Rosemary Smith - Driven: A pioneer for women in motorsport – an autobiography

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

FIRST EDITION

Rosemary Smith 2018

Cover layout design by Claire Ward HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

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Rosemary Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008301859

Ebook Edition October 2018 ISBN: 9780008301873

Version: 2018-09-13

Dedicated to Patricia (Pat) Doyle,

my lifelong friend

(Independent Newspapers Ltd)

by Eddie Jordan

I hear people these days talking non-stop about passion and commitment, and thats great, because without them there wont be success. But these two elements come after the primary vital ingredient: inspiration.

Rosemary Smith inspired a generation of young Irish drivers, myself included, to pursue our dreams of an international career. As a young lad going to Synge Street School in Dublin, I was mad about cars inspired initially by my cousin Noel Smith, who was a fine rally driver and got his hands on a Porsche 911 from time to time. But up in the stratosphere there was a supercool Irish icon who inspired the following generation of Irish drivers that we could achieve success on the international stage and that icon was Rosemary Smith.

Like most young car nuts of that era, I bought Autosport when I could, and I remember Rosemary getting the front cover for her heroic outright win in the Tulip Rally in 1965. It was the equivalent of a WRC event today. The Swinging Sixties was in full flow in London and Paddy Hopkirks Monte Carlo Rally wins brought the Mini (the car, not the skirt!) and motorsport on to the front pages and into the social columns. Motorsport was uber-cool and Rosemary was the queen of it. She was an Irish superstar, a Dusty Springfield lookalike who was incredibly talented behind the wheel.

Breakfast with Jim Clark on the RAC Rally in the 1960s (Mirrorpix)

In 1966 I did my Leaving Cert (A-levels) and Rosemary was entered into the RAC Rally, reports of which we followed in detail when we should have been studying. There were 150 entries headed by Jim Clark and Graham Hill two racing world champions. The real Stig (Blomqvist) and Roger Clarke and dozens of other rally aces were joined by Rosemary in her tiny Hillman Imp. She has an incredible knack of being able to drive error-free and managed to be one of only 50 finishers, ending in a magnificent 14th place.

Rosemary was incredibly glamorous and made rallying and racing the sport we longed to be part of. She was a rare Irish driver on the world stage and it is great that in motorsport she is still treated like royalty in fact, better than royalty and she deserves it.

We first met around 1975 when I was starting to race in England, with Aintree being the closest UK circuit, and she was campaigning a Ford Escort. She was a fine circuit racer who could hold her own against the best. The Renault F1 team told me in 2017 that they were going to give her a run at Paul Ricard and I was delighted.

Rosemary is a pioneer for women in motorsport and remains a great ambassador for her sport, and especially womens place in it. Hers is a remarkable story of a lifetime of success at the very highest level in one of the most male-dominated sports on the planet. It is a story every aspiring driver can draw inspiration from.

As I sat behind the wheel of Renaults 800bhp Formula 1 car, my hands were sweaty, my pulse was racing and my heart was banging away in my chest. What had I let myself in for? A week before, I had been happily drinking tea and watching Flog It on the telly and now I was surrounded by film cameras and mechanics all yelling instructions at me. As I wedged my body into the car and the mechanics wheeled me out of the garage, I was shaking. I was nervous, terrified, but nothing was going to stop me. I hadnt felt like this since I attempted to break the Irish National Land Speed Record in 1978. As I began to drive, the noise was deafening, but all I could do was keep going as the air whistled past me. It was then that the adrenaline kicked in and I was away, without a thought for my safety or survival. The sheer excitement of it all overtook me as the engine roared and my speed increased. I had fire in my belly and I just went with it. Fright and exhilaration all at the same time, a sensation I will never forget!

It was a truly amazing experience and the only reason I became involved was because two charming men, Paddy McGee and James Boyer of Renault, suggested it. They wanted to make a documentary of the old girl driving a Formula 1 car around the Circuit Paul Ricard in France and it didnt take much to persuade me: I love a challenge. I was well known in motorsports circles in my day, having achieved notoriety for competing against, and sometimes beating, many of the male drivers, but I was never really famous until I went to Marseille in June 2017 to drive that Formula 1 racing car. After that, I received more publicity than I ever had before in my entire life. Of course, when I was driving in rallies and racing all over Europe, there was no social media to promote events and certainly no Google or YouTube. The documentary made of that Formula 1 drive has thousands of hits on YouTube and they keep telling me I have gone viral, but that just sounds like a bad dose of the flu to me!

When I was asked to go to Silverstone prior to the British Grand Prix to celebrate my Formula 1 drive, I was treated like a celebrity and thats a nice feeling when you are coming up to your 80th birthday. Ive had six stents inserted, a broken collarbone, a cracked kneecap and a sprained ankle (and none of them in a car) and I survived. Eighty isnt old any longer and I see no reason to stop doing the things I love. A lot of my contemporaries are still going strong: Paddy Hopkirk, Jackie Stewart, Rauno Aaltonen I see them all at functions and parties.

I am enjoying life to the full; running the driving school, giving private lessons and generally keeping busy. Recently, I gave a talk to a large group of people at a seminar in the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin. Are you sure? I asked the woman who telephoned to ask me to do the talk, because I knew the people attending would all be highly educated with senior positions in their organisations. I only know how to drive cars and win rallies, but apparently that is enough. I rarely turn anything down, but I did a week ago when I was asked to take part in an event testing a self-driving car. Autonomous, they call them. I was supposed to sit in the car with the windows blacked out and a little laptop on my knee to steer. That I declined to do!