Nigel Mansell Autobiography

by Nigel Mansell

  While this conversation was going on, in the same week we had another offer. It was time to decide. Two weeks later I called a family meeting and said, ‘Just so you know, I have sold the business.’ The shock and horror on their faces was very surprising; they didn’t believe me! I explained that because of their mom’s health we had decided this was the right thing to do; that in fact it was quite a reluctant sale, but that I couldn’t concentrate on the business and it was the right call to sell. The initial offer had, after all, come out of the blue and to me that felt like destiny was again changing the path of our lives.

  I have to say now that, all these years later, Woodbury still has a very special place in my heart. The golf course especially perhaps, the memories, the people we had play there, Greg Norman, Gary Player, Frank Nobilo, Sandy Lyle, the senior PGA tour, the qualifying school there, running the events we did. It wasn’t just the golf, though; there were such fabulous, wonderful people down there, all the golf unions, the associations, the members, the families of the members, the children of the members, Sir John the president, all the golf professionals we employed, all great people. We had mostly exemplary staff and some of them are still there now. We go back very occasionally and, of course, it is not the same, but we know we built every brick on that site. I am smiling as I write about the club, even now! I am so, so proud of Woodbury Park and in my mind it felt like winning a third World Championship. That is how very special that place is to me.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE POLICE

  As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut, a fighter pilot, a fireman and a policeman. Oh, and a racing driver. Luckily for me, I have been able to do elements of quite a few of those jobs. I’ve not yet been into space and I’m not sure my back would pass the medicals, although I guess you could say I’m used to working with G-force! I haven’t been a fighter pilot, just to clear that up, but I have been blessed to fly jets for over 30 years, including my own planes, as well as helicopters. I’ve not put out any fires other than a few excitable barbecues, and some of you may recall I won a few events in a race car. So that only leaves the police and I am very proud indeed to say that since the early 1980s I served as a special constable. I just always wanted to help in the police; I liked the idea of working for the benefit of the community, the work seemed really exciting and challenging, and I was very drawn to it. After I retired from racing I was keen to carry on this work. I loved it. I was a special officer of the law in England for a considerable number of years, and in fact I am very proud to say I’ve got my long-service medal. I have worked with the police in England, America and Australia.

  In the earlier years of my police work, I was already a racing driver, so, perhaps understandably, a few of the regular officers thought it was just some sort of gimmick. As a result, I was often put on the so-called ‘graveyard shift’, during turfing-out time at the pubs and clubs, the less glamorous side of police work, shall we say. I had to earn my stripes, which I eventually did chasing after someone over garden walls and fences early one morning. I was at the height of my racing training at the time, which was a blessing because I was able to catch up with this individual and tackle him, despite him trying to hit me with some four-by-two. In the end, I was able to disarm and apprehend him, which helped my colleagues take me more seriously. I would often go out on patrol on the shifts that no one else wanted, for example, Christmas Eve, Boxing Day or New Year’s Eve. When the children were really young and used to go to bed early, I would do the night shift till two, three or four o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t fun sometimes; it could get ugly. I have dealt with motor-vehicle deaths; I have carried dead bodies out of houses at midnight and had to put them in the back of ambulances. I’ve done my fair share. Knowing what I know, I have to say the police do the most incredible job under very difficult circumstances and must be applauded and commended unreservedly. They are amazing individuals.

  I had a very serious incident one time when I wasn’t actually on duty, but when I felt my training as a policeman helped me contribute to a very sad moment. It’s also another example of that feeling I had the night before Elio was killed at Paul Ricard. One night, Rosanne and I were coming back from a function and there was quite a big hill approaching. I just looked up the incline and something caught my eye in the distance. I had a really eerie feeling and just knew something wasn’t right. I was only doing about 50mph when a car came past me quite quickly from behind, so I just slowed down. I felt really uncomfortable. I sensed something very bad was going to happen. I didn’t know what but there was just this overwhelming feeling of dread again, like that night at Paul Ricard.

  We came over the brow of the hill to find absolute carnage in front of us on the road. A car that had been coming towards us down the hill was upside down on its roof, with the headlights still on. It looked like it had been in a head-on collision with the car that had overtaken us. As I was a serving police officer at the time, I got out and walked towards the upside-down car. As I passed the car that overtook us, I could see that the driver was dead. I walked over to the upturned car and found that the driver was trapped by his seatbelt; it was almost strangling him, he couldn’t breathe. Other drivers had stopped to help, too. I managed to find a knife from somewhere, got inside the wreckage and slashed away at the trapped man’s belt to free him. The cabin was cramped, smelt of petrol and there was glass everywhere. He was badly injured and clearly very shaken up. Eventually, I managed to help free him.

  Then I heard footsteps on the road, so I just shouted into the darkness, ‘Whoever is walking up the road, stop now! There has been an accident – there are petrol and fumes everywhere. If you have got steel tips or anything steel on the bottom of your shoes, stop, do not walk, one spark and we’ll all go up!’

  The police were on the scene very quickly and were brilliant; the fire brigade too. One of the firemen came over to me and said, ‘Nigel, are you okay?’ I said I was fine, but he pressed me, ‘Are you sure? I think you’d better come with me . . .’

  He walked me into the headlights of the fire engine and that’s when I noticed I was completely covered in blood. There were lacerations all over me; bits of glass were stuck into my skin and clothing, I had petrol on me, I was a complete mess. They hosed me down and then explained that, because there was blood on site and I was cut, there was a risk of AIDS and other diseases. That was quite chilling but it shows you the kind of risks that these amazing police and firemen are exposed to every day. That was a terrible realisation. I was washed down in front of the fire engine and they helped me with bandages, antiseptic, and cleaned me up.

  Eventually, we were allowed to go home and I was very glad to get through the front door. As you know, I don’t drink, but that night I had a very stiff double brandy. The realisation of what had happened hit me really hard. There was a loss of life. I was numb for about a week.

  Another time, in the USA, I had a similar feeling again at a set of traffic lights, so I moved my car out of instinct and I narrowly avoided being shunted from behind at high speed by a drunk driver. Now, some people would say that these three examples are all just coincidence. That is their point of view. Others might suggest that, given my years of experience with police drivers – I’ve been on courses where they train you to anticipate accidents, events, avoid situations, look ahead for danger – all I am actually doing is exercising this knowledge. That could also be true. Road awareness, anticipation, thinking ahead, yes, all of those things could be true. That’s their opinion. My feeling is there could be something deeper than that. What do you think?

  There are also many lighter moments from my police work – please don’t think it’s all sadness and problems. One night, we were on the late shift when we were called out to some trouble at this really rough local pub, which was turning out all the drunks and revellers. When we got there, we could see this one guy really being picked on – there were five men laying into him; he was totally outnumbered and getting a real pasting. There’s an
unwritten rule that ‘you run to a fire, walk to a fight’ – the theory being that, if you walk to a fight, by the time you get there the warring parties will hopefully have already worn themselves out. We watched this ruck going on for a couple of moments, to decide a plan of action, and were just about to wade in when this guy managed to break free and run off, towards our police car.

  Just in front of our car there was a low-level chain-link fence, those old-school ones that were set between concrete posts. This guy ran up and jumped over it, but the five blokes who were chasing after him didn’t see the fence. They sprinted after him and ran straight into the chain, which tripped all of them over at once, Laurel and Hardy style, right in front of our patrol car. We burst out laughing, I don’t mind admitting; it was so comical, pure slapstick. The guy who’d been on the receiving end of the beating saw this happen and, to our amazement, turned back and started to lay into them on the floor. Now we were really stuck, because in theory we were supposed to get out and stop him, even though it was one against five! That was such a funny night.

  It’s interesting, working with the police, how you view incidents when you are on the other side of a situation. Shortly after winning the World Championship in IndyCar, I was flying late at night, ahead of shooting a safety commercial for the US police the next morning, aimed at improving road safety. I’ve done loads of seatbelt infomercials; we did anti-drink-driving campaigns, anti-drug-driving ones, all for free. I knew it was a really positive way to use my profile as a racing driver to try to help the community and make the roads safer. Although it often placed a lot of extra time demands on my already hectic schedule, I always really enjoyed it.

  Anyway, this one particular time I was driving myself up from the airport with one of the TV team, and he was briefing me on the next day’s shoot as we went along. It was very early in the morning; there were no cars on the road, four lanes empty of traffic, and we were catching every green light. Anyway, because I was listening intently to the briefing and maybe wasn’t paying enough attention to the road, I ended up going far too quickly, I’m afraid to admit. By way of a feeble defence, I had just been testing for three days at over 230mph, so although I was doing about 100mph, it felt more like 20mph to me (I said it was feeble).

  I was concentrating so hard on the briefing that at first I didn’t even notice a sheriff car chasing behind me. Eventually, the sheriff put his lights on and I pulled over. He wasn’t very happy with me. Not at all. He got out of his car with his gun out, the whole nine yards.

  ‘Hands on the steering wheel!’

  Oh, great! I’m going to get arrested for speeding a few hours before I am supposed to be filming an advert about road safety . . . This is so embarrassing!

  He really went ballistic at me, castigating me for my excessive speed, for not stopping straight away, not paying enough attention – he really tore a few strips off me. Then he asked me for ID, which I didn’t have on me, itself an offence in America.

  ‘I am genuinely sorry, officer, I wasn’t concentrating enough. I apologise for my speed. Ironically, this is actually kind of funny . . .’

  He wasn’t laughing . . .

  ‘. . . but I am filming an advert tomorrow about road safety and I was being briefed in the car and that’s why I wasn’t paying enough attention.’

  ‘That is just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,’ the officer snapped. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’ He was getting visibly more and more irate. ‘Who the hell are you to make up an effing story like that?! So, if you are so clever, who is it that can validate your story? Go on, who?’

  I had no choice.

  ‘Er, your chief of police.’

  He looked shocked, went back to his car, made a phone call and then came back. Although he obviously wasn’t going to be my best friend anytime soon, he gave me a ticking-off again and then sent me on my way.

  I didn’t mention this incident in the road safety film.

  Another time, not long before I started writing this book, in fact, I was driving too quickly from a golf game with my good friend Jimmy Slattery, who is the pro at the Belleair Country Club, near to where I live in Clearwater. We were on our way home on a highway that was completely empty. There was no one in front of us at all and on the other side there was a car in the distance heading in the opposite direction. I admit I was maybe going very slightly faster than allowed (I sound like a speeding driver – I’m not, honest! Just twice in 45 years, if you don’t include doing 200mph chasing after the likes of Ayrton Senna, of course).

  Anyway, when this car got near to us, it suddenly made a sharp turn, headed across the central reservation, joined the carriageway we were on and started following us. I thought at first he’d had a blow-out, such was the suddenness of his turn. Then, a moment later, he put his sirens and flashing lights on and that’s when I realised it was a police car. I thought, Wow, he’s obviously just had an emergency call in the opposite direction. That was some manoeuvre – he’s going to fly by in a second, better keep out of the way . . .

  Only he didn’t fly by, he just sat there behind us. I was puzzled and drove along a bit further, for about two miles. Eventually, Jimmy said, ‘Er, Nigel . . .’

  ‘Yes, Jimmy?’

  ‘You don’t think that maybe the police car is still behind us for a reason, do you, Nigel?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s been following us with his lights on for two friggin’ miles!’

  I pulled over and the patrolman was not happy. He asked for ID, which again I didn’t have, and, like his colleague before, he was most displeased. I think I am right in saying that in America they can, in theory, lock you up and impound the car until you prove who you are (note to self: put ID in your wallet next time you go out in the car). He really did a number on us, shouting at me and Jimmy about this. Jimmy did have ID so the policeman said he should have been driving instead. Then he went back to his car to check out our vehicle details and get some paperwork.

  While he was rooting around in his car, I got out of mine, walked around to the passenger seat and swapped places with Jimmy. Then the officer came back, didn’t look at Jimmy who was now in the driver’s seat and just continued to talk. Then he peered out from under his hat and the look on his face was a picture. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he said to Jimmy.

  ‘We just took your advice, officer,’ I said really politely and in my best English accent. ‘You said I shouldn’t be driving, so now I’m not.’

  He didn’t know what to do. He’d checked up on me and found out that not only was I the former IndyCar world champion, but I was also volunteering a lot of my time to his police force, helping out where I could and so on. He was still not happy but he did let me off with a warning, as I had been only very slightly over the speed limit. In fact, in the end he was pretty polite (he even shook our hands), but he did remind me of the speed limits in no uncertain terms. He was a great officer of the law; it was nice to meet him but just a shame about the circumstances!

  I served as a special constable from the early 1980s, so that includes the times when I was fighting it out on the track with Senna, Prost et al. That might seem a bit odd to some people, but I have always found the work hugely rewarding. That said, can you imagine Lewis or Sebastian out on the beat anytime soon?

  CHAPTER 22

  LE MANS

  As I alluded to earlier, when Rosanne was very ill, Greg opened up to us and said he really wanted to go racing. He was so intent and said all he ever thought about was racing. We were taken aback. We had never heard this from him before; he had kept it all to himself. That’s when Rosanne said, ‘Who are we to stop him having a go?’

  I arranged with an old friend of ours who was still in the karting business for Greg to have a test in a kart. We thought he would hate it and that would be the end of that (just like my parents had!). However, of course he didn’t; he absolutely loved it. So then he started working his way through the karting circuit, a
s did Leo, and we obviously supported them as much as we could.

  They progressed through the karting races and moved into single-seater racing around 2006. It was a wonderful experience for them both but, looking back, it was perhaps doomed to failure before it started, because they were seen by many people as just having a big budget. So really, neither of them, in my opinion, were given what I would call a proper fair chance.

  We had an interesting year with the Formula BMW UK series and it was an enjoyable experience, but then the intricacies of racing, even at the lower levels, were always in play. Some teams were able to manipulate the regulations better than others and that could be very frustrating. In motorsport, you always have to know your way around a rule book. After their time with BMW, they progressed to Formula 3 and had a little bit of success there. But it was a very steep learning curve by then; plus it cost an extraordinary amount of money. They also went into Formula Renault and Leo also went on to enjoy success in sports cars.

  Leo is 30 now and he recently confided in me that, if he had been as mature then as he is today, he understands things might have turned out differently, as he was an outstanding young golfer. I think that is fantastically rounded of him to realise that and then to be brave enough to admit it to me. I admire him for that. You can’t turn the clock back, of course, but it is brilliant that he is able to see it, and he will learn and become a better person because of it. In hindsight, I think perhaps we made elements of the racing too easy for them. We were just trying to help them out. We spent too many years and far too much money chasing other people’s dreams for them when they themselves weren’t chasing them as hard as they should’ve been. Every single parent in the world can be guilty of that.