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IS AN OLD SAYING IN MOTOR RACING: ‘Standing still is like going backwards at 100 mph.’ In other words, you have to make progress all the time or you will soon find yourself left behind. It is perpetual motion. Everyone else is trying to go faster the whole time, so the moment you slacken off you will be overtaken. I think you get the idea.
The same kind of thinking dictates that once you have climbed your first mountain, you need to decide which one is next and then go out there and do it again. There is no room for sentiment. And there is no time to take a breather. Jo and I knew that because we had been climbing for years and fighting all the way. So, on the way back from that fantastic first European Touring Car Championship title win in Dubai in 2004, we knew that the next big challenge would be even tougher: we had to be faster, stronger and even better organised if we were to return the following season and ‘do it again’ – in other words, retain that championship crown.
Being from Guernsey was a big help, of course. We were not about to lose our heads, celebrate too much or lose touch with the earth beneath our feet. We had only to mention that kind of thing and we both knew what it meant. We had been through so much together, over so many years, that we were not going to get this far and then waste it. After all, had it not been for Jo and our respective families, I do not think we would have succeeded.
The Guernsey blood in our veins was a real strength not just then, as we enjoyed success, but all the way through. And it still is. When I left home in 1997 and towed that caravan to Silverstone, it was not just the end of the first part of my life; it was the start of the second. But in both I continued to be true to my Guernsey roots, and am proud of what I’ve achieved on behalf of my home island.
The day I arrived in Portsmouth and began the journey up the A34 was the beginning of my passage to independence, adult life and my own form of success. I had done well in the British Hillclimb Championship, while living at home and supported by my dad and family, but I had not really done anything in the eyes of the people involved in the single-seater racing heartland of British motor sport. I like to think I had actually ‘turned professional’ in 1996 – a year earlier – when I visited my granddad, Skip, in hospital after he became ill. I remember thinking then, at his bedside, that I had to do something special with my life. For a year, I tried to do some racing in Formula Renault. I had some sponsors, but not, by a long way, the whole package. My father, Graham, had to guarantee loans and helped me out every way he could. Even though I had stopped working for him at the garage he still let me sell my own cars on the site. Jo’s mum and dad were great, too, even loaning me the first £2,000 I needed to buy a car and get started. I was wheeling and dealing, cleaning cars for my dad, trying to hustle up sponsorship and fit in some races to prove I had the speed and talent. I thought that was tough – but nothing like as hard as it turned out to be the following year when I did get to Silverstone. Until then, I did not believe it could have got any worse for me or that I could have been more desperate. I was wrong. Very wrong.
I had made some contacts during the previous year, when I was trying to get myself a drive. One was Mike O’Brien who ran the Speedsport Formula Three team. He was a guy I admired in the same way as I did Nigel Mansell. Both have done it all for themselves, battling up from the bottom when they did not have enough money to go racing, and yet proving just what can be achieved with a never-say-no, never-say-die attitude.
After sleeping one night in a lay-by on the side of the road, somewhere on the journey up to Northamptonshire, I arrived at the Home of British Motor Racing full of hope. After all, I was the reigning British Hillclimb Champion. I may have started my first Formula Renault race at Thruxton at the back of the grid, but I think I had managed to secure a podium finish before the end of the season. I was not a complete novice. I believed in my speed. And I had talent. The only problem was that I was the only one who really knew that.
I had a good feeling about Mike O’Brien. He had managed to sponsor himself so I knew he would be my first port of call at Silverstone. So he had this guy turn up in a Volvo estate with a caravan in tow, and declare: ’I’d really like to go racing!’ and ’Where can I park this thing?’ and ‘Can we do a deal? If I find any sponsorship from the street then I’ll put it into your team.’
And, in fairness, Mike replied: ‘Yeah, I’ve got an area behind the back of the workshop.’
So I went round the back and it was, well, a working backyard, covered in oil stains, hardly pristine, various tins and drums thrown about and a few other bits of debris blowing around in the wind on top of the remains of some oil-soaked gravel that had seen better days. I do not know what I had in mind before I left home, in terms of a place to park the caravan and live, but I remember thinking this was something else. It was hardly a leafy, manicured camping and caravan site. But it was available, and it was in the middle of Silverstone. Mike’s boys told me I could hook up a cable through their rear toilet window for power and so there I was.
The old yard was called the ‘clinker yard’ and for pretty obvious reasons: it was where Mike and his lads did all their engine-oil changes. There were containers everywhere. It was pretty scruffy but I knew it was the closest I was going to get to motor racing with a Formula Three team.
Mike helped me out. I would open my door in the morning, go out of my caravan and into the workshop to see these beautifully painted Formula Three cars. They just looked stunning to me. It was an all-new experience. I had never seen anything like it before.
Mike 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