Friday 28 May 2010

The JPS

James Hunt. Jacques Laffite. Jody Sheckter. Nikki Lauder. Patrick Depaillet. Jochen Mass. Gilles Villenueuve. Clay Regazzoni. Carlos Reutermann. Riccardo Pattrese.

Watkins Glen. Monte Carlo. Brands Hatch. Monza. Interlagos. Paul Ricard. Nurburgring. Spa.

Being a racing driver in the 70's was surely the best job ever known to man. You just had to have a name that matched the glamour of your occupation.

Imagine - as much booze as you could drink, as many women as you could possibly shag (most of them on variations of The Barcelona Shirt's Roxy Music album cover - see that post) as many fags as you could smoke - and to be able to drive the fastest, most death-defying machine known to man.

My dad and I were in thrall.

For my part, I had to have a Scalextric. I'd had one earlier as a child. Eight pieces of black plastic, an overheating transformer and two cars: Graham Hill's Brabham and, er, a red one. Driven by the mundane John Surtees. I still remember that smell of burning electrical circuits.

But Scalextric was the coolest game - apart from Subbuteo - a young boy could have. I just needed to move to the next level of involvement in this adrenaline sport.

The answer lay in the JPS.

It was the most impossibly beautiful car I had ever seen. Black, slick and slim, dripping with gold bling - like a Harlem pimp. And it was driven by the cool, hard New Yorker Mario Andretti.

Andretti cleaned up.

I remember as a child watching Steve McQueen and James Garner battling it out in Grand Prix. This car seemed to take up where that film left off. It was sponsored by John Player - the cigarette company. Yes, there was absolutely no shame or debate in that. Fuck, everyone was sponsored by the fags - Marlboro sponsored McLaren, Gitanes sponsored the French teams such as Ligier. Camel another team.

The single reason I wanted to smoke as a kid.

Of course, I grew out of wanting to smoke - even grew out of Formula 1. It's shit nowadays with its anodyne drivers, endless regulations.

In the 70's there was no such thing as health and safety, downforce, computer-aided suspension, wet or dry tyres. You just got in this big petrol bomb and drove. In those days, people died in large numbers - like Ronnie Pieterson. Or were horribly disfigured - like Lauda.

Occupational hazard.

But worth it.

Every time I go through a speed camera, or get a ticket - as I tend to do nowadays more and more (one day I won't have a car to drive anymore -or I'll be dead) I dream that I am in the JPS.
I never did get that new Scalextric.

But Andretti got a new competitor - the youthful and highly talented Jochen Rindt.


My dad ended up with a Ford Cortina GT, suburban man's version of a sports car. Modeled on a US-style Mustang, but somehow more carpet slippers - like this:












For his part, Jochen Rindt ended up like this:

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