It was a hard slog. I worked part of the time at Lucas and the rest of the time I attended classes at various technical colleges and polytechnics in and around Birmingham. It took several years and in the meantime I carried on karting. My father enjoyed my success and was proud of my competitiveness and determination, but I was longing for a chance to prove myself on a wider stage. I would arrive at a local kart meeting with the knowledge that, barring some mechanical disaster I was going to win fairly easily. It was still fun, but really I knew it was pointless. I had outgrown karts and could not wait to get into a proper racing car.
When I was twenty-one I passed the last exam and emerged with a Higher National Diploma in Engineering. By this time I had also made progress at Lucas and I now held the position of electronics instructor. Things looked rosy. I went to see my father to tell him that I had qualified and to remind him of his promise. I was in for a nasty shock.
I found him in the laboratory at Lucas and cheerfully told him that I was going to be a racing driver. He asked me how I planned to finance my venture. When I reminded him of his promise he told me that my chances of making it were nil and that he would not be a part of it. I couldnât believe it. I tried to reason with him but he wouldnât budge. He would not help me race and that was that. I was furious. I had spent several years fulfilling my side of the bargain, going to endless engineering classes and now I was back to square one. My goal of moving into Formula Ford began to look distant. I felt bitter and disappointed. It was one of the worst days of my life.
I discussed it at great length with Rosanne, who by then had become my wife. I was determined to race. I knew that I had talent and refused to be beaten by the circumstances. Rosanne and I decided that, whatever the consequences, we were going to give it a go.
The cheapest and most sensible first move was to try out a Formula Ford car at a racing school. At least then I would know whether I could drive one or not. I might find that I didnât like it and return to karts, but I had to know what it was like.
We scraped together £15 which was enough for a one-day lesson in a Formula Ford car at the Mallory Park school. Most of the other students there on that day were signed up for a week-long course, but I couldnât afford such luxuries. I had one day to decide.
I went out in the car and immediately found it to my liking. It was fairly predictable and I felt quite comfortable with its behaviour. Because it was light and had narrow tyres it had a tendency to slide through corners. I quickly got a feel for what it would do next and felt that it was a car with which I would be able to express myself. That day at Mallory was enough to persuade me that my instinct was right. I should move on to Formula Ford racing.
But when he heard of my plan, my father was very angry and wouldnât speak to me. My mother was upset by the rift that the whole issue had caused and the situation was quite unpleasant for some time.
Rosanne and I went ahead and bought a second hand car which we saw advertised. It had obviously seen plenty of action and had passed through several owners, some not so caring. We scraped together our savings, sold a few items here and there and got the money together to buy the car and a trailer. Rosanne had a nice new road car, but it was too small to tow the race car, so we traded it in for an older but larger model. She was marvellous, always keeping me company in the garage late into the night when I was working either on the race car or on the road car. I remember the latter used to devour clutches in protest at having to tow the race car!
Most evenings I would come home from work at Lucas and go straight over to Rosanneâs brotherâs workshop, where I used to make extra cash helping him out with his picture framing business. We used to work late into the evening mounting pictures in the frames, and then around eleven oâclock we would go out to the bars and clubs around Birmingham selling them. It was quite a good business, although the drawback was I often didnât get home until 3 am and I had to be at work again at 7.30. But the money came in useful â in fact, all money came in useful.
The racing car I had bought was in a bit of a state, but I was able to do something with it which I hadnât managed in karting â to win my first race. Fittingly it was at Mallory Park, a circuit which had played a big part in my decision to take the plunge. The field of drivers I beat was something of a mixed bag, but it didnât matter. I was on my way and very pleased about it too.
Although I could see many areas where the car needed improving, I felt comfortable with it and pushed it quite hard. I was not conscious of developing a style of driving at the time, it was more instinctive, but I was winning races and could already see the possibilities. I remember one particular race that first year when I was really charging through the field and came through strongly to win on the last lap. Rosanne told me later that the track commentator had been going crazy at the microphone, âMansellâs coming up on the outside, heâs not going to be able to do it there, heâs on the wrong line. And heâs done it!â I hope that same commentator was watching fifteen years later when I passed Gerhard Berger around the outside of the infamous Peraltada corner in the Mexican Grand Prix!
That first season went well for us. I won six races in all out of the nine that I entered and I went away feeling reasonably pleased with my progress. But my competitive instinct was gnawing at me. I wanted to win a lot of races and I knew that I needed a better car and a better budget if I was going to move forward.
As I had learned at school and in junior karting, there were a few people, like me, who loved winning and couldnât contemplate defeat, and plenty of others who were just racing for fun and didnât mind too much if they didnât win. It was never a game to me. I could see from that first season that my feelings about racing had been right. I had the ability to win and to make instinctive overtaking moves, which others wouldnât even dream possible.
Because of my engineering background I had a pretty good feel for the technical side of a racing car and was able to make adjustments to the car to make it faster on each circuit. Those Formula Ford cars were fairly basic technically, and a long way from the highly-sophisticated Formula 1 cars I would drive later. There werenât many things that you could adjust, but it still required clarity of thought and confidence in your own instincts to make the right changes to the car. From the early stages of my single-seater career I learned to trust what I felt was right and wrong on a car. Thatâs not to say that occasionally even today I donât go down the odd blind alley while looking for an ideal chassis set-up, but for the most part I know which direction to head in as soon as Iâve done a couple of laps.
I felt confident that I had made the right choice in pursuing my racing career and was determined that I would become a professional racing driver as soon as possible.
The turning point came in 1977. I started the year with a slightly better car, although it was still pretty run-down compared to many of my competitors. The car was owned and run by a colourful Irishman called Patrick Mulleady and it was yet another case of trying to do the best I could in a dilapidated old car. At one race I qualified on pole position but, coming round to the grid on the parade lap, the driveshaft broke and fell through to the ground. I was beside myself with anger. I had given everything to put that old nail of a car on pole and here we were losing a race we could have won because of bad preparation. We did win a few races that season with the car, but when eventually one of the wheels fell off while I was leading by over ten seconds, it was clear that we needed help to move forward.
I had started to get noticed by this point and I decided to try my luck and approach a man called John Thornburn, a manager who had a reputation for running a good race team. One day I walked into his office and said, âHello, my name is Nigel Mansell and before you throw me out I donât want money, I want help.â
I had bought a slightly better car, but it was still pretty worn out and I was anxious to get it prepared as well as possible. John said he would have one of his mechanics take a look at it.
The following weekend I got pole position and a win with it. I rang John up to thank him for his work and he was obviously stunned.