Mowlem's musings

The sacrifices a racing driver makes for his art are obviously immense: steering away from any food with decent taste due to it's high fat content; avoiding normal everyday joys like crisps and chocolate, lest you pile on the weight and be labelled a bloater by your mechanic as he attempts to make your seatbelts meet in the middle, swearing blind that he has adjusted them since the last time you drove the car; going to the gym in an attempt to keep yourself at that peak of physical condition; or going on a muddy bike ride on a freezing cold Sunday afternoon when all you really want to do is lie on the sofa in front of Grandstand with a beer.

However, the ultimate sacrifice for me came recently with the infamous AUTOSPORT Awards held at the luxurious Grosvenor House Hotel in London. I was very fortunate to have been offered the chance of a test at Sebring in the MG Lola EX275 sports prototype, an opportunity which I obviously jumped at. The downside was that the test was to take place on the Monday and Tuesday after the Awards dinner, although I was to be luckier than Jonny Kane, as I was only going to run on Tuesday. Jonny had to be at Sebring for Sunday night and would therefore have to miss the awards entirely.

This meant that my agenda for the evening had to be changed somewhat.

My original intention to have an enjoyable evening in the company of my guests and personal sponsors, Robert Kimbell Ass., Alex Kaye and his charming partner Alberta. But despite the best efforts from an excellent Steve Rider (and his foil Martin Brundle!), the real revelry of the evening comes when the awards are over and a select few manage to scrounge passes to the party at the Hard Rock Café.

Here a free bar provides the great and the good with a superb opportunity to get trollied with virtual impunity, as any journalists present are invariably equally pissed and therefore unable to remember any indiscretions of the tongue (or body!), come Monday morning.

I was to have to forgo all this and instead partake of nothing stronger than water throughout the dinner and then leave as soon as Steve had wrapped things up, as I was flying first thing Monday morning. This was made doubly hard by the likes of McNish, Plato, Franchitti, Dumbreck, Turner and co., most of whom I hadn't seen for ages, all telling me what a wonderful bloody time they were about to have.



However, I have to say, that as I drove my outlap at Sebring in what can only be described as an awesome piece of machinery, with a huge grin on my face, all this 'sacrifice' was more than worth it. The Lola MG is without a doubt the most impressive sportscar I've ever driven. The turbo engine is enormously driveable, the sequential gearbox is like the proverbial hot knife through butter and the brakes are inconceivably good! The test was enormously enjoyable, in no small part also due to being able to meet Frank Dernie as well as listen to his amazingly funny Formula 1 stories!

As I contemplated the last few days on my return flight, surrounded by gorgeous Virgin air hostesses (and I do mean the airline), I had to conclude that indeed my lot was not such a bad one after all!

Happy Christmas!