Thursday 22nd February 2023

BOOK REVIEW  by Ken Davies 
 
Life on the Wilds side! - My half century-plus as a professional racing driver 

It seems that Mike Wilds’ face has been a familiar sight in motorsport forever and the versatile driver has grown into a motor racing treasure. Back in May 2019 I had the pleasure of interviewing Mike for Castle Combe Talk and he was a delight to work with; friendly, helpful, modest, and completely grounded. The opening paragraph of that interview read: “Mark Twain coined the cliche ‘Lies, damn lies and statistics’ and in terms of our interviewee, the hackneyed saying only serves to confirm that these cold statistics - eight Grand Prix entered with just three starts - fail to do justice to the depth and success of the versatile British Driver’s enduring motor racing career.’

Mike has now chronicled his fascinating life in a well-written and compelling book, graphically charting the highs and lows of a stellar career in motorsport and aviation, with foreword by his good friend, five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell MBE, whose early racing career sometimes ran parallel with his own, together with a glowing citation from former F1 driver Mark Blundell.


For sure, growing up in London during the swinging sixties provided plenty of opportunities, which the young Wilds perceptively exploited, and perhaps the earliest of these was his Saturday job washing cars at the celebrated Chequered Flag garage, close to his Hammersmith home. There, despite his youth, Mike networked with many influential people in the motor racing world. This was followed by a job with Firestone’s racing tyre division, which got him involved in supporting international racing, whilst also starting to race himself at weekends.


Starting in 1965 with an 1172cc Ford-engined DRW Mk1 clubman car at Snetterton, Mike’s first three races resulted in podium places before progressing through F4, FF and F3, first in an Ensign LNF-3, and then March 733 supported by Dempster Developments with a distinctive red and yellow livery. He then raced a March 741 in F5000 for Dempster before some privateer F1 drives and testing led him into that infamous contract with enigmatic Louis Stanley to drive his recalcitrant BRM P201, but the days of many cars pre-qualifying for fewer places meant just three race starts.


A change to the Shellsport and British F1 series followed with a lot more success before he swapped to world endurance racing and four happy seasons with Ecurie Ecosse C2 team, and latterly with Metro 6R4 power by Austin/Rover. Although Mike’s results were good, his seven attempts at Le Mans netted just one finish in the fearsome turbo Nissan R88C with Win Percy and Allan Grice. Mike rated the Nissan as not the best, but by far the quickest, race car he ever drove, with 1,400bhp available - on a light-switch basis.

While all this was going on, Mike was forging a successful parallel career in aviation, first on fixed wing aircraft and then helicopters, where he found his forte as a skillful and intuitive charter pilot and instructor, all neatly dovetailed with hiring and selling light aircraft.

With a career spanning over 50 years, Mike is still racing as enthusiastically as ever, but mostly now in historic categories. He sums up his evergreen philosophy in the final sentence of his book: “You don’t stop racing when you get old…. you get old when you stop racing!”

Although not indexed, this is a good quality, 240-page hardback book co-written with Geoff Thomas and illustrated with a great selection of quality images. Published by Douglas Loveridge Publications, the is limited to 400 copies - so be quick!

Life on the Wilds side! - My half century-plus as a professional racing driver
Written by Mike Wilds with Geoff Thomas
ISBN 978-1-900113-20-5
Available from mike@mikewilds.com
Price £50.00 plus £10.00 P&P