Johnny Tipler

Antony Fraser and I motored from his Chichester home to Portsmouth in our white charger, a 997 Carrera press car kindly loaned by Porsche GB, and boarded the Brittany Ferries’ Mont St Michel ferry to Caen. An entertaining trip with Lotus technical guru Nick Adams and his Land Rover mate Simon, and then a two-hour run through Normandy to the circuit. Le Mans is so vast, compared with Silverstone, Goodwood, even the Nurburgring, that it takes ages to locate the designated car park and then trudge to signing on – not that I’m complaining or anything, just that it was 38 degrees. So the air con press office with its grandstand view of the start-finish straight was bliss!

With six ‘plateaux’ or grids for different eras of racing, from 1923 through to 1979, concentrating in the ’60s and ’70s, we snapped some of the most exciting racing cars there have ever been. Ferrari P3 and 512, Lola T70s, Porsche 917 and 936, stunning. Our mission was to cover the event for three Porsche mags – 911 & Porsche World, Classic Porsche and Porsche Post, and BMW Car which kept us plenty busy. It was 40 years since Porsche first won Le Mans and there wasa 40-car parade of Porsches to celebrate, with Vic Elford and Gerard Larrousse among the heroes giving them an airing. Our mission was to interview 1970’s winning drivers Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood, who we caught in the Porsche pavilion before the racing started. We stayed late at the track on the Saturday night, and ended Sunday afternoon at Arnage. A really fantastic weekend. Check out my photos on this website!

www.lotusfiles.com/sirstirlingmoss/

Check out part of my bedside interview with Sir Stirling for the Lotus magazine when he’s convalescing after breaking both his ankles in the lift-shaft accident. Lotus Cars have brought him a captioned photo of his lap of honour at Monaco in 1960, having won the F1 Grand Prix in Rob Walker’s Lotus 18, and the presentation is by Clive Chapman of Classic Team Lotus.

www.lotusfiles.com/sirstirlingmoss/

Three hot days, bunches of great cars, and drivers and mechanics to chat to. Standout car was the Porsche 550 Coupe built for the 1953 Le Mans and then run in La Carrera Panamericana – so it’s in my book. Jackie Oliver and Murray Smith drove it up the hill, and Scott George of the Collier Collection that restored it gave me chapter and verse.

Took the afternoon off on Saturday to go up to Penshurst to Conrad Birch’s ROARR classic car garden party to interview Rick Wakeman who is a top petrolhead and great bloke.

I spent a couple of months doing PR for the Classic Team Lotus Festival held at Snetterton yesterday, so it was great that so many turned up – they were even turning cars away on the A11 up through Norfolk. The atmosphere was relaxed as Lotus enthusiasts and race fans mingled to see examples of all 35 Lotus F1 cars ever made, in their vast marquee and out on the grid for the aerial photoshoot and then driven a few demonstration laps. Lotus Racing brought along a brand new T127 F1 car for Heikke Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli and Fairuz Fauzy to demo – as well as handling some of the hoistoric Lotuses. Spend time with Nick Parrott from BBC Inside F1 and Nicky Price from Radio Norfolk, plus the Italian national TV crew, helping target interviewees like Bob Dance, Eddie Dennis and Nick Adams. A fantastic day for all concerned, and I was flattered to be asked to sign a load of my books too.

Classic Team Lotus provided a trio of historic F1 cars for Heikki Kovalainen to demo at Lotus Cars’ Hethel test track last Tuesday as a curtainraiser for the CTL Festival scheduled for 20th June at Snetterton when at least one example of every Lotus F1 car ever built will be present.
Heikki started with the Type 25 with 1.5-litre Coventry-Climax power, moving on to the Gold Leaf Type 49 (Graham Hill’s 1968 and 69 Monaco winning car) and finishing with the Type 77 lent by Chris Locke. It was a treat to see them driven by an ace, and impressive to see how quickly he got the hang of them, never having driven a historic race car before. Great bloke, and very articulate about their handling characteristics.