0-200, $3M

0-200, $3m

Les Broad

Published by Les Broad at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Les Broad

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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The terms ‘Lister’, ‘Storm’ and ‘Lister Storm’ are trademarks owned by Lister Cars Limited and are used in this work with the kind permission of Lister Cars Limited to whom the Author and the Publishers are grateful.

Even now I can’t say I know much about motor racing. I've been through an exhilarating, exciting, frustrating experience that's left me with some good memories, and, I might say, a good deal poorer, not that that really matters. This is the story of my involvement in an insane world. Let me explain.

Firstly I should tell you about myself. I've never had any objection to my family name, Sanderson, but in many quiet moments I've wondered why my parents named me Walter without being decent enough at least to give me a second name so that I would have a choice. My parents, by the way, are dead and have been for many years. I am forty four years old and I reckon I’m in reasonably good condition for my age. I have a wife, Angela, a couple of years younger than me, and no children. Our marriage is a bit unconventional, I suppose, but I need say no more about that now. It will become clear as we go through this story.

I live and work in a little village in Northamptonshire, England. I'm saying no more than this because I don't want race fans turning up at my door. You'll see how this could be possible.

As a means of making a living I run a company managing investments. Our clients are all over the world (you'd recognise some of the names and I guarantee that the amounts that some of these people, particularly the politicians, have would shock you) and we make them a lot of money. My wife is also a director of the company and we do well enough to pay ourselves reasonably handsomely. Over the last few years I suppose we've had a million or so between us each year out of the company, and the company can easily afford it. Yes, it's fair to say money isn't a problem for us, although we manage to spend it easily enough.

For those that like to know these things, Angela is tall, blond (thanks to her hairdresser) and slim (thanks to an expensive health club) with endless legs. She has a string of male admirers, which includes me, who all say they like her because she's intelligent, witty and fun to be with. Of course, it's nothing to do with her liking for more, shall we say, physical forms of socialising.

Angela and I have been fortunate in that we have been able to indulge ourselves, and whilst Angela is quite fun-loving and gregarious I am more of a home bird. We both like our cars, though, and I keep a Porsche and a Ferrari (1980 3.3 Turbo and a late model 512TR for those who have to know). Angela hurtles round the countryside in a 500SL Mercedes sports car, and it's a wonder to me that so far she's killed neither herself nor anyone else. Actually, she's never even been caught for speeding (I have) and I often wonder if she has a charmed life.

I rarely wear a suit, but will if I need to for a business meeting. Mostly I wear just casual clothes, usually old, and my most common outfit for a day in the office is jeans, denim shirt and trainers. Accessories are limited to a watch, a cup of lukewarm coffee and a pack of Marlboro. Now Angela is just the opposite. She always looks immaculate and is just as beautifully turned out to go shopping in the local supermarket as she is for business or socialising. I've no idea how she does it. She's actively involved in the company and is utterly brilliant at dealing with PR, advertising and the quite extraordinarily strange people that inhabit the world of marketing. As a result she tends to spend a fair amount of time at our London office (very swish, just off Park Lane) or our offices in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney or Valletta. The last one has just opened and is very much Angela's new baby. She kept telling me we've got good people, both English and Maltese, and they'll make Valletta our springboard to North Africa. She'll be proved right, too.

I think that gives you an idea of who we are, and as we've never been particularly secretive about our company's activities and the money we make I shouldn't, with hindsight, have been surprised at someone with a good idea pleading for us to pay for it.

I'm still surprised at how committed I became to this idea. What happened was this.

Now, this needs a bit of concentration because it's not all that straightforward. I have a secretary here in the village and Angela has a secretary working for her in London. Angela's secretary, Sue Williams, was (and probably still is) friendly with a girl whose boyfriend was friendly with David McNab. David is the man who ultimately came to see me, but that bit comes later. Apparently, David's mate spoke to his girlfriend, who had words with Sue. Sue, being sensible, knew Angela wouldn't want to know, so she rang my secretary, Lysette Baker. Lysette, who is an equally sensible girl, knew that if she asked me if I wanted to see David I'd say no, so she just made an appointment anyway and put it in my diary. I asked her what it was about, and should have been suspicious when all I got for a reply was a rather airy and out-of-character 'I'm not sure'. So there it was - I was destined to meet David McNab.

Eventually the fateful day dawned. Lysette had arranged the appointment very carefully.

David was due at 5.30 and my diary was clear for the rest of the day. Angela was, fortuitously, in Sydney. It was, I recall, a dull day. Weatherwise, it was dry and overcast (I've no idea why I remember this, but I do), the phones had been quiet and really all we had done all day was to watch the value of our clients' portfolios rise. A sort of thumb-twiddling day, really. Then five thirty arrived.

I was sitting at my desk, wondering whether to sharpen the blunt end of my pencil, just for the excitement of it, when Lysette came in looking very pleased with herself. As far as I can recall, the conversation went something like this.

Mr McNab is here, Lysette said, you will listen to him, won't you? I thought this was an odd thing for her to say, and said so. All she said in reply was:

Well, I know what you can be like. I didn't know what she meant but suggested she show Mr McNab into my office, which she did.

After the usual pleasantries David explained how he came to be talking to me. I made a mental note that, whatever this young man wanted, I should have a word with Angela's secretary. I had in front of me a clean-shaven, smart man in his late twenties, obviously very fit. He spoke with just a faint hint of a Scottish accent and was obviously intelligent and well-educated. It was equally obvious that he was broke, and people with no money generally don't need my services. By the time he reached the 'so here I am' end of his brief narrative I had decided, for better or worse and I still don't know which it was, to hear him out. Nevertheless, I couldn't help feeling that I'd been set up somehow by the two secretaries.

David started his pitch by putting on my desk a model, about a foot long, of a Porsche Turbo, not unlike mine sitting in the garage, with my company's logo painted large on the bonnet, the name written along the sides and various other racing-type stickers and numbers on it. He explained to me, I must say with knowledge and infectious enthusiasm, that there was to be a race, perhaps a one-off but hopefully the first of an annual event, for production supercars; you know the sort of thing, cars that make small boys say things like 'Cor, dad, look at that!', and that turn grown men into small boys. I should know about this as I've got two cars that have just this effect. He told me that the race was to be in America, the whole affair was well sponsored and the racetrack was to be newly built. He had the nucleus of a team and wanted me to pay for it all for the publicity and PR value. At this point I resolved to have serious words with my own and Angela's secretaries as this was the sort of thing that Angela was supposed to deal with and those two had, I thought, waited to set this up until Angela was well out of the way, thinking I was a softer touch. They were probably right about that, of course.

David produced a folder which he flicked through quickly. It contained the rules of the event, details of the circuit and its facilities, basic budgetary information and artist's impressions of various cars decorated in our logo and corporate colours. Maybe it's the little boy in me, but I think it was those pictures that hooked me. I played it cool, though.

I told him I was impressed by the professionalism of his presentation, particularly as the information about the company was accurate and up-to-date. I didn't tell him this, but I thought the details he had were just a little bit too up-to-date to have been available from conventional sources - something else I felt I needed to discuss with the unholy alliance of secretaries.

Short of actually saying so, I gave David every indication that I was in favour of backing him fully. Obviously I told him I would need time to consider what he had told me and that I was not the only one in the company who needed to be in favour. Here, naturally enough, I was thinking of Angela into whose lap these things would have naturally fallen, without the cunning intervention of a couple of secretaries. David and I parted at about seven that evening, both equally sure that we would meet again soon. He let me keep the model Porsche, which I thought was a rather sweet bribe. After I had seen him to his car, a bright yellow Volkswagen Corrado coupe, I ambled back indoors.

I asked Lysette to come into my office, which she did but with a bit less enthusiasm than normal.

Lysette, I said, if I rang Sue Williams and asked if she'd ever heard of David McNab what would she say?

I'm not sure, said Lysette, rather evasively, I thought.

OK, I'll ask you. Does she know him, or know anyone who knows him?

Well, um, yes, actually.

Right. I knew it. You two have been hatching a plot. It's not a coincidence, is it, that this meeting took place while my wife is on the other side of the world?

I told Sue it wouldn't work and the whole thing would go back to Angela anyway. Sue doesn't think Angela will want to back David so we thought he'd have a better chance with you.

It will go back to Angela, as you say. But you can tell Sue that when it does it will go with my support. All Angela's got to do is to maximise the PR value of the exercise. I think I'm probably less than wholly sane, but I really quite like the concept.

Lysette was quite excited and went off to phone Sue. I still intended to have a word with that young lady, and as I needed to be in London the following morning it seemed an ideal opportunity. For the time being, I wanted to draw a veil over the day and consider what on earth I was getting into. Lysette came back and told me how happy Sue was, so at least some people had had their day brightened. I sent Lysette home and went into the house for a bite to eat and to study the details that David had left for me.

Later in the evening I had decided that the information about the costs needed much more work, but the information about the event and the circuit was really interesting. Let me tell you about the circuit first.

This was to be a purpose-built racetrack and entertainment complex near the city of Fresno, California, about half-way between San Francisco and Los Angeles. We have, of course, an office in LA. The complex boasts a small airport, several large hotels, sophisticated engineering facilities and the circuit itself. The circuit was to have a lap length of ten miles. The cost must have been enormous but I wasn't worried about that since I wasn't paying. The circuit seemed to me to be well designed, but I'm not an expert. It certainly had some high speed straights and fast corners, as well as some tricky-looking bits. I didn't think, looking at the details, that it would be boring to drive on for long periods. So far, so good, I thought. I looked at the safety features because motor racing is a dangerous sport and I had no wish to be involved in anything that would put someone in hospital or, even worse, the graveyard. It all looked to my untutored eye to be first class, with run-off areas, tyre walls and adequate marshalling and fire control posts. There were heavy-duty cranes to heave crashed and broken-down race cars off the circuit and the plans included a purpose-built hospital facility, equipped with everything you could think of as only the Americans know how.

Having satisfied myself, as far as I could, that the facilities and the circuit were good enough, I turned my attention to the event itself. As I read through, my mind became more and more boggled. I know there's a race series now for GT cars, where Porsches, Ferraris, McLarens and others chase each other around the racetracks of the world. This event was to be open to similar cars, but the modifications allowed were rather limited. It struck me as being an interesting idea that any car entered had to be exactly the same shape as the manufacturer intended, with the same ground clearance, and its performance had to be within a very small percentage of that achieved by independent road testers. This effectively outlawed huge increases in performance and was, it seemed to me, to be a true test of the car as the manufacturer intended it to be. Any car could be entered as long as it was, at some time, on sale to the public and could reach 170mph. This meant that older supercars like Ferrari's Daytona or Lamborghini's Miura could enter and run against later models, perhaps capable of over 200mph. They probably wouldn't win, but their drivers would certainly have fun!

The entrants would start racing at 8 o'clock on Friday evening and eventually finish at the same time on Sunday, 48 hours later! Two whole days of flat-out driving was just too much to resist!

By now I was well sold on the idea. Angela would just have to get on with reconciling herself to losing a good chunk of her advertising and marketing budget. I didn't know how much - as I said before, the costs of