Jack O'Ferrall
Former UKGPL Moderators
Full Member
Posts: 904
|
 |
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2008, 12:43:28 AM +0100 » |
|
REED, MARQUE, LEARN: THE JACK O’FERRALL STORY
Spa April 13
…. “How about a pre-race night out?” Ian asked. “I’ve been in touch with the mags, you could meet April Bosoms.” The mechanics were happy too, it’s become something of a tradition at REED that we stay at a ‘cheap hotel’ on the away trips. He took me to see her manager, who seemed eager- he handed me a mask and asked me to stand behind a curtain.
“Thrust it aside angrily on the cue,” he told me. “What’s your name?” “Bruce,” I told him, pleased with myself- quick thinking after a session with the larger glasses followed by a few Weslakes. Best to draw a modest veil over next fifteen minutes, but afterwards her manager beckoned me over “We’ve got a Bruce, ‘Big Bruce’, so you’ll have to be ‘Jack’, if that’s okay.”
I was incredulous “You’re recording a fifteen minute session?”
“Everything Miss Bosoms does must be recorded for posterity! She is a diva!”
First time I’ve ever been too swift. I bumped into the enigmatic ronin, shiojiri-waza, on the way out, as well.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked Ian.
“There’s always a Japanese- you never seen Belle de Jour?”
Rubber having entered the consciousness, as it were, next day I went to see Bell about tyres. He looked tired. “Hey Bell,” I said, “The organisers have got our tyres down as ‘unknown’, what’s up with that?”
“We use three types of tyres,” he said. “Dunlops for the P83, Firestones for the P261, and Goodyears for the P115s, which is the vehicle you race. You could have tried a more technical approach, the tyres are on the sides of your car. They have a blue stripe.”
“So why three types of tyres? Which is best in the wet?”
“An engineering question, Jack? Dunlops won us a championship, the Firestones were on offer, and we save on the costs with Goodyear because the other teams use them. None of them are any better than the others and you shouldn’t worry about the wet anyway, unless you mean your drinks parties, in which case whichever involves taking your clothes off quickest, presumably. Jack, don’t worry about design. Drive, write your autobiography ‘Enormous Big Jobs’ about how hard you are, and finish off by complaining about Italian drivers on the television coverage.”
Loot likes to stand with his drivers before the race and survey the scene, glass in hand. It’s when he gets his ‘atmosphere’. “Dear boys,” he began “Danger. Excitement. Risk. That’s what racing is about. Boys, I fear for our future. They want us to breathe into little plastic bags, to prove we are not drinking. It should be the other way around! The constables are decent enough these days, they recognise the privileges of the nobility, but in the decades to come! The lawyers’ll have them scraping part of your tongues away! Where will our motor industry be then? British cars need British courts, damn them!”
I once claimed to be a descendant of Peter the Great, on Loot’s legal advice. However, we were spared the rest of his mighty peroration, as he was distracted by the antics of the Crash’n’Burn mechanics practising pit stops with their limited pit space. “More cars, more prize money,” he mused. “I must have a word with Tom.” Then he ambled off, boozily, past ‘Rusty McCluskey’s’ garage. I was going to make an apposite remark on the marketing element of American-style saloon racing, but Ian was gazing over at the Phoenix pits.
“Look at that,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t that be just the ticket?”
All I could see was last year’s champion, wearing his rather gaudy ‘Pro’ jacket, with the ‘Pro’ spelled out in gold lettering on the back. Shit. It was the jacket.
“No crashes, no overrevving, no points for a dodgy finish. Respect. Class.”
Being last. In a slow car. Still, Ian had got me an invitation from the enchanting Miss Bosoms. “Alright.” Pro racing it was to be. The genuine article.
Spa. Speed. The back of the grid. Somehow we had again contrived it so that I was in front of Ian, though this time I was certain that Eau Rouge was going to be the end of the ‘pro racers’, so what did it matter? By some miracle I lasted a lap, and I still seemed to be in contact with the Ferraris ahead, until one of them decided on a quick stop in the middle of Masta, and I came into rather too much contact with it. At least the car was upside down, so all the petrol drained out, and I was left with the flask I’d substituted for a heavy spanner that I’d found taped to the wheel. So this was pro racing, cheers. Ian made it to the finish line, he claimed to have a Steve Cloyd setup, as well as a self-imposed handicap. Bernie won, champagne for him and the Soggies.
I was left alone at the track after dark when I heard one of our mechanics strumming a guitar.
“I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die."
I walked over, he was by a campfire, all the disappointment of the race seemed to return to me. “Perhaps you might want to drop some, ah, £sd ?” he suggested. I may have been overtired, between ourselves, even a little maudlin.
“You know ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’" I asked. “Was it me was it you, as we went warp factor Two?�
|
