was very kind and I was very grateful for that. We got along well and became friends, me living in the ‘clinker yard’ and doing all I could to help out, and Mike giving me some tips, guidance and helping me to find sponsorship. I was skint, of course, and I needed some money not just to race but to live. Mike helped me find a job as a driving instructor at Silverstone and later, when she arrived from Guernsey to join me, helped Jo get a job in the Silverstone ticket office that eventually led to her working in the British Racing Drivers’ Club admin department. But, for those months before Jo came over, it was just me and me alone trying to get things going – and it was at this time that the nickname ‘Pikey Priaulx’ started being used around the place. I did not really mind too much, although I worried it might hinder me in the sponsorship market!
I had a few sleepless nights when I first got to Silverstone. Not only was I worried by the huge challenge I faced and the lack of cash, but also the place seemed to be stalked at night by wild animals and birds. It is not until you sleep outdoors, or in a caravan, that you realise how much wildlife there is and how much noise they all make. The worst came, I think, from the foxes. And it was absolutely freezing cold a lot of the time. I just curled up and hoped for the best.
The first night was the most awful. It was really, really cold and I was lying there in my bed, on my own, tight like a ball with my socks and everything else on. The foxes were making those screaming noises – I think it is something to do with mating! – and I had never heard anything like it before in my life. I was petrified. It sounded like somebody was dying or something. It was also the start of the British motor racing season for which I had no money at all. But I knew I had to get over it.
I realised that to reach the next level in my racing career required a huge investment in myself, and a lot of personal commitment. However, I had known that for a while before I had taken that decision. I remember saying to myself: ‘How can I expect people to sponsor me if I’m not prepared to take the financial risk myself and put everything on the line?’
I spoke to Jo, and to her parents, and my dad, who always supported me. I said: ‘Listen, I’m going to leave the business and live in England – for the racing season.’ And Dad replied: ’Well, how are you going to pay the mortgage on the house if you are not going to be here working? You’re going to be living away.’
So I said: ‘We can rent the house out and we’ll just go in the caravan.’ Eventually, the finance figures were so high that we had to sell the house. That’s why Jo stayed behind at the beginning, in order to handle all that while I went off to pursue my motor racing career.
Selling the house meant we could pay off all the debts I had built up from the previous year when I was commuting back and forth to the races. I owed money to the Formula Renault team, not least eight grand’s worth of accident damage I had picked up rolling the car after suspension failure during testing at Oulton Park. In the end, Jo moved up to Silverstone to be with me but, for a long time, I was on my own. All we had was that caravan, but at least we had sorted out everything else so we could start afresh.
It was a good feeling not to have those debts anymore but, at the same time, I felt bad because I did not even have a drive. I was a racing driver, living in a caravan at Silverstone, but without a team or a car. And that is where Mike really helped me. I started talking to the teams all around Silverstone, looking for a chance, but I was a man with no fixed abode and not much else. No wonder everyone gave me funny looks at times.
I am an easy-going guy, but I do have a sense of purpose. It may have seemed as if I had been driving down the road with no real destination in mind, but it did not feel like that to me. I started telling people my story and making friends. Of course, they all wanted to know who I was and what I was doing. So I told them: the drive from Guernsey, the night in the lay-by, the dreams…For a long time I was lonely and sad. I was fulfilling my dream, living at Silverstone, but I was not happy. How could I be?
I woke up some days and could hear the sound of Formula One engines testing around Silverstone. ‘Wow! This is it. I am here and living my dream.’ Then there were other days, when it was pouring with rain, that I looked out of the window of a steamy caravan, condensation everywhere, and I asked myself: ‘What am I going to do?’
At least I knew I was heading towards something. Until that time, Guernsey had been my limiting factor because I had been trying to mix motor racing with my life there, when the former demanded 150 per cent of my attention. It would be very different later once I was established in racing and married with a family. Then, Guernsey brought me something in terms of health, happiness and speed. But in those early days it had been a hindrance.
I had no money, had incurred huge expenses getting from and to the island and did not have the contacts and connections that I needed. I simply did not understand at that time what it took to become a professional driver. I had raw talent with a great feeling for a car, but did not understand things like racing lines, or setting up the car for high- or low-speed, or high- or low-grip configurations. It had to be learned, all of it.
Let us say hillclimbing was table tennis, and I was a top table tennis player. I’ve got great ball control, a great eye for the ball and I hit everything back. Then, one day, somebody gives me a tennis racquet and says: ‘Right, go and play at Wimbledon!’ Well, I am going to be in trouble. So I reply: ‘Hang on a second, I’m just hitting a small ball. This is a bigger ball. And how do you serve and all that?’ That’s what it was like. I had a good eye for the ball but no understanding of how, or what it took, to become a professional. I had to learn it all.
It was no wonder, then, that I felt like a bit of an outsider. I was very fortunate. I had spoken a lot with Mike and he gave me some belief and hope that something might happen. Mike had battled to get to Formula Three level and was now managing Darren Manning, who himself was racing in Formula Three. I would watch him and think to myself: ‘I can be like that.’ My connection with him became stronger, but at first I think he must have just felt sorry for me.
I had been talking to Mike before because, after my initial Formula Renault season the year before, I had been in contact with all the Formula Three teams. Maybe he saw a kindred spirit in me, another guy like him who was prepared to do anything to make things happen.
I recall having a few designer clothes and put them in the caravan cupboard. At least in there they would stay reasonably clean. They were for my meetings with potential sponsors – when I had arranged them. Every day I got up, washed, shaved, splashed on some aftershave and started work. I hooked up my computer to the power; obviously, I had no access to e-mails and the internet but I could write letters on the computer and make telephone calls. I just got on with it. So, from nine in the morning I sat at the front of my caravan, working at a desk – which was actually a bed – writing, making notes and planning how it was going to happen.
The glow of self-confidence I enjoyed from being crowned British Hillclimb Champion seemed to last for about five minutes. It should have been a glorious step in my career. But that is not what happened. I realised it soon enough, of course, and 1996, 1997 and 1998 were real backdown-to-earth years. I soon found out that hillclimb success meant next to nothing in circuit-racing circles – although I did receive an offer from Paul Stewart Racing to join them in 1995, but turned it down for financial reasons. I soon realised that I was an absolute nobody when it came to proper professional racing in mainland Britain. The attitude was ‘Well, so what, Priaulx? Oh, you won a few hillclimbs, racing against old farmers, eh? Who the hell do you think you are?’
I knew I had to build myself a reputation all over again and the only way to do that would to be to win races and grab podiums every week. In that respect, 1996 had been a complete failure and had not given me any platform for the following year when I left home. In that first year, I had been trying to make a name for myself but, in truth, even getting a drive proved difficult. I did a few races, thanks to
