Every Split Second Counts - My Life with Fast Carts, Fast Women and F1 Superstars. Martin Hines
car racing.
I cannot think of anyone who has had so many drivers pass through his team and progress to success in car racing. And he always did it with a smile and without trying to take a percentage of the driver’s future earnings. He did it because he believed in the talent and knew he had the facilities to help them achieve success and then assist them on their journey into professional careers in cars.
It is easy to put words down on paper that don’t always accurately reflect the individual, because they can sound sycophantic; but, with my fingers held up and with the words ‘cub’s honour’ on my lips, I swear that you will never find another like Martin Hines: a true gentleman, a hard racer and someone with an unusual willingness to be happy for others’ success. He can also scare the hell out of you with a deathly look if you cross him, but, thankfully, I have never been on the end of that. The bottom line is, he is hard but extremely fair.
I never raced wheel to wheel with Martin and I am glad, because I know he would have won.
David Coulthard Monaco, May 2008
I first met Martin Hines together with his parents, Mark and Maude, at the Zip Kart factory in Hoddesdon when they invited me to join the early Young Guns team.
We won many championships and I particularly remember the Junior World Championship in West Germany. Martin produced a special kart for the event which later became the ubiquitous ‘935’. The tyres from Bridgestone were 1.5 seconds a lap quicker than our rivals’ and as the distributor, Martin and his family donated a supply to the British team - just one of the examples of Martin, Mark and Maude’s commitment and generosity to young British karting talent.
At 16, I entered the 135cc Series for Zip Kart, using the 935 and, at times, the A chassis using engines from Michael Schumacher’s German Tuner and later AIME. These karts were utterly fantastic, so powerful, and I well remember Martin travelling to Jesolo and Parma in Italy bringing special tyres or chassis parts.
I will always remember with such fondness travelling to Zip from Newcastle to build new chassis using the factory’s facilities, then going round the corner to test at Rye House Circuit. Martin’s mum and dad were so supportive of me. I’ll never forget how kind they were to me… My father has since told me Mark would give him the occasional £500 to help with expenses. It is commonplace in these politically correct days to speak well of all the people one comes across in their motorsport career. I don’t give a shit for ‘PC’, which is why I hold the Hines family in such high regard. It was Martin who demonstrated how important image was in both in your equipment and your driver’s race wear. It is also vital to consider how you promote yourself.
Yes, Martin is one of the good guys in motorsport and I am privileged to consider myself a friend. Indeed, he and his wife Tina were guests at my wedding. Long may he continue to hold his passion for karting and helping young kids live their dreams.
Jason Plato Zip Kart works driver
After a successful start to my racing career, my father Denis and I quickly realised the importance of factory support and equipment, and how even at such an entry level this could create the right results.
In 1991, at the age of twelve, I was lucky enough to be given the chance to drive for the Zip Young Guns team in its infancy, in the Cadet 60cc class. At this time team owner Martin Hines was still racing himself in the 250E gearbox karts at World Championship level and was known in the UK as ‘Mr Karting’. It was an important step for me, as this was the first time I would drive for a works team and be in direct competition with my teammates; and also for Martin himself, who was pioneering a new way in which ‘Dad and lad’ went racing. Needless to say, the team was a great success, and grew year by year to become almost unstoppable in the junior ranks of UK karting.
In 1993 I won my first serious championship, which in turn led to where I am today, and I will always be grateful to Martin and everybody at Zip Kart who helped me on my way to F1 in those early days.
Anthony Davidson
You Never Forget Your First Time
She didn’t realise it at the time, but Mum was about to say the nine words that would change my life for ever: ‘You can have one of those if you like.’
I looked across at Dad and we grinned at each other. Fantastic! We were going karting.
The garage just round the corner from where we lived in Church Crescent, Finchley, mainly sold sports cars but they also stocked TAB karts, and, as soon as they opened the following morning, Dad did a deal to buy two. Our nearest track was Rye House, at Hoddesdon in the Lea Valley in Hertfordshire, about thirty miles away, and the next couple of days dragged by until we could get there to put them through their paces.
I remember the moment I first drove a kart as though it had happened this morning. I can still feel the vibration that rattled every bone in my body; can still hear the glorious roar as the engine responded to my foot on the pedal; and, most of all, can still see in my mind’s eye exactly what I saw as I set off down the straight faster than I’d ever travelled solo. Straw bales were just a blur as I careered round corners that loomed up far more quickly than I expected and exerted forces on my body that I’d never experienced before.
Watching from the sidelines, I’d thought of karts as superior toy cars. It was only when I drove one that I realised they are so much more. Karts are an instant cure for constipation. When you’re that low to the ground – in those days it was one or two inches; today it’s half an inch – you see the world from a whole new perspective. You don’t sit in a kart – you are part of it. The front wheels are an extension of your feet; the back wheels part of your shoulders. It’s nothing like driving a car. You can’t see as much, you have no suspension to smooth out the bumps and you don’t have that solid shell protecting you from the wind, the rain and being hurtled through the air if you crash. The lower you are, the more sensation you have of speed, so, when you drive a kart at even 50 m.p.h., you feel like a worm with a rocket up its backside.
I was hooked.
Ironically, Mum had picked karting because she hoped to distract me from my dream of becoming a speedway rider. She’d worried about me ever since she had seen me practise my cornering technique while tearing round the back garden on a moped. In one spectacular slide I managed to put the bike and myself through a neighbour’s fence. Mum’s plan worked to an extent, because I never did race on a speedway track, but my love of living on the edge couldn’t be stifled, and I’ve had some spectacular crashes in karts, some of which I was lucky to walk away from alive.
Karting was like a drug and I couldn’t get enough. That day at Rye House was the tentative start of a career that lasted more than forty years and saw me pick up at least one major championship in every decade. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve won more titles than any other driver and that I’ve beaten guys who went on to become top names in Formula One. But my obsession went beyond driving. Within a few weeks of buying those TABs, Dad and I had started a business that became Zip Karts, and we’ve been at the sharp end as karting has developed from simple beginnings to being recognised by motorsport’s governing body, the FIA, as one of their major formulas. We led the way in superkarts. I was the first driver to average over 100 m.p.h. around Silverstone in a kart and went round the world demonstrating that gearbox karts are as spectacular – and as fast – as most other machines on four wheels or two.
The business has been my passion for nearly half a century. It’s earned me a good living, made me some good friends and one or two enemies – but the latter are mostly among people who found they couldn’t keep up. The track at Rye House has also played a very important part in my life. Dad took over the lease soon after we started karting and in 1968 he packed the place for the only 100cc World Championship to be held in Britain. The Zip factory is still