Anorak of the year

[Bart.Vandecavey]

Speciaal voor diegene die het nog niet kenden, de tekst van totalmotorsport.com.

TotalMotorsport.com introduces the first "Anorak Of The Year" Award. For non-UK readers, the term "anorak" was probably first applied to that strange breed of people who stand around all day at railway stations, collecting the numbers of passing trains. They all seemed to wear anoraks, of course. This garment is probably a traditional British item, usually blue, usually zipped up at the front, usually quilted: stylish it isn’t.

Presumably, F1 fans have their idiosyncrasies, but sportscar and GT enthusiasts seem to have long standing obsessions. ‘Anoraks’ aren’t just found following the top classes of racing of course: there’s a man I know called Ronnie Smith who claims to have visited Brands Hatch 43 times in one year. When I met him in the stand at Paddock, he cheerfully greeted two lady friends, who also seemed to be more than just regulars at the Kentish Circuit. The three of them used to meet up week after week, come rain or shine.

Perhaps we ought to ask Andy Wallace to sponsor this award. It was he who once claimed that the Editor was ‘the world’s greatest anorak,’ but I would dispute that description. I will admit that I was wearing a ‘James Weaver, 1999 USRRC Champion’ t-shirt, which is a rare and valued garment, but in most respects I’m not an ‘anorak’, at least in the terms of this month’s two nominees.

The gentlemen concerned are Mr John Hindhaugh and Mr Rick Wilson. The former needs little introduction to budding ‘anoraks’. He is the voice of Radio Le Mans and the ALMS Radio Web, his Geordie accent familiar to many around the world. He fills many roles in motorsport, for not only is he remarkably knowledgeable about the subject, he is also employed as RML’s PR person.

Rick Wilson is the anorakish proprietor of www.maisonblanche.co.uk, a web site that has a particularly anorakish domain name, relating to a corner at the Le Mans circuit which no longer even exists.

Let’s begin with 'Hindy'. This is the man who has such a love of certain racing car colour schemes that he is in the process of decorating his house (the inside) in various of his favourite creations. After all, if experts in their field have spent many hundreds of hours designing a colour scheme for a car, who is he to simply head off to the nearest DIY store and buy five litres of magnolia emulsion?

So far, he has:
Lounge: Gold Leaf Team Lotus - maroon and gold
Dining room: Gulf blue with orange horizontal stripe above skirting board level (complete with black key line)...

But how do you make sure you’ve got the right orange John? “That’s easy. There I was at B&Q with my Gulf Porsche 917 model. ‘Have you got an orange emulsion that will match this, mate?’ They did: Etruscan Orange was just about perfect.”

The John Player Special black and gold is next apparently. Local estate agents have already confirmed that this will be one of the most difficult sales they have ever handled, should the tasteful Mr Hindhaugh ever decide to move. The garage floor is less of a hindrance to any future sale ”it’s a perfectly ordinary grey. “Well that’s the colour McLaren paint their pit garage, so it’s good enough for me!”

Is he good enough for the ‘Anorak Of The Year Award’ though? Or should it go to Rick Wilson? It was Rick who told me the story that screw heads on the floor of McLaren trailers all have to point up and down the vehicle, so that when the floor is swept, dust is swept out of the slots in the screws. Think of all that dust that would collect if the slots faced across the trailer. Perhaps Ron Dennis should receive a special award – the Total MotorSport.com ‘Attention To Detail Award’.

But back to Rick. He tells his own, sad tale better than I ever could:

“I proposed to my long suffering better half as a result of an agreement made at Silverstone in 1988 (during the 1000kms) that I wouldn't propose until Jaguar won Le Mans, which of course they duly did the following month (Andy Wallace, I hope you're reading this and understand the part you played!). The proposal was effected from a public 'phone (very romantic!) in Paris the evening after the 24 Hours, wearing little else but my Union flag shorts (I was on the "beer" side of the fence in those days) and yes, I was down on one knee .. wife-to-be was doing the ironing at home! Half of the resulting honeymoon was spent attending the 1990 race.

“I was the Inaugural Bourne (home to BRM, Pilbeam etc...) Slot Car Racing Champion in 1999 "driving" a 1/64th scale XJR-9 (I have the trophy to prove it!) .. but I was only fourth in 2000.

“My old 1380 Mini is painted in Gulf colours and has amazingly made the trip to Le Mans for 3 years (1997 / 98 / 99) without a breakdown! At present she is off the road awaiting re-shell, which will possibly entail a different colour scheme; current favourite is the "hippy" Martini look! The windscreen visor strip was taken from the 1997 Lotus Elise GT1 (from a cracked screen at the back of the pits, with the team’s permission, of course), and applied to the Mini back at the campsite.

“I currently have in excess of 80 plastic model kits awaiting construction (and retirement is at least 30 years off!), the majority of which are 1/24th scale models of cars that have run at Le Mans.

“A recurrent nightmare (at least twice a week these days) since I started going to Le Mans in 1981, is that I arrive at the circuit unprepared. A slight variation is that it is nearly the end of the race and I haven't taken any photos yet.

“A schoolboyish ambition burns inside me to build and race a car of my own design; the closest I get is my radio controlled 1/10th scale Ferrari 330P4.

“Currently under construction in my loft is a "Spirit of Le Mans" Scalextric layout (pre-chicane of course) which measures 26ft by 8ft; the straight is 20ft long! It is not a scale version, just a "suggestion" of the place. The finished article will be complete with replica of the old pits. Worse still is the fact that I painstakingly designed the whole thing on AutoCAD.

“This is really just scratching the surface, there must be lots of things I have left out (maybe my mind has intentionally erased them from my memory for my own sanity / protection).

“Finally; remember to smile at Christmas .. you are over halfway to the next Le Mans 24 Hours!”

Thank you, Rick, for that self-nomination. Unfortunately, this page was designed for text only, but we’ll put the Mini photograph on a News page shortly.

So there we have it. Complete insanity from both of our candidates. This makes the F1 scenario of standing outside the Paddock at Silverstone all day - under a blazing sun and cooking to a wonderful shade of ‘Etruscan Red’ - just in the hope of being granted an F1 driver’s autograph, seem positively sane. On second thoughts, perhaps not. What about sitting in the stand at Daytona for 24 hours, completing a lap chart of the whole event in 1992? It has been done, I kid you not.