Gary Ayles is seriously considering dusting off his crash helmet and getting back into the Formula Ford 1600 cockpit again. The former Star of Tomorrow FF1600 runner up thinks he isn’t quite done with single-seater racing just yet.
The 58-year-old is eyeing a trip to either the Formula Ford Festival or the Walter Hayes end-of-season showpieces. It would complete a circle that began in the Kent-engined cars in the mid-1980s and took him, via a stint in the Superturismo series in Italy, a test at Fiorano and four outings at Le Mans, to team ownership in the British Touring Car Championship.
Ayles still keeps a keen eye on motorsport through his successful logistics firm which transports high-value classic cars and competition cars around the globe. And that means the competitive juices will never be far from the surface.
He kindly took time out of his schedule to tackle the Motorsport News readers’ questions, and we are grateful.
Question: Where did the interest in motorsport come from? Was it in your family?
Steven Nye
Via email
Gary Ayles: “It was through my dad Terry, really. We really didn’t have a pot to piss in when I was young, but my dad always loved cars and he loved motorsport too. It all started when I was quite young. When I was 14 I would – now they call it joyriding – nick my mum’s Mini and go thrashing about in that. I would skive off school and go for a spin.
“My dad was pretty smart, actually. Clearly, he bollocked me for that but he sent me to the racing school at Brands Hatch. Even though I was 14, he thought I should go there and that would get it out of my system. You could do the course at that age in those days and I think I was one of the youngest to have done it at that stage. His grand plan backfired: it didn’t work, and I loved driving even more after that!”
MN: But there is a long journey from thrashing around in your mum’s car and going to the racing school to then taking part yourself? What happened?
GA: “Well I continued school – when I turned up – and I became an agricultural engineer and fitter, and I worked on tractors. I did that for a while and then I moved up north and worked on lorries for a company up in Rotherham. That is where I went from a boy to a man… I learnt a lot, I can assure you…
“I didn’t really have any interest in motorsport. But then my dad made a bit of money and to this day, I don’t know how. We never asked because it is probably best not to know. Every time I asked my mum how he had made the cash, she would just say ‘I don’t
