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harrisonstories · 6 years ago

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Above and below: George Harrison and Sir Jackie Stewart at the Gunnar Nilsson Memorial Trophy meeting in Donington Park, England, Middle: George driving the Lotus 18 at the same event (3 June 1979)

NOTE: This is a rather long but refreshing read about a side of George’s life which doesn’t get talked about much. Here is an interview George and Jackie did at the Gunnar Nilsson Memorial Trophy.

A Beatle’s new mania

George Harrison, former lead guitarist with the legendary Beatles pop music group, talks to Chris Hockley about his passion for Formula 1, fast cars and a private life

IT’S PUZZLING in a way why George Harrison has such a fervent passion for fast cars and motor racing. For since the mind-boggling days of the Swinging ‘Sixties, when as one of The Beatles he was swept towards super-stardom and super-richness on a tidal wave of hysteria, the pace of his life has slowed to a virtual crawl.

Gone are the days when he had to make a run for it through thousands of screaming pop fans. Today, you are more likely to find him in his wellies, gently pushing a wheelbarrow towards carefully-tended flower beds in the vast grounds of his palatial country mansion.

Gone are the days when he lived out of a suitcase and wasn’t sure if he was in London, New York, Tokyo or Cloud Cuckoo Land. Today, he meditates silently for hours in his own temple.

Gone are the days when girls scratched each other’s eyes out as they fought to touch a fragment of his clothing. Today, he is happier to stay at home with his wife Olivia and their 10 month-old son, Dhani.

Yet there is still one public side to the private Mr. Harrison. For as well as being one of the world’s most famous pop stars, he has gradually become the world’s most famous motor racing fan.

“I’m getting too well known at motor races now,” he grins – as he is beseiged by a swarm of autograph hunters who have just rushed past Mario Andretti. “It was my hobby, now it’s getting like work again.”

George’s lean and craggy features are a frequent sight at Grand Prix meetings around the globe. His name is enough to ensure him VIP treatment, but he reckons he repays all the behind-the-scenes privileges he enjoys by attracting publicity for the sport.

Though he is often to be seen in the midst of a cluster of photographers, he does not go out of his way to court glamour. Harrison goes motor racing to see and not be seen.

He has been a genuine enthusiast since the days when he was just another poor kid from the streets of Liverpool, digging deep into his pocket to get into the city’s Aintree circuit during its heydey in the ‘Fifties.

He loves talking about racing. To him it represents a refuge from never-ending questions like: “Are the Beatles ever going to get together again, George?” Or, “Is it true that Paul McCartney once had a bunion on his right foot?”

In his slow, deliberate – and knowledgeable – Scouse drawl, George will tell you about oversteer, understeer, gear ratios and why he hopes Jody Scheckter will be world champion this year.

And he will rave about Fangio with the same 12-year-old’s wide eyes that watched the great Argentinian dominate the 1955 British Grand Prix at Aintree with Mercedes team-mate Stirling Moss.

“I can’t remember why I started going to Aintree – I think I just saw a poster advertising a race,” he says. “Anyway, I used to go there whether it was a big or small meeting, take my butties and sit on the Railway Straight embankment to watch the race. I went to a lot of bike meetings as well – I was a big fan of Geoff Duke!

“I had a box camera and went round taking pictures of all the cars. If I could find an address I wrote away to the car factories, and somewhere at home I’ve got pictures of all the old Vanwalls, Connaughts and BRMS. All that stuff got lost when I went on the road with The Beatles, but I’m sure it’s still in my dad’s attic.”

Such was his enthusiasm that it was a question of whether cars or guitars would dominate his life. He couldn’t afford both…he couldn’t afford either, really. because he had to borrow the £2 10 shillings he needed to buy his first guitar. Luckily for him, he opted for pop.

“By the time I got any money at all I was 17 or 18, getting a couple of quid a week from a few concerts in Liverpool. But I got so involved with rock ‘n’ roll and The Beatles – we were on our way to making records and all that – that to tell you the truth I completely lost touch with motor racing apart from watching the odd bit on TV or reading magazines.”

As the Fab Four became the world’s top pop stars, so they were able to call the tune and ease up on their stamina-sapping schedule. George found himself free to head back to the tracks once more…and in true showbiz style aimed straight for Monaco.

It was there that he met the man who helped him to step backstage of big-time motor racing – Jackie Stewart. George found an instant affinity with Stewart, not least because Jackie wore his hair long and was an outspoken critic of the established order, two keystones of the “rock revolution” of the late ‘Sixties and early ‘Seventies of which Harrison was so much a part.

George said: “Jackie did such a lot for the sport and was criticised for it. People moaned and groaned when he wore fireproof suits and talked about safety – things which are so obvious and practical now but at that time were being put down.

“Another thing was that he always projected the sport beyond just the racing enthusiasts which I think is very important.”

It is Stewart, always a big Beatles fan, who has given George an appreciation of the finer points of the racing art, often driving him around circuits – he scared the pants off Harrison at Interlagos this year – or showing him the best places to watch from “inside” of the track.

“I always enjoy the last session of the qualifying best,” says George. “Jackie taught me how to get the most from it by wandering around the circuit to watch from different places. That way you really get into how cars are handling gear ratios, the whole thing.”

The rapport between the two was vividly illustrated at the recent Gunnar Nilsson Campaign meeting at Donington, where both took part in a demonstration of classic Grand Prix cars. Afterwards, Harrison changed into jeans and sweater, while Stewart stayed in his racing overalls plus the mandatory black corduroy cap. As they walked into the royal enclosure to watch the afternoon’s racing, Stewart turned to Harrison and said: “I don’t know why I am dressed like this.” “Because you’re a twit,” came the reply.

Friends say that of the four ex-Beatles, Harrison is the one who has kept his feet closest to the ground. He seems to have retained the “love and peace” message of the flower power era and has refused to be swayed by the cynicism of the ‘Seventies.

His easy-going manner has made him a popular figure among the Formula One drivers, and he has become friendly with many of them.

“It’s obviously an advantage for me to be sort of independent,” he says. “I’m not like a spy from Ferrari or Lotus or anything like that. It’s a very nice position to be in – I am no threat to anyone so they are friendly towards me.”

His close contact with the drivers has also changed his attitude to them. Like most race fans, he has had his idols – Fangio because he was top dog in his childhood. Graham Hill because he was “a very English gentleman,” Jackie because he was Jackie and so on.

Now, there are no more heroes. “It’s difficult to single anyone out because I’m much closer to them. I mean, there’s people like Jochen Mass who might never be world champion but is such a nice person.

“But I want Jody Scheckter to be world champion this year. It would be good if Grand Prix racing was like the music business, where you can have a No. 1 hit and then get knocked off by your mate for his turn at No. 1. But unfortunately it isn’t like that. There is a point where you are just ‘ready’ to be a world champion, and if it doesn’t happen, it could be all downhill from there.

“Jody is ready – he’s got the car and the team, and mentally he’s right there. To get in the right team at the right time is almost impossible. It happens, like Mario last year – he was very fortunate in having that car.

Take Villeneuve. He’s very good but he’s still a bit young and more prone to making mistakes than Jody. He’s got a lot of years ahead of him, though. That’s why I’d like to see Jody get it now.

“Alan Jones is another one who’s ready. He’s great, he’s mature and he’s ready to win. And now he has got a really good competitive car. Maybe next year Alan Jones will be right at the head of the championship.”

Harrison is no sluggard himself. He drives a Porsche Turbo and what he calls an “old” Ferrari Dino Spyder. There are whispers about 140 mph tyre-squealing burn-ups on a 10-mile “circuit” around his incredible home – Friar Park, near Henley-on-Thames.

Certainly it is not difficult to imagine a glorious road circuit winding through the 33-acre wooded grounds. Nothing would come as a surprise after the mansion itself – a £2 million fairy palace that would do credit to Disneyland – and other amazing features of the grounds like three lakes built on different levels, a series of caves filled with distorting mirrors, model skeletons, glass grapes and hundreds of the proverbial garden gnomes…and an Alpine rock garden including a 100ft high replica of the Matterhorn!

But George though he admits he sometimes has “a spin through the woods,” insists that the burn-up stories are exaggerated: “It’s all very slow speed around the garden – you know tractors and wheelbarrows and things like that…”

He has, however, had a go at the real thing. He took his turn at the wheel of a Porsche 924 in a 24-hour run for the Nilsson campaign at Silverstone, organised by his local sports car specialists, Maltin’s of Henley.

He drove Stirling Moss’s famous Rob Walker Lotus 18 at the Nilsson’s day at Donington, where Jackie Stewart managed to frighten him yet again by blasting his Tyrrell around at full pelt at the same time.

And he has even managed to get his hands on a modern generation Formula One car. It was at Brands Hatch two years ago, the time when former world motorbike champ Barry Sheene, another good friend, was thinking of moving into car racing. Sheene took George with him when he tried out a Surtees TS19 with a view to having a crack at the British Aurora Formula One series.

It was an occasion which George remembers with more than a slight grin…

“Barry persuaded John Surtees to let me have a go. But John said: ‘He’s got no gear.’ So Barry rips off his fireproof vest and says to me ‘Here y’are, you can wear this.’ I just slipped on this sweaty old thing and borrowed John Surtee’s crash helmet. I got in the car and said: ‘I’m not going to go fast because I haven’t even walked around Brands Hatch, let alone driven round.’ So he said: ‘Oh shit, you had better get in my road car.’

“Well, we went bombing off round the track in his Mercedes and he was saying things like: ‘Keep it over to the left here, make sure the tail doesn’t flick out too much here, and so on. I was just hanging on for dear life.

“I got in the F1 car and thought ‘Now, what did he say?’ Then, while I was pulling away in the pit lane, trying not to stall it, I was thinking ‘God, it’s windy in this car.’ I hadn’t even remembered to close my visor!

“Still, it was a great feeling. Although some people have told me it wasn’t a very good Grand Prix car, believe me if you hadn’t driven one before it was fantastic. It was like, wow…those wheels just dig in round the corners.

“I didn’t go very fast. I just signed the chitty saying that if I killed myself it wasn’t John’s fault!”

George, now 36 years old, is unlikely to do a Paul Newman and turn his hand to serious racing. He is honest enough to admit he is apprehensive of the dangers.

Neither is he likely to become involved in large-scale sponsorship, despite a reputation for generosity (it is said that he once gave the landlady of his local pub three rubies for her birthday).

He has dabbled in a small way with bike racing – last year he backed Steve Parrish, who he knew through Barry Sheene, when Steve lost his works Suzuki ride. But this year he has turned down an approach for £185,000 to run a BMW M1 in the Procar series – and has no intention of following in the footsteps of Walter Wolf or Lord Hesketh by setting up his own Grand Prix team.

“What with living in England and the tax I pay, it takes a long time to get some cash anyway, and the last thing you need is just to give it away. You need too much money to do the job properly in Formula One. If I had £3 million to give away, which I haven’t, there’s probably better things to give it to than motor racing. Like the starving, for example.”

The last comment reflects Harrison’s continued commitment to the impoverished parts of countries like Bangladesh and India. All the royalties from one of his albums go into a foundation, and from there the cash is handed out to various charities.

There is a chance that in the years to come, George’s enthusiasm may rub off on his son, and we may yet see a Harrison out there on the track. After the usual parental head-scratching, George concedes that he would not stand in the way if Harrison Junior opted for cars instead of guitars – “though by that time they’ll probably be driving missiles or something.”

But for the time being at least, George will stay on the outside looking in. A weekend at the races will go on being the noisy, urgent, smelly and exciting contrast to the gardening and the meditation.

And a brief glimpse of the one public side to the private Mr. Harrison.

- MOTOR magazine (28 July 1979)

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