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Tiff Needell's column
Tiff takes a trip down memory lane...
I know it's not the trendiest sort of thing to admit to, but as we've been enjoying a few weeks of an exciting World Cup tournament, I don't mind telling you I have more than a passing interest in cricket. It is, after all, a tough sport that puts individuals under the microscope, yet also demands a good team performance. And that's a bit like motor racing when you think about it.
Of course, once my school 1st XI days were over, it was only ever going to be racing cars for me, and I've just had a trip down memory lane at the wheel of a Formula Ford. This series was a revolutionary concept when it was launched 40 years ago at Brands Hatch, and I can still recall clinging to the Druids Corner railings as a schoolboy spectator.
Devised by Brands Hatch supremo John Webb - a Bernie Ecclestone-type character on the UK's national racing scene - it was a formula that brought single-seater racing within the budget of the man in the street. It meant a spaceframe chassis with a near standard 1,600cc Ford Cortina engine lowered into the back - and a £1,000 price limit.
As soon as I left school, I was off to Brands Hatch's racing school, where I spent all my savings driving them - at £10 for 10 laps - and dreaming of being a racing driver. But like many budding racers, I had no money to actually buy a car of my own.
A couple of years later, a beam of good fortune lit up my life when I won a Lotus 69F Formula Ford in a magazine competition, and my racing career began. I was a champion in 1975 and on the Grand Prix grid five years later, and it was the Formula Ford series that literally made my dreams come true. From James Hunt to Jenson Button, it was the formula to start your career in.
These days you can also choose between Formula BMW, Formula Palmer Audi or Formula Renault to begin your path to the top, but Formula Ford remains high on the list of priorities, partly because it is the only one that allows different chassis manufacturers to compete. It's now a 1,600cc Ford Focus engine nestling in the back, and they cost around 25 times as much as in the early days, but the concept remains the same.
And I was reminded of that only too well, as I folded myself down into the tiny cockpit. Thoughts of trying to squeeze my six-foot frame into the cramped cars came flooding back with memories of the designers' battle for increased torsional rigidity, which demanded ever smaller openings. With knees clattering against the central bulkhead and elbows clashing with the sides of the cockpit, I knew I'd suffer some bruises!
The engine is solidly bolted to the chassis, so every vibration reverberates through your body. I was lying on my back with the windstream tugging at my crash helmet and the front wheels dancing up and down in front of me - all those sensations that so excited me so many years ago!
The only things that have really changed in three decades are a switch from road tyres to slick racing rubber, and an increase in power, from around 105 to 150bhp. Otherwise the present could have so easily been the past - apart from my mode of transport to and from the circuit.
Back then I would borrow mum's Morris 1000 and stick 10 shillings of petrol in the tank. But now I would climb inside the latest Bentley Continental GTC that I've been testing, and cruise home in style. There was one big problem even with that, though. Thanks to a disastrous lack of understanding by Bentley's German owner, this quintessentially British marque is now fitted with a radio that doesn't have longwave. And as every Englishman knows, that's where the cricket's broadcast...
Tiff Needell is a presenter on Channel Five's motoring programme Fifth Gear and is also a motorsport writer and commentator
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| Back then I'd borrow my mum's Morris 1000 and stick 10 shillings in te tank. Now I am testing the latest Bentley | |
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Of course, once my school 1st XI days were over, it was only ever going to be racing cars for me, and I've just had a trip down memory lane at the wheel of a Formula Ford. This series was a revolutionary concept when it was launched 40 years ago at Brands Hatch, and I can still recall clinging to the Druids Corner railings as a schoolboy spectator.
Devised by Brands Hatch supremo John Webb - a Bernie Ecclestone-type character on the UK's national racing scene - it was a formula that brought single-seater racing within the budget of the man in the street. It meant a spaceframe chassis with a near standard 1,600cc Ford Cortina engine lowered into the back - and a £1,000 price limit.
As soon as I left school, I was off to Brands Hatch's racing school, where I spent all my savings driving them - at £10 for 10 laps - and dreaming of being a racing driver. But like many budding racers, I had no money to actually buy a car of my own.
A couple of years later, a beam of good fortune lit up my life when I won a Lotus 69F Formula Ford in a magazine competition, and my racing career began. I was a champion in 1975 and on the Grand Prix grid five years later, and it was the Formula Ford series that literally made my dreams come true. From James Hunt to Jenson Button, it was the formula to start your career in.
These days you can also choose between Formula BMW, Formula Palmer Audi or Formula Renault to begin your path to the top, but Formula Ford remains high on the list of priorities, partly because it is the only one that allows different chassis manufacturers to compete. It's now a 1,600cc Ford Focus engine nestling in the back, and they cost around 25 times as much as in the early days, but the concept remains the same.
And I was reminded of that only too well, as I folded myself down into the tiny cockpit. Thoughts of trying to squeeze my six-foot frame into the cramped cars came flooding back with memories of the designers' battle for increased torsional rigidity, which demanded ever smaller openings. With knees clattering against the central bulkhead and elbows clashing with the sides of the cockpit, I knew I'd suffer some bruises!
The engine is solidly bolted to the chassis, so every vibration reverberates through your body. I was lying on my back with the windstream tugging at my crash helmet and the front wheels dancing up and down in front of me - all those sensations that so excited me so many years ago!
The only things that have really changed in three decades are a switch from road tyres to slick racing rubber, and an increase in power, from around 105 to 150bhp. Otherwise the present could have so easily been the past - apart from my mode of transport to and from the circuit.
Back then I would borrow mum's Morris 1000 and stick 10 shillings of petrol in the tank. But now I would climb inside the latest Bentley Continental GTC that I've been testing, and cruise home in style. There was one big problem even with that, though. Thanks to a disastrous lack of understanding by Bentley's German owner, this quintessentially British marque is now fitted with a radio that doesn't have longwave. And as every Englishman knows, that's where the cricket's broadcast...
Tiff Needell is a presenter on Channel Five's motoring programme Fifth Gear and is also a motorsport writer and commentator
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