About

I moved south in the early 80s and worked for what was then the UK's leading Porsche specialist. Within 2 years, I ended up running their restoration and race departments, managing approximately 15 staff. 3.5 years later, I realised the time had come for me to start on my own and focus purely on building and restoring classic racing Porsche models and therefore started my own business.

I started racing while I was still working for the specialist in the south. In fact, my first race was in what is now easily a million-dollar car - a 1973 Carrera RS Lightweight. The first event was a sprint at Oulton Park Circuit drove up there with the slick tyres on the roof rack. The snag was that my race licence had not come through in the post, so I had to improvise! I used my brother's licence...and I duly won my class. I did quite a lot of racing and became reasonably successful, but realised it was not always good for business to beat your own clients on the track :) My race-driving career peaked with an 800kg, 825 bhp Porsche 935 K3 - one of the few cars I have driven where you were not continually wishing for more horsepower!

Let's wind the clock back to 1994, when on the way to the Gym, to meet the other guys that I raced off-road quad bikes with. I never completed the journey. I am actually unaware, as of this day, as to what exactly happened, but ultimately, I ended up beside my motorcycle in a ditch 2 miles from my home.

It was believed to have been a slow-speed accident, but I was unconscious for 10 days on a life support machine, and when I regained consciousness, I was moved to a specialist hospital in Oxford, where I spent the next 12 months. It took 6 months to rebuild the bones in my chest and shoulder and a further 6 months having nerve operations and undertaking a rehabilitation process. At this stage, my left arm was useless - problematic when you are left-handed, but it was hoped it would recover some functionality.

Obviously, my business stopped during the year I was in hospital, so in 1995 I started life again from scratch, armed with nothing but a toolbox and a positive attitude. Nowadays, BS Motorsport is recognised as one of the leading Classic Porsche restorers, with customers worldwide. I get particular satisfaction working on RS Porsche for customers from Germany!

Although getting the business back on track was straightforward, my left arm recovery did not take place, and despite a huge number of tests and physiotherapy over a 10-year period, after I lost two fingers in accidents in the workshop and also had a severe burning accident, doctors told me that any further accidents with this arm would likely lead to blood poisoning.

In my mind, there is always a solution to a problem, even if it's an unorthodox one! So after 10 years, I decided my useless arm had become a liability and had to go. I had a spirited discussion with a medical consultant about how much of the arm was to be removed - but managed to re-mark which part of the arm was to be chopped off when the consultant left the room! Problem solved!

I met my dear wife Gina after I came out of the hospital, and we have been together ever since. (How we met is a story in itself but that's for another time) Gina or G as I call her, has stood by me through thick and thin and continually supports my crazy life and crazy ideas!

Ideally, the more challenging and physically demanding, the better!

Being all too aware of the financial demands of competing successfully with 1000bhp/ton racing cars, I decided to focus my competitive desires on the water after seeing ZapCats bounce around in the surf on a day at the coast. No seat belts - in fact, no seats(!) big waves and 50 horsepower on a glorified dinghy - what could possibly go wrong! Well, let's just say they pull over 2G in turns, the race track is breaking waves and when you have only got one arm to steer, control the throttle and stay in the boat - you quickly learn to improvise! And that's before you get serious with aspirations to finish at the sharp end of the fleet!

I raced these successfully for a few years and also became the go-to engine builder, but one day, after racing, we sat around the BBQ having a beer, and one guy said, "It would be good to do a longer trip in the boat". I thought he had a point, and the daft idea to go around Britain on a ZapCats was born. The coastal waters around the UK are not for the faint-hearted, and even with a big support crew and large support boat, it would be a big undertaking.

Without a big support crew - very little budget, apart from a long-suffering support credit card, it was going to be bloody hard work! My sponsorship deal fell through at the last minute, but I did it anyway and raised money for charity and had a few experiences that will stay with me forever. When you are exhausted and suffering from hyperthermia in a wet tent on the beach after 12 hours on the water in gale force winds and big waves, and you are looking at starting out at 5 am in the dark the next day to catch the tides, do it all over again for a whole month - any bad day in the workshop seems like paradise!

A few years later, I was on the way back from running some race cars for clients in the USA, when a friend sent me a link to a TV program looking for participants and suggested it was a mad enough challenge to keep me out of trouble. I immediately applied, and before the flight had landed, I had received a response to say that although the auditions were now closed, they were intrigued and asked to come and see them. After a stringent medical where my lack of a left arm was a cause for concern, the doctor passed me as more than fit enough for the challenge, and I was accepted to feature in the show.

The Channel 4 programme series "Escape" is based on the premise that a bunch of engineers are dropped into a remote, hostile environment and are presented with smashed-up vehicles that need to be adapted into viable transport to get them back to civilisation.

I participated in episode 2, where we dropped into the desert in Mexico with ex SAS TV star Ant Middleton. I am by far the oldest on the team, and when I pitched up with one arm, I'm sure my co-contestants were a little bemused about what I could offer! Needless to say, with limited tools, I was taken back to my childhood engineering projects, and I came up with some ideas to create a 4wd vehicle from the scrap vehicles to get us out of there. If you watch one of the links below, you get to see how I get on - I'm your man if you get stuck in a desert with some scrap vehicles

Stream on Channel 4 www.channel4.com/programmes/escape/on-demand/64505-002

I saw some coverage of the Morocco Desert Challenge and noted the change to the new venue as the Tunisia Desert Challenge. I needed a new challenge and bouncing around in the dunes in the most amazing scenery looked like a sensible idea so I started to build a truck. Very loosely built on a Land Rover Defender 110, I had built truck which was adapted to my requirements and although the plan was to get to the finish, the finish came to soon with issues on the auto gearbox not taking to the engine in the same language? I was hoping to make it to the Tunisia Desert Challenge to gain experience with the vehicle and the conditions, but this was obviously not to be. When I say it was last-minute, we were counting the time to get to Southampton to catch the ferry and to work out whether we were actually going to make it. Another day wasn’t an option as we’d miss our second ferry, so that was basically it for the year; we carried on working on the Land Rover over the year.

I re-entered for the Moroccan desert challenge as the venue had changed back. This trip wasn’t without its excitement either, as it was the year we did it, they had a heatwave. I’ll exaggerate on this at a later date.

With everything that I had learned from the event, I’d worked out that the chassis for the Land Rover, albeit adequate, wasn’t to my standard. I think the biggest problem was that I hadn’t done it myself or designed it. I had a specialist fabricate the chassis and tube frame, and as we all know, in this world, not every specialist is a specialist, unfortunately! I was the one to find that out. Chin up and keep going.

So what do you do next now the Land Rover you’re not happy with that needs some repair before you can use it you also need to buy a new work vehicle so the obvious option is to buy a Ford Raptor perfect why do we buy a Ford Raptor got to be only one reason rally raid so we pick up the Ford Raptor run it for a short time and then the next Moroccan desert challenge is coming up best we enter the raid class everything all good fit a snorkel a sump guard and having driven it for a while you realise you need some extra fuel extra fuel tank in the pickup feed it into the filler neck that gives us an extra 90 L problem solved the idea being I take my son with me as co-pilot then he looks at his passport and realises he doesn’t have enough time left on it fast tracks it and it gets lost so I’m now sat there with no co-pilot, Neil’s plan B ring Bobo now Bobo has a luxury desert camp in Erg Chigaga so I ask him to meet me in Agadir for the start of the rally I take the easy route down Southampton Santander ferry in the ferry to nador and then drive down give him myself enough time I arrive a day early so we have some chill out time after the long drive everything all good with the vehicle and off we go Bobo on board satellite navigation no problem at all well, i thought there was no problem but there was a problem Bobo had forgot to tell me although he speaks four languages including Berber he doesn’t read and write we were 3 days into the rally before we realised this he just knew where we were going this all stems back from the first rally we did with the Land Rover when we got stuck in the dunes ( a longer Story)

So Rally Raid completed everything, all good. Drive back, once, back. What every good Raptor owner should do: put the car in for a service. Comments from the Ford dealer were very amusing. I learned from my debut event in the Land Rover, then the Raid in the Raptor, and with this, I wanted to improve my truck's competitiveness and compete in future events at an increasingly high level.

Combining my passion for engineering with exploring beautiful, remote parts of the world seems like a great reason to keep competing, and from what I have seen of Gerts events, there is a friendly approach amongst all the competitors and a healthy mutual respect at whatever level one chooses to compete.

When you have been on life support for 10 days and in the hospital for a year, you live every day of the rest of your life you have been given, with your throttle pinned to the bulkhead! You are a long time dead - I have decided Desert Team events present me with exactly the sort of challenge I need to live Without Limits to the full!

Let's build a more manageable vehicle, but also a much prettier one, Land Rover and parts Up For Sale and a new challenge arises

Living with a disability is not a disability, it's just a state of mind - once your over that bit - life is quite normal. There is always a solution to the problem just sometimes it's hard to figure it out.

SO PROJECT PR003 was born the idea being lightweight four wheel drive ultimate desert racer this vehicle starts life as a smart roadster Brabus is mantle discard relocate engine change gear box make four wheel drive in fact other than the cockpit we changed 99% of everything scan it position everything and when I’m at the point of building bodywork engine is now mid-mounted v6 twin turbo mounted to a six speed sequential transaxle this drives forward to a diff unit via a Haldex clutch unit the whole project has been geared to raise money for young lives versus cancer with the ultimate goal to take 2 families and children to feel the atmosphere in the desert and the racing atmosphere I think I’ve done enough writing for one evening I’ll pursue this one further maybe tomorrow evening.

I feel I’ve been fairly lucky in life with what I do and have done. Fortunately, there are children in this world, but without a choice, they don’t have such a good future in front of them, so why do I do it I feel if I can help in some way however big and small and it’s not just about raising money for the charity it’s about making other people aware of what is always a possibility and can affect them just as much.

For a teenager being diagnosed with cancer is probably an unknown and unwanted gift, their life changes all your dreams of where you were going and what you were going to do suddenly fade away the charity is there to help whether it be financially or morally they’re there to talk to help and guide, they have all the knowledge required to help through the situation along with the other family members, but it’s a hard thing to come to terms with.

My situation was slightly different. My unfortunate accident put an end to my racing career, as I thought, in a different way, it was life-threatening, life-changing, and I think if I can make the general public aware of what can happen to children of any age, and their families have to cope with the changing future. I carry on promoting the charity in my own way and raising funds for them as I go. The funds are never as much as I expect, and there are a few stories on the way regarding that, but for another day.

So some people may say, why don’t you just give me the money you’re spending on building your rally car and doing the events? It’s not just about giving money that would go unseen and unheard. I would be just giving a small gift in my mind, but the further I go, the more people I see, the more people are made aware of it, and in the future, it will become better, and by way of the more people made aware, may only make a small donation they may not but they’re made aware of what is a possibility without any warning it does not pick and choose and it’s life changing. So they may talk about it to their friends and, like everything, that one person becomes 10s hundreds and 1000s, I hope their lives and futures carry on as when I met them, but in the unfortunate case that their child or one of their children is affected, they’re now aware of what help and comfort can be found by the charity.

So, my missing arm is an inconvenience, but I like to think it doesn’t stop me from carrying out my life as normal. If you can call my life normal, painful, yes, very.

Phantom limb, yes, there 24 / 7, what can stop it? Distraction, positive attitudes and a need to do better. What makes it worse is stress – to be continued...