Stop with the drama. Play golf instead.
July 2010 |
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I was vaguely interested in cars back then but had never watched a motor race in my life. So one afternoon I sat down and attempted to watch a few laps of the San Marino Grand Prix.
As soon as I turned on the TV a marshal nearly got mowed down by Nigel Mansell. “Ooh this is exciting” I thought. But after a few more laps nothing else happened and I got bored and switched the telly off.
A couple of weeks later I attempted to watch the Monaco Grand Prix. Like the previous race, as soon as I switched the TV on, Ivan Capelli had a spectacular crash and ended up on top of the barrier. This time I attempted to watch a bit more and witnessed the rare spectacle of an exciting race at Monaco with this Mansell bloke chasing down some Brazilian chap in a red and white car who was apparently quite good.
It wasn’t until the French Grand Prix I really started getting interested and by the British Grand Prix I was hooked. Like the rest of the country, I got swept up by the fact that a British driver – this same Mansell person who I still only knew as the guy who nearly ran over a marshal – was on the verge of winning the World championship after 12 years of trying. Not only that but he was going to be the first British driver to win the title in 16 years.
Needless to say, he became something of an inspiration and I was quite sad when he retired at the end of the year, although I thought it was probably best to end his Formula 1 career on a high note.
I continued to follow him when he migrated to the land of the free and the fat to race Indycars and watched with pride as he swept to the championship in his first year. His win was even more impressive when you consider the injury he sustained at the second race at Phoenix when he head butted a concrete wall at 200 mph.
Drama always followed Mansell around during his career and this is what made him such fun to watch. He was never the greatest driver of his period and lacked the raw natural talent of the likes of Prost and Senna but his drive and determination was second to none. His do-or-die attitude on the track was in stark contrast to the boring Brummie off it.
His self confidence and single-mindedness was admirable. I mean anyone who re-mortgages their house and sells all their earthly possessions to buy a racing car with the unwavering belief that they will make it to the top deserves respect – or needs to seek professional help.
He certainly needed professional help of the medical kind numerous times in his career. This is the man who broke his neck in Formula Ford and then broke his back in a Formula 3 car just days before he tested for Lotus. He then burnt his bottom on his Formula 1 debut. In 1987 he literally head butted an iron girder bridge in Austria and then suffered another spinal injury at Suzuka that potentially cost him the championship for the second year running.
1993 was another year full of injury. He knocked himself out early in the season and ran the rest of the year sporting yet another back injury. He then managed to knock himself out again at the end of the year when he was driving a Touring Car at Donington.
It’s fair to say that Mr Mansell has had his fair share of injuries. However, I think it’s just as fair to say that sometimes his injuries have not been as bad as he would like us to believe and he is actually a bit of a drama queen.
Remember the poor waif of a man who attempted to push his stricken Lotus across the line at Dallas in 1984? Or the man who jumped off the pickup truck at Silverstone in 1987 to kiss the ground where he’d overtaken Nelson Piquet to win the race? The same guy who, having fluffed things during the 1992 Canadian Grand Prix, sat in his car for an entire lap just so that he could shake his fist at Senna when he drove past. Or the man who, in 2006 after a disastrous GP Masters race on home soil, went out especially to do a very slow lap just to wave at the crowd?
These actions suggest someone who likes to showboat and play to the crowd. This in itself is not a problem. In fact most of the drivers today could do with some lessons on how to put on a good show because most of the modern crop of racing drivers are robotic prima donnas with little concept of what show business is.
Anyway, the point I am making is that Mansell often seemed to over-play things a little bit. He made an idle threat to retire from Formula 1 after he was disqualified from the 1989 Spanish Grand Prix. That was just a simple case of over-acting. His dramatic style of throwing his gloves and balaclava into the crowd at Silverstone in 1990 and then “sensationally” announcing his retirement before “sensationally” joining Williams for 1991 seemed like more of an overly emotional response to being outclassed by Alain Prost that year.
He retired from the 1991 Australian Grand Prix after gently caressing a wall in the wet. He later claimed he had badly broken his foot which is why he spent the whole of 1992 limping onto the podium. Seriously, you won 9 out of 16 races that year. That is a good enough achievement even by today’s standards. A fake injury doesn’t make it any more impressive!
He had a coming together with Senna during practice for the 1992 Brazilian Grand Prix. Again, he barely brushed a wall at relatively low speed and claimed he had serious concussion and might not be able to race the next day. Pull the other one!
His most recent escapade was at the Le Mans 24 Hour race. Now, he was sharing a drive with his two sons who are both about as useful as a poo flavoured lolly. Once again he barely even brushed a wall but still had to be lifted out of the car and taken on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. I have it on good authority that the car wasn’t that badly damaged and that it would have been perfectly fine to drive back to the pits for repairs. I also have it on good authority that he had no injuries whatsoever, that he left the hospital having just had a basic check-up, got into his private helicopter and flew straight back home without speaking to anyone in the team – even his sons. Good team work.
This was 5 laps into a 24 hour race you fat, selfish turd! Is the golf club really doing that badly that you need this sort of publicity? You just have to accept that you are no longer the Nation’s favourite. You are more than that now. You are an institution; a household name; almost a legend. You do not need to pull these kinds of stunts any more.
We don’t want to remember you as the man who couldn’t squeeze his lardy frame into a McLaren. We don’t want to remember you as the bloke who didn’t know when to quit. We certainly don’t want to remember you as the prick who abandoned his own children in France. We want to remember you as the fearless racing driver who pulled that awesome manoeuvre on Gerhard Berger round the outside of the flat-out Peralta corner in Mexico. The man who passed Nelson Piquet at Stowe corner to win the 1987 British Grand Prix.
Do yourself a favour old boy and just stick to playing golf.
