Jason Plato - How Not to Be a Professional Racing Driver

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First published by Michael Joseph 2019
Published in Penguin Books 2020

Copyright Jason Plato, 2019

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Photography Chris Terry
Type design Jan Bielecki
Other photography Jakob Ebrey

All images credited to Jason Plato, excluding: Peter Fox: 10, 14; Jakob Ebrey: 16, 17, 19, 50, 51, 54; Colin McMaster: 20; Lyndon McNeil: 26; Mark Bothwell: 28, 29, 31, 32, 33; raceofchampions.com: 46; Mike Hewitt/Getty Images: 47; PSP Images: 52.

ISBN: 978-0-241-40417-1

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For Team Plato:

Soaf, Alena, Zia, Mum and Dad

Once youve finished reading this book, youll no doubt be asking yourself questions such as How on earth did he get through school?, Why isnt he in prison? and, ultimately, How the bloody hell is he still alive?

The answer to all of the above from the horses mouth is: I really have no idea. None of it was premeditated, save for me trying to make it as a racing driver, and the rest of it just sort of happened. Some has been an upshot of circumstance, no doubt, but the majority is down to the fact that I have always had an issue in distinguishing between how I should behave on a racetrack and how I should behave off it. It tends to be all or nothing all of the time with me.

In spite of everything you are about to read, I have quite a good memory (which is surprising!), so I have many stories at my disposal and Ive had to be quite be selective. For instance, if I were to try and cover my racing career in full, which so far comprises over 550 starts with eleven different teams, wed be looking at about a thousand pages. Instead, Ive decided to take a few ups, a few downs, and then mix them in with a bit of high jinks and a few shenanigans.

One of the beauties of me being a similar person both on and off the racetrack is that it has left me with two blueprints: how to become a professional racing driver, and how not to become a professional racing driver, hence the title. Given the fact there are probably dozens of examples featuring the former currently in print, I thought Id turn it on its head. After all, as the renowned motor-racing fanatic and dramatist William Shakespeare once said, Madmen have such seething brains!

Enjoy.

Right then, you lot. Where do we start?

At the beginning will no doubt be a popular answer.

Ah, yes, but at the beginning of what? At the beginning of my life or at the beginning of the bit when I started driving very quickly, pissing people off and doing things I perhaps shouldnt have?

Well, it probably wont surprise you to learn that I was doing the last three from quite an early age, so we may as well go back to 14 October 1967, which is roughly nine months after my mother and father did something that half the paddock at any British Touring Car Championship race wished they hadnt.

I was born in Oxford, although when I was very young we moved to the northeast of England and remained there for about seventeen years.

When I say we, I mean me obviously and my dad, Tim, and my mum, Linda.

The phrase a chip off the old block usually refers to a son taking after his father, and although thats true in my case, I also take after my mother in many respects, as she too is a feisty so-and-so and doesnt take any shit from anyone.

Lets start with my old man, though.

Theres quite a nice hotel in Oxford called the Malmaison, and a few years ago, not long after it opened, my future wife Sophie and I decided to take my mum and dad there for a bite to eat.

Not long after arriving, my mum piped up and said, Do you remember visiting your dad in here?

How do you mean, Mum, I replied. Its only been open a few weeks.

No, no, no, she said. When it was a prison!

Eh!? A prison. Youre joking, arent you?

I then remember looking at Sophie. We hadnt been going out that long, and although she was aware that Id had a pretty colourful past, I dont think it stretched to my old man being an old lag.

It turned out that when I was a little boy my mum had taken me to visit Dad when he was a few days into a fourteen-stretch for taking the odd car or two for a joy ride. Fortunately for all concerned, it was fourteen days as opposed to years, so it was over and done with in a flash. Id love to have known what was going through Sophies head when Mum mentioned it in what was now a very lovely luxury hotel. The word Help most probably!

When I turned up, my old man was eighteen and my mum was just seventeen and a half, so they were obviously in a hurry to get little things like childbirth and going to prison out of the way. Who can blame them?

Incidentally, when it comes to being in clink, Ive actually got one up on my old man as Ive been there twice, although not in this country. Anyway, thats for a bit later.

When he was young, Dad was Oxfords chief mod, which probably accounts for some of the bad behaviour, although not all of it. He had a Willys jeep, a minder and at least one police car following him at all times! One night in those early days he came home in an Aston Martin DB5. I was only about three or four years old at the time but I remember thinking, Where the bloody hell did that come from? I never asked him. Its best not to.

Apart from being a cross between the Modfather and Norman Stanley Fletcher, and a pretty special guy, it has to be said, the most interesting and relevant fact I can tell you about my old man is that he holds the world record for being the first person ever to write off an Austin Allegro (also known as an Austin All-aggro).

After a quick butchers on the internet, it seems that the Allegro, which was a bloody appalling car, was launched in October 1975, so thats when it would have happened. We were up in the northeast by this time, and my old man was working in the car trade. The day it was launched he decided to take one home for a laugh and ended up writing it off at the end of the road. How the hell do you write off an Allegro for Gods sake, unless you mean to? They only do about 40 mph!

So tickled was my old man at the prospect of being the first man to write off one of the worst road cars of the twentieth century that he actually did some research to try and find out if any others had gone on launch day and as far as he could make out, they hadnt. Well done, Dad! I think the world owes you a favour for that one, ridding us of at least one of those godforsaken vehicles.