My Life With Ayrton Senna

Love, obsession, infatuation ... whatever you call it it's an odd state of mind. When it's focused on an unwitting, oblivious victim it's even stranger. When it lasts for 30 years, 18 of which have been nurtured posthumously, I guess it falls into the category "Seriously Weird".

Ayrton Senna could do that to people. My experience is just one example and over the next few weeks or months I'm going to post my story in chapters. I hope you enjoy it.

START AT THE BEGINNING

Saturday May 8th 1982 10.00pm Bath.

I’m in the kitchen, making coffee for a couple of friends, when my latest ex bursts into the flat. “Gilles Villeneuve’s dead.” he gasps, “Put the news on.”

The words land like a punch. As I stand staring at the screen, someone changes the channel to bring up the News at 10. And it’s true. The flickering cathode ray shows the low red car connect with Jochen Mass’s white March and execute a graceful vertical take-off before cartwheeling across the track, shedding and spewing lumps of car, race helmet and a helmet-less human being, still strapped into the racing seat, flying almost too fast for the camera to register.

I watch dumbly, and through the shock, through the grief, anger is growing. Anger at Gilles for killing himself; anger at Didier Peroni for causing the rift between them at the previous race and especially fierce anger that I’d lost any chance to see the tiny, marvelous Canadian race for real instead of just through the tv screen.


Sunday July 18th 1982 Lunchtime Brands Hatch

My internal organs are vibrating, well out of synch with the rest of my body but perfectly in time with the tarmac under my feet. Along with everyone else in the pit lane, my head is thrown back, mouth hanging attractively open like a sleeping commuter but minus the drool. Not far above us and unimaginably beautiful, Concorde slides through the air. She’s so low I can almost count the rivets in the wings. Even the seen-it-all mechanics have stopped to watch and the combination of solid sound, gut-wrenching vibration, awe and pride has brought a lump to a lot of throats - including mine.

As the best thing ever to come out of any Anglo-French liaison heads for the horizon, ‘normal’ sounds come out of hiding. I’m watching several brawny fellows rolling an  angular Williams down the crowded lane. It’s number 6, Keke Rosberg’s car, and it carries the revised Saudia logo, hastily introduced after the Saudis noticed that the original typeface produced the outline of the Christian cross between the letters ‘s’ and ‘a’.

I spend a few minutes tempting the wrath of the gods by musing on the foolishness of religion. Right on cue, a thunderbolt of pure, glowing, agonizing sound shatters the back of my skull. When the mist of pain clears I turn to find Nelson Piquet’s Parmalat Brabham spitting and burbling no more than two feet behind me, tended by a bunch of suspiciously innocent-looking blokes in white overalls. One appears to be trying to hide the business end of a compressed air starter hose behind his back. With a haughty flick of my hair and a last, sad look at the glowing, empty number 27 Ferrari, I head for the pit lane exit.

Lauda wins the race for McLaren and, emotionally, Peroni finishes second in the 28 Ferrari with Patrick Tambay taking third in Gilles’ car. It has been full of incident and I’m buzzing with all the sights, sounds and smells of my first Grand Prix. I'm completely hooked.

Back in the car park I meet up with my bemused companion for the day. It’s Richard and he is the manager of my local newsagents, back in Bath. We’d struck up a friendship after he commented on my unusual taste in magazines ... Autosport, Motoring News and the teeth-suckingly expensive Grand Prix International. Of course, he’d assumed I was collecting them for my boyfriend or husband and I had been perhaps a tad firm in my rebuttal. Still it seemed to make an impression on him.
Following Gilles’ death I resolved to get off my bum and really experience the sport that had meant so much to him. Transport had been the stumbling block. I’d written off my motorbike (a dark blue Honda 400/4, since you ask) a few months before so I needed wheels. And Richard had a car. He never stood a chance.

There was no planning or pre-ordering of tickets. We just turned up on the day and bought a ticket at the gate. I can’t remember the cost now but I do remember splashing out £5 for the pit lane walkabout and the programme cost £1.50.

To his great credit, Richard never complained at the two and a half hour wait to get out of the car park.  He didn’t even sigh when we finally arrived back in Bath just after midnight - even though he had to get up for work at 5.30 the next morning.

It does me no credit that I can’t actually remember his surname and I have no idea what happened to him after he moved to another shop. But I DO still remember what he looked like ... so that’s something I guess.