Book of the month
Superbears: the Story of Hesketh Racing
JAMES PAGE, Porter Press International, £89, ISBN 978 1 913089 33 7
‘This has been such a fun book to write,’ says author Page in his acknowledgements, ‘mostly because the people involved couldn’t be boring if they tried.’ That means it is also a hugely fun book to read.
But, then, how could you expect anything else of a racing team whose logo was a teddy bear wearing a helmet? It’s now one of the most readily identifiable graphics in motor racing history – yet Hesketh Racing had a dramatically meteoric career, soaring from an F3 debut in 1972 via F2 to F1 in little over a year, before burning out completely in 1978.
Hesketh captured the public’s imagination like no other team because of its core cast of characters. Its main driver was James Hunt – nicknamed mould and his love of fine living meant that Hesketh shook up the often po-faced world of F1 like never before: it was one of the first teams to have a yacht moored in Monaco harbour, complete with helicopter, while the team motorhome was a huge GMC six-wheeler, like something out of .
