The secret Nürburgring, a £5m near miss and fist fights in a Ford Galaxy
evo’s always been great for making memories, as a nostalgic Jethro confirms
Once upon a time I got a job at evo. There was a Fiat Seicento Sporting waiting for me in the car park that first morning. Organised by, I guessed, one of the co-editors, John Barker or Richard Meaden. At the time everything was so exciting that I didn’t realise the significance of this little red car. John or Dickie had organised something. As I was soon to discover, evo survived and flourished on some sort of strange, inexplicable energy and sheer force of will. Organisation was for others. Ours was to be a world of nerves, inspiration, blind faith, ambition and generous readers, who would usually get us out of a hole.
Once upon a time, in fact just a few days later, Dickie drove me to the Bedford Autodrome across country in an Audi Allroad in driving rain. He didn’t know it, but as we casually chatted my mind was suddenly being expanded. Like a scene in a sci-fi movie where a whole universe of consciousness and memories is dumped into somebody’s brain just before their epiphany and subsequent triumph. Cars could do this? Even in the rain? So easily, too? Over the coming weeks, the sensations experienced in the Allroad would be massively ramped-up, particularly on track. But I’ll never forget that humble Audi and the way it crowbarred open the door to a new world.
> 'I let out a guttural scream': Richard Meaden on the race that changed him
Once upon a time, I crashed. Or maybe it was twice upon a time, or three times. I felt terrible about it. Gutted. Embarrassed. Fearful for the reprisals. ‘Oh well, at least you’ve got it over with,’ said Tomalin. ‘Good effort,’ added Dickie. Harry grumbled about the insurance. Nobody wants or likes to damage press cars. But in a world before endless speed cameras and dash cams? To be honest, it was a wonder we didn’t throw cars into the scenery every month. Every drive back to the hotel, heater on full blast to defrost from another bitterly cold Welsh day, was a four- or five-car Best Motoring-style ‘Touge Battle’. Grimaces and hoots of laughter would be shared as we bundled into the bar.
Once upon a time I went on my first ever eCoty. I got to drive a Zonda. My first Ruf. Yellow, wildly powerful and delivered by a suitably sideways-at-all-times test driver. His girlfriend came along for the week, too. Astrid was her name. Harry called her Ostrich. By accident. Every single time. The whole experience was idyllic. Apart from the fist-fight that took place in a fully-loaded MPV on the way back from dinner. There’s not a huge amount of room in a Ford Galaxy seating seven grown men when one of them is swinging fists and wriggling wildly to get from the very back seat to the driver in order to, well, kill him.
Once upon a time if we couldn’t get to Millbrook for some reason or another we’d record performance figures on a straight road near the office. Nothing too outrageous. Just acceleration runs up to 130mph or so. Probably safer than when we’d figure two cars simultaneously on Millbrook’s mile straight in opposite directions. Closing speeds up to 300mph were a bit daft, I suppose.
Once upon a time we didn’t really worry too much about the internet and would cram a month’s work into ten days. Deadline was gruelling and marked by late nights and pizza or McDonald’s. Plus hotly contested Nordschleife shoot-outs on Gran Turismo in a Lotus Carlton or, of course, the Yellowbird and Sauber C9 Group C car. Timed runs to the reprographics house, too. The B660 at night was our very own Nürburgring.
Once upon a time John Barker blew up a B Engineering Edonis on the very first acceleration run after express instructions not to drop the clutch. The helpless waggle of the gearlever accompanied by him uttering ‘Oooo, ya bugger’, still makes me cry with laughter to this day.
Once upon a time I half-span a Mercedes SLS Black Series with videographer Sam Riley in the car and we ended up with the front wheels dangling over a steep drop, Italian Job style. Another time we were in a 250 SWB that dumped all its coolant and, for various reasons, ended up parked across a mountain hairpin, nose about three millimetres from a large rock and with an incline too steep for us to push the car to safety. We could hear other traffic heading up and down the hill but had no way to warn them. Miraculously, nobody died and the SWB was returned in pristine condition. It never did reach its £5million reserve a few days later at auction.
A million memories, nearly all of them too good to be true. This will be my last column for evo for the foreseeable. I’ll just be a dedicated reader. The magazine has new owners and, I hope, a successful future ahead of it. If I could offer them one piece of parting advice? Let the chaos and the energy breathe. evo at its best is a force of nature.
Once upon a time I worked for the very best car magazine in the world. And it was awesome.
This story was first featured in evo issue 321.
