The Jaguar Club FOR

The Jaguar Club FOR DISTINGUISHED RACERS ANDY WALLACE For Andy Wallace, his first laps in a Jaguar XJR-9 in the late eighties were a revelation. The British driver would later become one of the finest prototype sports car racers. TEXT: GEOFF POULTON ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL DARLING As a young teenager, it used to take three hours for Andy Wallace to cycle his way to Silverstone. On race weekends, he would make some sandwiches, jump on his bike and set off from his family home in Oxford in the morning. “Invariably, I would be chucking it down with rain, but I didn’t care,” he recalls. “Being at the track was the only thing that mattered.” Andy’s father had introduced him to the world of racing several years earlier. When he was 10, the two took a coach to France to see the 24-hour race at Le Mans – a circuit that would go on to hold a special place in his heart. For his 15th birthday, his parents gave him a lesson at the Jim Russell Racing School and Andy was hooked. He began to plan his path into racing, seeing the pre-1974 Formula Ford Championship as his entry route and working all hours so he could buy a car. “At the same time, I was going to all the races, observing the drivers and noting the lap times to prepare myself,” he says. His dedication paid off as in 1980, aged 19, Andy won the championship in his debut season. He progressed through the Formula Ford ranks before securing the British Formula 3 title in 1986. “The next logical step was F1,” he says. “I was offered two drives, but financially I just couldn’t afford it. I would have had to find 0,000.” Stuck in something of a “no-man’s land” after winning the 1986 F3 Macau Grand Prix, Andy got chatting with Dutch driver Jan Lammers. Jan was lined up to join the TWR-Jaguar team the following season and mentioned they needed another driver for Le Mans – would Andy be interested? “Of course I was, so I went to do some testing. The first time I got into the XJR-9, it was absolutely terrifying. I was used to driving at 160mph. Over 200mph is a totally different ball game and when you hit 240mph, it’s another world again. After racing single-seaters, the XJR-9 felt big and enclosed. It was like sitting in a missile.” But Andy soon adjusted, and his speed and consistency convinced the team. Despite having just three races in which to prepare himself, Andy, Jan and Johnny Dumfries drove the 7.0-liter XJR-9 to victory at Le Mans in 1988 – Jaguar’s first win there since 1957. “It was a strange feeling when we won, because I was so exhausted. It took a while to sink in,” he says in typically modest fashion. Andy went on to cement his reputation as one of the world’s leading prototype sports car racers. Two years later, he won the 24 Hours of Daytona in a Jaguar XJR-12D, the first of three wins there, and he also won twice at the 12 Hours of Sebring. These days, the Englishman is chief test driver for Jaguar Land Rover Classic. He tests an array of Classic-built legends, before passing on his expertise to their new owners. “It’s an honor to put models like the E-type and XKSS through their paces and a nice contrast to driving modern cars.” Does that mean his instinct for racing has mellowed? “Oh, no,” he says chuckling, pointing out that he won his class at last year’s Le Mans Classic behind the wheel of a D-type. “That’s something you never lose.” 78 THE JAGUAR

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