The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, the Fast Lane and Me Read Online Free

early age. No two journeys in my dad’s car were ever the same, but they general y began with some kind of stunt and always broke the speed limit.
    When I was four, Dad was a manager for a transport company and his star was rising. His gift was his ability to eye up a business and sharply turn it around. We al climbed aboard his Rover SD1 and headed over to his boss’s place for lunch. It was a cool hatchback, shaped like a wedge of cheese with a hint of Ferrari Daytona around the kisser. Cooler stil , I had the matchbox version in its racing livery.
    Dad was decked out in a tan suit with ludicrous lapels that were très vogue in the Seventies. His colour blindness always guaranteed something special and today was no disappointment: a psychedelic paisley tie and a bright yel ow shirt, dripping with Old Spice.
    He came from a working-class background and was raised the hard way. When he earned a slot at the local grammar school, his mother had to dig deep to afford the uniform. Nan didn’t take any crap. When it came to parting with her hard-earned, she bought the uniforms she liked most rather than the one for the institution my dad was actual y attending. Sporting the cap from one school and a blazer and tie from two others, his first days at col ege were inevitably bloody, but he never lost his unique sartorial style.
    My mother had swept her hair back in a chignon and boasted pearl earrings, elegant gold necklace and fril y blouse. Fabulous, darling. I sat in the back with my hair like a pudding basin, looking sharp in blue cords and matching jumper. Butter wouldn’t melt.
    Seeing us al in our Sunday finery triggered something in my old man. He shot me a knowing smile in the rear-view mirror.
    ‘Hold on, Ben.’
    I knew what that meant.
    The lane to the house I grew up in was just over a quarter of a mile long and met the main road at a T-junction. The perfect drag-strip.
    Dad dropped the clutch and tore away, laying a couple of thick black lines of bubbling rubber across our driveway. Once the G-forces had subsided, I leant forward to get a ringside view. The revving engine and the squealing tyres al but drowned out my mother’s objections. She swatted him with her handbag, but there was no stopping him.
    The hedgerows zoomed past. I cheered every gear change until the T-junction sprang into view.
    Everything went quiet.
    I didn’t need to be a driving expert for my four-year-old brain to register there was no way the car would stop in time for the corner using conventional means. Mum figured that too. She gave up with the handbag and emitted a high pitched ‘Fuuuuuuuuuuck …’
    It took a lot to rattle Mum. When she was four years old she lived in Sutton, which lay along the German bombing run during the Second World War. Three of the houses she lived in were completely destroyed. By pure luck, her family had been out on each occasion. One summer’s day she was playing in the garden when her mother screamed for her to come inside. Before she could move an inch, bul ets from a low-flying aircraft strafed the garden wal s and plant pots exploded either side of her. Mum went on to work in hot spots across the Middle East and around the globe as a Royal Navy nurse. She always held her nerve, but Dad’s driving freaked her out every time.
    Dad kept his foot on the gas until the very last moment. The ditch on the far side of the junction was only metres away. We were thrown forward as Dad yanked hard on the handbrake and spun the Rover sideways, skidding across the tarmac.
    The car drifted to the edge of the verge bordering the ditch and my stomach flipped with the exciting prospect of crashing into it.
    By careful judgement, or a stroke of luck, we just caressed the verge and straightened up. Disaster was averted. Mum recovered her necklace from between her shoulder-blades and we drove away giggling.
    I’d never heard my mother swear before, so I treated this new word ‘fuuuuuuuuuck’ with great reverence. After