was, managed to give up his time for several days every year and come and stay in our home with us. Back then, we raised several six figures every year and had a great time; we opened up our home to hold the charity event, as well as using my beautiful local golf club at Belleair. It became a huge success and that charity tournament still goes on to this day, 25 years later. Due to Paul’s unstinting support of our school fundraising push, I now support the Hole in the Wall Gang charity run by his daughter; it was Paul’s charity and very dear to his heart.

  However, I tell you now, pretty much all of the women in our social circle were completely useless for anything on the weekends when Paul Newman was visiting. One time, our housekeeper answered the phone and it was Paul – I think she had to have a sit-down after! We couldn’t do anything with her for the rest of the day. He was a gorgeous man, a megastar and a legend in his lifetime, and a dear friend. And his eyes were a very deep blue, I can confirm that!

  We still have a beautiful home in Florida to this day. We have got an outside grillroom where you can cook up some food, sit and sip a glass of something nice. Well, to our alarm, one day I was grilling some big steaks and having a lovely time when a rat ran across my feet. We are lucky to live by the water and we’d heard you can occasionally get rats coming up off the shore after fruit trees and food. It wasn’t uncommon but we hadn’t seen it before, so it was an unpleasant shock. Rosanne mentioned it to a friend and pointed out that, because we had children and pets, we didn’t want to put down any poison. So the friend told us we should get some mothballs, which can apparently deter rats.

  So Rosanne headed off to the big hypermarket in town. It was a massive local supermarket but was a little down-at-heel, probably due a refurb. She went and found a trolley, picked up a few bottles of wine while she was going round, some bits and pieces, and then got the mothballs as well. She went to the till and the checkout lady was chatting away as she rang the stuff through. Rosanne observed she had very carefully manicured nails – not something I would have particularly noticed! – and she was chatting away, telling Rosanne about her hot flushes. It all sounded quite comical and fun. Apparently, she even made a wisecrack, asking if Rosanne was old enough to buy the wine.

  Now, by her own admission, Rosanne had not got dressed up to go shopping. She had a very hectic day, with a million and one things to do, so she’d just thrown on some casual clothes because she didn’t have time to mess about. As the checkout lady came to the mothballs, she looked particularly intrigued.

  ‘Do you mind me asking what you are going to do with the mothballs?’

  ‘No,’ answered Rosanne, ‘a friend of ours says they are good for deterring rats.’

  ‘Oh, I see, yes, I have heard that – and snakes, apparently,’ said this lady, rather quietly. ‘Are you by the water?’

  ‘Yes, we are as it happens . . .’

  Then, with a sympathetic half-smile, she said to Rosanne, ‘Do you live in a trailer?’

  Racing in America was a lot of fun and I was treated extremely well over there. When I won the back-to-back championships, in 1992 and 1993, the Ford Motor Company were delighted with the Indy triumph and so they kindly presented me with a very limited edition 7-litre Mustang as a gift for winning. This car was just fantastic, bright red, soft top – wow, it was a beauty! They were incredibly sought-after and very rare vehicles.

  At the time we had a lovely man called Donald working for us who’d been helping out for many years and was a really great guy. He helped me win the championships in many ways, because he took care of so much stuff that might otherwise have distracted me. He was an ex-military man and very on the ball, really helpful to have around.

  Anyway, that Christmas his car had broken down, so he was stranded and unable to get to the shops to buy all his presents. He very politely asked me if he could borrow one of my cars. I think we had three or four at the time, so it was no bother to me, I was glad to help out. I was thinking about which one was best to give him for the day and then I thought, Why don’t I treat him and let him take the Mustang? He’d previously said the Mustang was his dream car, so I did exactly that.

  As you can imagine, Donald was delighted. He couldn’t believe his luck and so I was really chuffed too – it was a lovely reaction to get. Anyway, off he went with his wife to one of those gigantic shopping malls. American malls are so big it’s about a two-mile walk from your car to the shops! He was gone some time and after about four hours I started to wonder where he was.

  Then the phone rang. It was Donald and he was out of breath.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Nigel, I’m so sorry!’

  ‘What’s the matter Donald – are you okay?’

  ‘I’m so sorry . . .’ He was really in a panic about something.

  ‘Are you all right, have you been ill or something?’

  ‘No, Nigel, it’s not me. It’s the Mustang.’

  ‘Oh, okay, what about the Mustang?’

  ‘It’s been nicked!’

  It turned out the car had been stolen. It was such a sought-after vehicle that someone must have seen it and waited till Donald was in the mall and then stolen it. We never saw the car again. So the moral of the story is: if you own a limited-edition, 7-litre, bright-red, soft-top Mustang, don’t let your mate take it Christmas shopping.

  While racing IndyCar in Australia, there was a local Ford dealership run by a very nice chap who used to loan us courtesy cars quite often and generally looked after us. Over time we got friendly with him and his girlfriend and had a couple of meals together. Then he invited us to go horse riding one day. Rosanne loves riding and I am okay with it, so we said yes.

  It was only a couple of days before the next practice session for a forthcoming race, so I thought it would be a lovely way to relax before the madness of the race weekend. He was a lovely guy and along the way we started swapping stories. He told me that he had previously been a semi-pro golfer and had been thinking of turning full-time. He was practising like crazy and really feeling that his game was in great shape.

  Anyway, one day at the driving range he noticed this big lad, no more than 16, with a shock of white-blond hair, hitting the ball ferociously. He was dropping his shots inch-perfect by the pins and smashing the balls miles up the fairway in the most remarkable way. My pal from Ford told me he watched this and just thought to himself, Boy, if that’s how some amateur kid can play these days, there’ll be loads out there like him. I’ve got no chance, I’d better change my career plans! So he decided not to turn full-time pro and instead followed a different career path altogether. It was only a few years later that he found out that the blond ‘amateur ki
d’ was actually Greg Norman, one of the greatest golfers ever to walk the planet!

  I had a fantastic afternoon, except Rosanne was on a horse called Bourbon and, let me tell you this, don’t follow Bourbon up a hill. He farts like there’s no tomorrow! We got the giggles and were like, ‘Holy crap, how does anything fart that much?’ Worse still, I found out to my peril that if you got too close you could get a few of Bourbon’s spin-offs too. I was used to ‘dirty air’ from my racing career but nothing like this. It was dreadful but so funny! We were trotting and walking, not galloping, through brush, and even stopped off by a stream for some food. The whole trek was probably about three hours each way and we had a great time.

  The next day, I got my stuff together for the race weekend and I noticed I felt a little bit stiff, but not too bad. Well, long story short, come the actual morning of the first practice session, I couldn’t even lift my leg over to get in the race car. I couldn’t move it! The mechanics were looking at me hobbling over then trying and failing to even lift my leg up to get into the cockpit of this state-of-the-art ballistic missile I was supposed to be racing. They even tried physio on me in the pit lane, but it was no good. My very experienced team manager, Jim McGee – who’d been in IndyCar since the 1960s – came up to me and, because he knew me by reputation, said, ‘Nigel, what on earth have you done now?’ When I told him I’d been horse riding he just rolled his eyes and laughed. And how did this ultimately get sorted so that I could race? Well, they had to lift me into the cockpit.

  This wasn’t the only time I arrived at an IndyCar race with . . . how can I put it, ‘non-racing injuries’. The other time I turned up really sore was for testing one week. I was groaning and in pain, but I didn’t want to say anything to the team about why this was. What I didn’t realise was that Jim was in earshot of my yelps, so he came over and, once again, said, ‘Nigel, what on earth have you done now?’