by Tom Rubython
Wallis and Sue Hunt fervently hoped the setback would put him off, but they quickly saw that it hadn’t. Although they had not shown their opposition to his racing up until then, reasoning that it might encourage him further, now they changed their tune and were vociferous in their opposition. Whilst James may not have raced at Snetterton, the fact that he had gone off and come back from a race made them face up to the reality of what it all entailed. But their son wasn’t discouraged in the least and was now as determined as ever to succeed.
He needed about UK£100 to fix the car for the regulations, and he set out to save it and to return for another go. The money was easily raised when he managed to sell some telephone contracts on behalf of Telephone Rentals. As a trainee sales manager with the company, he was now earning a basic salary of UK£1,000 a year and commission, which was worth half as much again.
But after his treatment at Snetterton, he lost interest in Mini racing and resolved to try Formula Ford instead. His appetite had been whetted by a Formula Ford race he had witnessed on the same day at Snetterton, and he had studied it carefully. For James, a Formula Ford car appeared to be a great deal simpler to prepare than a Mini, and he knew that was where he had to go. After that, he just used the Mini to get experience and resolved to buy himself a Formula Ford car. Simply put, he used the Mini to find his feet in racing but, when race days finally came, he was more interested in preserving his machinery than performing with it.
Dave Morgan, another hopeful British driver with whom Hunt would later clash, was also starting his career in saloon cars around that time. He remembers Hunt’s Mini being “a bag of rubbish”. He actually called it a “well-shunted car”.
Hunt also had no luck with his tow car, which, after one race, expired and forced him to acquire an Austin A90, which cost him another £25. He also bought a Lambretta scooter on which to get around, and rested the tow car as much as he could for its real task.
In the end, Hunt entered just four Mini saloon car races, including the non-start at Snetterton. He pursued the races to gain experience and pootled around at the back of the grid, taking no risks and honing his driving skills. He didn’t actually finish any of the races, deciding to rest his machinery before the chequered flag fell and failing to distinguish himself in any of the races. Officially, he retired in all of them. The only known photographs of the racing car at this time were taken at Brands Hatch on 8th October and are now the property of Ted Walker of Ferret Photography.
Hunt quickly realised he had no idea how to set up the car. As there were no Mini race car manufacturers, there were no manuals. All the racing Minis had been converted by all sorts of different people and there was no single reference point. This was one of the reasons he so desperately sought to enter Formula Ford, where there were plenty of manuals as well as advice for novices.
Unusually, one routine he did establish when he was driving the Mini was a ritual of vomiting before a race. The nervousness he felt before getting strapped into a car, be it in practice or in qualifying for a race, stayed with him for the remainder of his life. He found the tension to build up to such an extent in his stomach that he could virtually vomit to order before taking to the track. And his total lack of embarrassment meant he didn’t mind who witnessed it either. He never discussed his ‘urge to purge’ with anyone, and most often put it down to severe nerves and the over-production of adrenalin. In reality, it was a combination of all of these, along with his excessive smoking and drinking, that created a chemical reaction in his body before each race start.
Those four races were his first and last foray into saloon car racing on circuits, and, from then on, he stuck to single seaters. His career had not got off to an auspicious start, but he kept faith in himself – even if no one else did. Later, he never really discussed his Mini days, seeming anxious to forget them as quickly as possible. As far as he was concerned, his racing career began with Formula Ford in 1969.
His saloon car career finally ended when he received a surprise offer of UK£325 for his car; it was about the same amount as it had cost him to put it together. Or so he says. Some doubt his version of events, maintaining that he sold the car for a lot less and was desperate to get rid of it. But, despite the naysayers, it appears to have been the truth. On the spur of the moment, Hunt took the money and decided now was the time to invest it all in a Formula Ford car. He said: “I sold it on the spur of the moment, and all my best decisions have been taken on the spur of the moment.”
He was set to turn 21 on 29th August 1968, some ten months later, but he somehow persuaded his father to let him have the money he would be due on that date early. So Wallis Hunt handed his son a cheque for UK£100. Together with his overdraft facilities, the contribution took Hunt’s war chest to nearly £500, which was enough to launch a proper career in motor racing.
The dress rehearsal was over and, once more, the timing of his latest career move was to prove absolutely spot-on.
CHAPTER 7
Into Formula Ford 1968-1969
It all starts to get rather serious
James Hunt had his fair share of good and bad days. But the day that Formula Ford was established, in 1967, was one of his better ones. In many ways, it was a formula tailor-made for him to begin his career proper. It was almost as if it had been created especially for him.
Formula Ford was the original idea of John Webb, the managing director of Motor Circuit Developments Ltd (MCD), which owned Brands Hatch and four other British circuits. Webb wanted a standardised entry formula for new drivers, which would be affordable and therefore popular and provide plenty of cars and drivers for races at his circuits. At the time, Webb was short of content and he wanted to encourage a big rush of new talent into the sport. It was all carefully thought through and, together with Geoff Clarke and Jim Russell, who ran race driving schools at MCD circuits, the formula was devised. Webb persuaded Walter Hayes and Henry Taylor of the Ford Motor Company to sponsor the formula’s creation, and it was therefore christened Formula Ford.
Before Formula Ford, Formula Vee had been the entry formula but it had never taken off. Formula Vee cars looked like racing cars but handled like saloon cars. It hadn’t succeeded simply because a Formula Vee car did not feel like a racing car. To solve that problem, the Formula Ford car was designed with a full racing suspension setup.
Webb cleverly asked Colin Chapman of Lotus to design and build the prototype car in 1966; it was called the Lotus 51. The 51 was really a Formula 3 Lotus 31 with steel wheels and road tyres to suit the FF regulations. The car was made by Lotus Components Ltd, the race car manufacturing subsidiary of Lotus. But part of the regulations was that a car and engine had to cost only UK£1,000 to keep them affordable. Lotus had difficulty making a profit at that price, and the formula was taken over by a host of smaller manufacturers, amongst them Merlin and Alexis. But Lotus still managed to sell over 1,000 Formula Ford cars in the various 51, 51A and 61 models.
So, in 1968, armed with his UK£500, Hunt focused on entering Formula Ford. Not only were the cars relatively cheap, but John Webb had also tied up with some finance companies to offer hire purchase terms to budding race drivers who were cash poor but credit worthy. Credit-worthy Hunt therefore took full advantage of his status and bought a new Russell-Alexis Mk14 Formula Ford car with a Ford 1600 Kent crossflow engine.
Hunt paid a third deposit on the car, around UK£330, and his repayments worked out at UK£30 per month. He also bought another engine, a special from engine builder Chris Steele, also on hire purchase. But buying a second engine was against the spirit of the rules.
He persuaded his somewhat reluctant father, Wallis, to guarantee the hire purchase agreements. He was also forced to insure the car and persuaded his father that, whatever happened, the car could be sold and he would not lose out. When he did the numbers, Wallis Hunt was surprised to find that this was true and so he signed on the dotted line. But Wallis kept it to himself, especially from Hunt’s mother, as, publicly, he was d
iscouraging his son from going into motor racing.
As Wallis reasoned, his son was better off and, more importantly, safer racing with new equipment rather than in the old Mini, which had frightened everyone. Wallis even accompanied his son to Brands Hatch to have a look at one of the cars. He was surprised to find himself impressed with what he saw.
Hunt’s latest tow car had expired again so this time he bought something more robust, a two-tone green Austin Cambridge for UK£54. He kept the Mini trailer and had UK£100 left to pay for the season’s expenses. Almost all of his Telephone Rentals salary and commissions would be put towards it.
Hunt targeted big races in England and became very good friends with Grahame White, the BARC secretary, during the spring, summer and autumn of 1968, when he raced most weekends. White remembers: “James came in and out of my life on many occasions. He used to come into the office quite a bit to say ‘hello’ and put in a late entry form. There were certain things about James that you couldn’t help but notice. He was tall, good looking and he spoke rather nicely. He was the sort of guy you would like to be friends with if you had the opportunity.”
Formula Ford meant everyone had equal cars, so ability could come to the fore. Although Hunt was hampered because he could not afford to carry many spare parts or bodywork.
Formula Ford racing couldn’t have been more different from what Hunt was used to, and he found that almost every weekend he was at the front and rarely at the back. Much to his surprise, he was immediately competitive and he made his debut at Snetterton almost one year after the Mini fiasco.
Hunt was both driver and mechanic, but occasionally brought along friends with mechanical knowledge. A constant in those days was Taormina Rich, who attended almost every race with him for moral support. She was also prepared to rough it, sleeping in the back of vans and going hungry when necessary.
Also at the start of his racing career at Snetterton was a young driver called Tony Dron. Dron had also been to public school and, like Hunt, had well-to-do parents who did not support his racing career. It was actually Dron’s second race and he would become Hunt’s first and closest friend in racing. The two men had much in common, and Dron’s parents lived a few miles away from Hunt’s in Wentworth. Dron remembers: “In those days, we both had short hair and we spoke the same language, as we both came from Surrey. And I was intrigued to discover that we both had the same birthday.” Dron adds: “He was a year younger than me, but we were both very serious, short-haired, skint young men.”
Unsurprisingly, they hit it off straightaway and started travelling to races together. Dron had bought a Titan car, as he remembers: “I had started racing in the last weekend of May 1968 and my second race was at Snetterton, where James appeared in Formula Ford for the first time.”
The only difference between them was that Dron had managed to scrape enough money together to buy his car outright. Dron had also made a better choice of chassis. Hunt’s Alexis proved to be a dog, but the Titan was one of the top cars.
But money rather than motor racing actually dominated their lives, as Dron says: “We had very similar backgrounds: our parents had expensive houses in Surrey, they lived very well but really it was all crap – they were spending the children’s inheritance and there was very little money for us apart from our education, being fed properly and clothed properly. We lived from hand to mouth, bumping along on 20 quid a week. We got used to living as very hard-up people although we went back to these very lovely houses where everything was comfortable. It was a very funny way of life, really. We were given a great start in life and then it was all down to us. I thoroughly approve of that policy.”
Dron remembers how committed his friend was in those days: “He was absolutely hell-bent on getting to the top. He said to me: ‘If I don’t get to the top in motor racing, I’ll get to the top in something else’ and I believed him.”
Dron and Hunt began travelling together. Taormina and Dron’s girlfriend, Doro Marden, used to get on very well. They shared the same philosophy of life and didn’t mind roughing it to save money, as Dron remembers: “We got on very well, we kind of teamed up a bit. We would travel together and support each other. We would camp out in the press office to save 30 bob [UK£1.50], which it would have cost for a bed and breakfast in a pub.”
Dron remembers it was not fun at the time: “We were committed to, not playing with, race driving. The objective was to get to the very top and it made our lives a serious struggle.”
So James Hunt’s pattern of life was established. During the week, he was persuading people to rent out telephone systems and earning good money, and, at weekends, he was a racing driver.
But he was conscious that he was almost a complete novice, having only actually competed in three races prior to his single seater debut. The only saving grace, which constantly rescued his thoughts and reassured him when he got depressed, was that half the field was in exactly the same position as him.
Hunt diligently went about his apprenticeship and attended open tests days at nearby Brands Hatch and other circuits. These open test sessions were the brainchild of John Webb, who opened up his circuits to all comers, who shared the circuit for a very small fee. It meant that all sorts of racing machines were on the track together.
It was on one of those test days at Snetterton circuit that Hunt met the man who would influence his career long before he made it to Formula One – Max Mosley. Although there is no real reason to remember the occasion when he first met James Hunt 42 years ago, Mosley recalls it very clearly. He says: “I remember distinctly, it was 1968 and I was at Snetterton driving my Formula Two Brabham BT23. It was a very fast car, relatively speedy. And he was driving Formula Ford and I followed this person round in a Formula Ford and he was going much too fast – much too fast for a Formula Ford, you just didn’t expect it. In those days at testing, everything was mixed up; there were motorbikes out there and other things. So I was really impressed. And then in the paddock, I saw this person get out of the car and he was wearing old clothes and gym shoes. And the wisdom in those days was that you never wore something with a rubber sole because if there was any oil on the pedals, you had a problem. And I just thought it was extraordinary for a scruffy, unequipped person to be going so incredibly quickly.”
That image was indelibly planted in Mosley’s mind, but little did he know how frequently their paths would cross in the years to come and what great friends they eventually would become.
Although he was doing a lot of running in races and testing, Hunt never crashed the car in that first year. Contrary to his later image, he was very careful about bringing the car home in one piece, and it affected his competitiveness. But it was a necessity, as he simply had no money for accident repairs. He knew that one accident could finish his racing career forever. He really was running his race car on a shoestring.
He was also becoming increasingly aware of the economics of Formula Ford. At UK£1,000 a car, the manufacturers were losing money on every chassis they sold. There was simply no profit from selling a car for UK£1,000. But there was plenty of profit to be had from repairing them after the frequent accidents many of the customers seemed to have. But not James Hunt, who focused perhaps more on bringing his car home undamaged than he did on winning races.
Hunt was eminently sensible and practical in those days. Reasoning that he lacked experience, he decided he was in no hurry to make it to the top. Often, he drove round sedately and, as long as he was qualifying for the finals and in the top half of the field, he was happy. It was an unusually mature approach for such a young man, who would behave totally opposite later in his career.
As confidence came to him and he gained in experience, he began to pass other drivers and found it all rather easy.
By summer’s end, James Hunt had won his first race. The very first win came at the Lydden Hill circuit, in Kent. He also set a new lap record on the club circuit at Brands Hatch.
Leaning on his sales experience with Telep
hone Rentals, Hunt decided unilaterally that he was now successful enough to be sponsored. He declared to his friends and father that he was ready to sell sponsorship and to give big companies the privilege of working with him. He had no idea how hard that would prove to be, nor just how unattractive a proposition sponsoring a budding young Formula Ford driver really was. While Hunt saw the glass as half full, sponsors definitely saw it as half empty. He was totally unprepared for the rejections, as he said: “This was just about the lowest period of my life. I had to go knocking on doors to get sponsorship and the doors were always slammed in my face.” Unlike his prospective telephone customers, who at least listened to him make his pitch, most prospective sponsors didn’t even speak to him, with the line of communication progressing no further than the receptionist.
It was all to do with his naïveté. What he didn’t realise was that, at Telephone Rentals, all his leads were carefully obtained through a sophisticated marketing and filtering operation. With prospective sponsors, he was simply approaching any company in the phone book, starting with ‘A’. Most of these companies had already been called repeatedly. Eventually, he realised he was better off starting at the back of the telephone directory, since few companies starting with an ‘X’ had ever been called.
Taormina Rich had to listen to this sort of stuff every time they got together; her boyfriend talked of nothing else.
But his father, listening to him on the phone, understood better and chipped in with some timely advice and told his frustrated son to be persistent. For once, James took his father’s advice and carried on. And then he had a eureka moment. He figured if he couldn’t sell them sponsorship, they might be interested in a telephone system, and so he uncovered some useful leads.
