PERRY McCARTHY: FLAT CHAT WITH FLAT OUT, FLAT BROKE
Nothing seems to be able to get Perry McCarthy down and there have been so many blows which might have floored a lesser character.
He was one of the stand-out single-seater talents of Britain’s golden generation – dubbed the Rat Pack – in the late 1980s, clawed his way through a bit-part Formula 3000 career and made it to the top table in Formula 1 in 1992 with the shockingly badAndrea Moda team.
It was yet another false dawn for the Essex man that left him penniless and served to derail his top-flight career.
He took a step back, reset, and then embarked on a sportscar career which took him to Le Mans in a factoryAudi.
After penning his best-selling book, Flat Out, Flat Broke, he embarked on the next stage of his career as The Stig on BBC’s Top Gear programme. It brought worldwide notoriety, but in typical McCarthy style, it was a role he was unable to exploit due to the secret nature of the character he was playing.
He has now forged a successful career as a speaker giving business and motivational talks. He builds on the lessons that the rich tapestry of his career have provided for him. McCarthy kindly took time out of his schedule to tackle another testing subject: the Motorsport News readers’questions.
Question: How come you didn’t take part in karting like most of your contemporaries did?
Jonathan Astbury Via email MN:And where did the spark of motor racing interest ignite in you?
Perry McCarthy: “I really didn’t take a lot of interest in motor racing when I was younger. I knew some bloke called James Hunt had won the World championship in 1976, but that was about it. However, I always liked cars.
“When I went to college, there was a friend of mine who was seriously into motor racing and he used to bring in this magazine called Grand Prix International. I was studying law, economics and art. Normally, I was used to drawing portraits but then I started drawing racing cars and reading all about them and the drivers.
“In the meantime, my hobby of driving on the road was getting me noticed by an awful lot of people, including the Essex Police. I felt that my road driving was good, because I was rubbish at football, cricket, rugby, etc.
“It was only there where my motor racing passion excited, there in the late 1970s. I didn’t miss out any karting steps because I simply didn’t know it existed. Then a combination of things happened. I play a little bit of keyboards, and I had a part-time job in a friend’s music shop demonstrating these things. That shop owner friend was a fan of my driving too.
“Unbeknown to me, he had arranged a meeting with the chief instructor of Brands Hatch’s racing school, LesAger. Les came into the shop and said he had heard about my driving and he took me to Brands Hatch.
“There I was, Jack the Lad, and got in the car to show him what I could do and to show him exactly how brilliant I was. I nearly threw us off that first time. It was quite daunting. Brands Hatch seemed to me like a Roman Colosseum, being on this track. I just had this sense of awe.
“Then Les jumped in the car – and take
