Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Racing driver who won last year's World Grand Prix Championship.
On the island
Eight records
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
Well, I I've chosen The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss, which I find has a little bit of everything. It has very relaxing moments and it has very lively moments, and I think it uh suits my moods because I change a lot myself.
Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti
I I must say that I like all forms of music and it really depends on what mood I'm in as to what music I play. And I don't profess to be an expert on classical music. I just know that when I hear it I like it and that's what I go and buy.
He's somebody that I've I've liked for a long time. I think he's got a very nice, smooth style and I find him very relaxing to listen to and the lyrics are always fairly good in his songs and I've chosen Summer Side of Life.
I like trad jazz, and I I picture sort of old black people sitting under verandas in the deep south, you know, with their musical instruments. And uh for the next one I've chosen uh Highway Sixty One by a gentleman called Mississippi Fred McDowell.
Right, well record number five is a country and western uh record and I went and saw this man at the Los Angeles arena uh and watched him live and I was very taken by him and I I was fortunate enough to go backstage and meet him and I was very impressed.
But there's one particular track which I've always liked. I particularly like Stevie Nix, I like the way she sings, I like her voice, and I've picked out Rhiannon from the Fleetwood Mac album.
Record number seven is a English band, relatively new. It's a band that I liked immediately. As soon as I heard them I liked them. They've got a very unusual style, and uh I've picked out one song from them called Sultans of Swing and it's Dire Straits.
ReminiscingFavourite
Uh well, I've been keeping the best for the last. It's an Australian group called the Little River Band, and the particular track that I've chosen from it is called Reminiscing, and it was written by a guy called Graham Goebel, who happens to own the farm next door to mine, so uh I've got to play this. To remind you of home.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:47Was it firmly in your head as a child that you were going to follow your father as a driver?
Yes, ever since I can remember uh it was just a simple matter of waiting to get my license, and then that would in turn allow me to get my competition license, and I'd get stuck straight into some racing.
Presenter asks
6:58What decided you to come to England?
Well, it's the mecca of motor racing. It's the place you have to be if you want to be a professional racing driver, and particularly if you come from an English speaking country and you have English origins, you have to come to England. … But um this is where the cars are made, this is where the best teams are, and this is where you have to be if you want to be a part of it.
Presenter asks
7:54How did you scrounge a living while you were getting organized [in London]?
Well, uh a very good friend of mine, Brian McGuire, was over here at the time and I just formed up a partnership with him and we started buying and selling motor caravans to unsuspecting Aussies … So my wife and I started up a boarding house once again for visiting Australians and New Zealanders, which meant that after the old breakfasts were done and everything, the day was my own and I could concentrate on trying to get a drive.
The keepsakes
The book
Wilbur Smith
I'd like to take... three works by Wilbur Smith... I'd have to include probably Eagle in the Sky as one of those because I think it's the best one he wrote.
Presenter asks
10:10Are you a good mechanic yourself? Can you strip a car down and sort it all out and put it together again?
Well, I can strip it down, no problems, but uh whether I could get it back together again for you or not, I don't know. I'm not mechanically minded. … I just stick to the driving.
Presenter asks
17:20Have you time to register anything [during a crash at two hundred miles an hour]?
No, I mean uh at the point that you think that you've lost control or you're about to, you obviously try and fight it the whole way, but uh I would say on the majority of uh accidents you're in the lap of the gods, and it happens very quickly, it's all over and done with in split seconds.
Presenter asks
25:33Are you superstitious, Alan?
Yes, I am. Uh I try not to be, but I am. I always try and wear the same pair of underpants, for instance, which I which I call my lucky underpants.
“I wasn't a very scholastic sort of a person at all and ever since I can remember I just wanted to get out of school, to get into the commercial world. Uh now of course, like all people that went that route, I'm regretting it.”
“I don't really want to get too heavy on that side of it, because I think that modern racing has got to a stage now where it's really horses for courses. You know, you have an expert mechanic for doing the mechanics, you have an expert team owner for putting the logistics together, you have an expert designer for designing the right geometrics of what the car needs and so forth, and then you need a good driver to pedal the thing around.”
“I don't like the word luck, because I think you make your own luck.”