Category Archives: Cotton Balls

Taking The World By Storm – Review

The endurance racing paddocks and media centres have been graced by a few during my time in the game, and disgraced by many as well. On the right side of the ledger is Michael Cotton who had been one the leaders of the pack till he took a well earned retirement. Another in that gang of the righteous is Malcolm Cracknell, one of the pioneers of reporting on the internet as it was known some twenty years ago. ‘Crackers’ has also been forced to take a step back out of the limelight but maintains a keen interest in the sportscar world. A few years back he decided to write a book, finally he has managed to publish it. The launch was last week, Mr Cotton was in attendance and now gives us his verdict. Go on buy it, you won’t regret it.

Fact or fiction? It’s called faction, and Malcolm Cracknell has served us a cracking blend of faction based on Laurence Pearce’s Lister Storm GT cars which challenged the might of Porsche, McLaren, BMW, Nissan and Toyota at Le Mans in the mid-1990s. Pearce becomes Larry Payne, his Paddock Princess wife Fiona is Frances, engine builder Ian Smith, who relates the story to Malcolm, is Smithy throughout, and the Jaguar V12 powered cars are Laser Strikes. You get the idea.

James  Weaver and Andy Wallace (who did not drive the Storm, they were in a Panoz) became James Wheeler and Arnie Wallis, joined by rookie Dane Allan Stevensen. The story has an authentic ring on almost every page. I can hear Laurence giving Smithy near impossible tasks to perform, targets to meet, insurmountable obstacles to be overcome, driving and cajoling the entire team through testing, qualifying and to the starting grid. Yes, he ran out of money, asked the crew to forego their wages until the end of June, but scraped through with sponsorship, though without the mythical wager that was said to put £4 million into the coffers, if the Laser Strike could finish in the top ten. I swallowed bits of the story hook, line and sinker. It was more than 20 years ago, I remembered episodes as though they happened the day before yesterday, but had to pinch myself to remember that Tom Kristensen was part of Joest Racing’s Porsche prototype team, and he damned well did win the race. Neither of the Storms, yes there were two in the race, even got to nightfall on Saturday, but let that not spoil a jolly good yarn.

Facts were plucked from the history of Le Mans, the Porsche’s seizing engine that just tottered over the line in 1983, Nissan’s missing luggage boxes, the works Porsche 911 GT1 catching fire in the closing stages, and the extraordinary shenanigans of the March-Nissan team, hell-bent on not winning Le Mans in 1986 (“a bun-fight of truly biblical proportions” said James Weaver, who was the target of several obstacles posed by the Japanese).

Place your £10 orders at www.world-by-storm.co.uk. Money well spent.

Michael Cotton, August 2019

Ps. Thanks to Andy Hartwell for the photo and Marcus Potts for the graphics…………..