PRO-AM SUMMER 2018 worldly-wise you are and so the more relaxed you are in how you put things over to your customer. I think it’s important that instruction is put over in a relaxed way as you are trying to teach your customers to both drive quickly and be totally relaxed. The basics don’t change. It is like building a house. If you don’t have firm foundations what is built on top will fall down.” Ironically though, Mike maybe known for showing his pupils how to successfully drive faster, but that is not how he starts his training sessions. “Basically the last thing I teach is speed,” said Mike. “It cannot be relaxed if you are pushing them to go fast. There is a technique to driving quickly which allows their natural ability to come out and they will go fast naturally, without having to try to drive fast. “It is very easy to drive fast with the techniques that I have for teaching it and it seems to work. Two of my customers got together in their first year of motorsport and won a championship. I don’t think I have had many failures. Most of my customers can go out and drive very quickly, very safely.” So when is the best time to take the plunge and book an instructor? “Have instruction as early as possible because you start to get into bad habits straight away,” replied Mike. “The first track day would be absolutely ideal.” A bad habit many drivers bring to the track is sawing at the wheel, something I myself have been guilty of in the past. I was recommended to watch Lewis Hamilton in action, whose use of the steering wheel is minimal. Mike Wild agrees. “Every time you move the steering wheel you unbalance the car — so my ideal is to drive around the racetrack without moving the steering wheel. Obviously, that is not possible but you should use it as little as possible. I teach one input on the
steering wheel per corner. End of story. Unless you can do that on every corner you going to get problems and not get the lines.” Mike Wild’s life in motorsport came about thanks to a Saturday job washing cars! “I was born in Chiswick and used to cycle up to the Chequered Flag garage on Chiswick High Road,” recalled Mike. “They sold all kinds of racing cars — Lotus Elevens and sportscars — and I was fascinated by them and so got a Saturday job there washing cars. They were also making Formula Juniors in the early ‘60s and invited me to go to a race meeting with them. I went in the truck, got out at Brands Hatch and it was one of those Eureka moments. As soon as I heard the noise and the smell I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.” Incredibly, a life in motorsport is what Mike has managed to achieve, although not always incident free. “I did seven or eight races in my first year and came third in my first race and second in my second race at Silverstone. I went back to Silverstone for my third race and won it and got a Best Newcomer trophy in the 750 Motor Club that year. Then, in my first race of the 1966 season, a couple of
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cars in front of me spun. I tried to miss them but hit the bank and the car rolled. I got quite badly injured — I didn’t wake up for a week!” This did not deter Mike. “I was desperate to get into Formula 1 but I wasn’t the best racing driver in the world so wasn’t getting offers from Ferrari or McLaren,” said Mike sanguinely. “ I had driven Ensign Formula 3 cars and so had a good relationship with Mo Nunn and he had his 1974 Formula 1 car which wasn’t very competitive. Vern Schuppen had been driving it but left because he wasn’t qualifying with the car. “You always think that if you put a bit of effort in you can do this, but I didn’t qualify in Austria or Canada. There was one basic problem with the car. Every time we went into a left-hand corner and got some G on the car it lost fuel pressure! So the engine misfired and cut out. Formula 1, even in those days, was very competitive and there was no chance that I was going to qualify. Between Canada and the American Grand Prix in 1974 Mo put his heart and soul into trying to cure this problem and changed the whole fuel system. I qualified for the American Grand Prix. OK, so 22nd out of 25 W W W. M OTO R S P O R T D AY S . C O M