Frank Falkner got me into racing way back when, he was my mentor who lived in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and was the father of my school friend. So, I think I knew Frank from when I was around 10 years old. To give him his proper title, it’s Professor Frank Falkner M.D., one of the world’s leading pediatricians. Originally from England, he was also a long time Formula One fan. When I was around 15 years old Frank moved first to Washington and then on to Berkeley. Like most teenagers, I had a battle with my parents, dropped out of school and moved to New York. A while after I moved, my parents contacted Frank and asked him if he could visit me, have a talk and generally get me back on the right track. I met with Frank and, over a beer, I told him I wanted to go racing. At this point, you have to bear in mind I’d never been to a race, never seen a race, but I’d read many of Frank’s Autocourse and Automobile Year books. Frank was also well known to many Grand Prix drivers, his best friend was Bruce McLaren, he’d raced Formula Junior, he was Cooper’s representative when the Cooper/Brabham project came to Indianapolis and he was an independent member of ACCUS (Automobile Competition Committee of the United States), so you can see he was very well connected in racing. Although reticent at first, Frank eventually said he’d try and help me achieve my dream.
Photo: Mike Jiggle
Frank called his good friends, Ken Tyrrell and Jackie Stewart and they both suggested I go to the UK and visit the Jim Russell Driving School at Snetterton. Jackie Stewart had said to Frank, “Let’s find out if the lad has any talent,” which was absolutely correct. Today, when people ask me how to get started in motor racing, I tell them to go to a school and see if they have any talent, or aptitude, for racing. The caveats being if Jim Russell said I didn’t have any talent, I’d return home and finish my schooling—that was a lot of motivation. To be honest, the first time I sat down in the car it was everything I wanted to do in life.
The first time I met Ken Tyrrell and Jackie Stewart was at the Questor Grand Prix at Ontario Motor Speedway. Ken said to me, “You’re coming over to the UK, why don’t you come over early and have a few days with me and Norah.” I did what he suggested and stayed with the Tyrrells. I remember being taken to a preview of a Jackie Stewart film being shown at the BBC. There were canapés, champagne and dignitaries every which way—a completely new world for me. Then we went to Silverstone for the non-championship F1 race where I met Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe. Colin flew me to Hethel so I could get to Jim Russell’s school at Snetterton. At that point, I’m just a wide-eyed kid from Kentucky thinking, wow, this is how things get done. While in the UK, in between racing for the Jim Russell School and getting my license, I lived with Ken and Norah and worked for the Bell & Colville garage, nearby at East Horsley. During that period, and most important for me, I was also used as a “gofer” for the Tyrrell team at a good number of Grand Prix races. I actually drove with Roland Law in the team transporter to different tests and circuits all over Europe, from Zandvoort to Monza. So, during this time I built up a great relationship with the team. My thanks have to go to Frank Falkner and his connections within the sport for putting me on the road to racing.
I’ll fast forward now to November 1982, when I got invited to a test at Paul Ricard, France, but not just me, also 10 others including Stefan Johansson, Beppe Gabbiani, Bruno Giacomelli and drivers like that. At the circuit, Ken gives me a contract. Tyrrell’s new sponsor Benetton wanted to try and penetrate the American market, so they thought I’d be a good choice of driver to have, but Ken wasn’t just going to take anyone just because they were American and suited the sponsor’s wishes. I waited all day and was the last to do the test. It gave me time to look at the contract, which was for three years and gave me $10,000 for the first year, $15,000 for the second and $25,000 for the third year, but I had to pay all my own expenses. I had taken my good friend and backer, Garvin Brown with me to the test. I told Garvin I couldn’t possibly sign the contract as I hadn’t got the kind of money required to pay my own expenses and the money I was going to be paid wouldn’t cover them anyway. Garvin said he’d help me out financially and I was to sign the contract, get in the car and do my best. I’d observed how all the other drivers had approached their test. They all asked for various things to be changed before setting off. So, it’s my turn, I get in the car and I start talking to Roger Hill, chief mechanic for Tyrrell, asking for this and that to be changed. He leant into the cockpit, took my hand and said, “Danny just drive the car.” I thought, okay, got it! The good news is every lap I did was faster than any of the other guys. I was consistent too.
Photo: Maureen Magee
My next date with the team was the 1983 Goodyear tire test at Rio, Brazil. It was a big test and there were five jumbo jets full of tires taken to the circuit. Ken wasn’t ever too specific about things. I really didn’t know what was required of me. So, I got to Rio a couple of days prior to the test to get acclimated and work out a little, ready to do what ever was necessary. Once again, I took Garvin with me. During my time at the circuit, I’d looked, learned and took in all I could. I’d walked around and watched various drivers take their lines through corners, I saw their braking points and where they picked up the throttle. I finally got in the car at 3 p.m. on the eighth day. I got a set of “B” spec tires, the race compound and the control tire for that day. After a few laps with the “B” spec tires I came into the pits and Ken gave me a set of used qualifiers, these were only supposed to be good for one lap. Michele Alboreto had used the tires, now they were on my car. I did my laps and was just a couple of tenths off of Michele’s pace—he’d had them from new. When I got out, Ken came up to me and said, “You’ve selected yourself,” he was a man of a few words, but it was then I realized I was going to be a Grand Prix driver.
My first GP was the Brazil race in Rio, the team was running Tyrrell 011 cars, which were almost two years old, but Maurice Philippe, our designer, was working on a new car, the 012, for the back end of the season. I qualified near to the back of the grid in 21st place, but was able to finish 11th. The Long Beach GP was next and I could have won that race. I was in front of John Watson (the eventual winner) and Niki Lauda in their McLarens and was pulling away from both when I had a problem, which meant me making a pit stop. I eventually finished just out of the points in 8th spot. In France, I retired with a clutch problem, but the Race of Champions, the very next race, was where I could have won too. I finished 2nd to Keke Rosberg in a Williams. It’s funny, Ken called me at the very last minute to race at Brands, I was in Los Angeles, so I didn’t arrive in England until the Thursday morning, I was a bit jet lagged. Just prior to the race, Ken kept sending me out, I didn’t realize what he was playing at, but it was before the days of tire warmers—he wanted my tires to be in good shape for the race. Keke’s were starting to fail and grain by the end of the race, that’s how I managed to catch him. Ken was a wily old fox.
From there on, the races began to get tougher and tougher, up against the turbo cars, we were scrapping for 6th place and a championship point, although Michele won on the streets of Detroit—Ford’s back yard. I remember Ken telling Benetton he was having Ford stickers on the noseband of the cars for that race—I think he was trying to pander to them, but it didn’t happen. Monaco, too, was a good race for me, finishing 5th. I was on the last row of the grid, it was raining and Ken sent me out on slicks!! I remember Elio de Angelis pointing to my tires, asking if I was crazy? Ken said, “Take it easy, it will stop raining.” It did, and I scored my first World Championship points.
I remember when I got my first taste of the new car in anger, at the European GP, the penultimate race of the season. Ken had put me in the 011 again, and I really had to fight my corner to get a car of the same spec as Michele Alboreto, who I appreciated was the number one driver, I got that, but I felt I deserved an equal car. I argued with Ken over dinner that night, he loved a “froth job.” In the end, he let me have the car. After the race he said, “You were correct, but I wanted you to fight for the car.”
Ken’s team was probably the best I ever drove for, it was a no nonsense team, which raced on a meagre budget and did a fantastic job, but he was of the “old school.” As time went by, many modern ways left Ken behind, he didn’t have the marketing, he didn’t have the presentation ability like Ron Dennis achieved and therefore lost ground with the sponsors. It was tough on him, but he kept going, it was his life, his passion.
Nearing the end of the 1983 season, at the European GP at Brands Hatch, Benetton had made noises that they wanted to back a team with a turbo engine and would seriously consider moving away from Tyrrell if he didn’t go down that route. On my part, I’d had talks with Brian Hart, whose turbo engine was doing very well in the back of Ayrton Senna’s Toleman. I remember talking to Ken too, it was in the BRDC suite at Silverstone, not the big place they have now, but the tiny place they had before. I told him with a little investment Brian Hart’s engine would serve him well. He wasn’t listening. In fact, I think he thought that Ford would bail him out, but history shows that never happened. Losing Benetton’s cash meant Ken could no longer afford to pay me. So, I went on to race in the U.S., a strange thing really, as I was considered a European driver. I hadn’t raced much in any American series to that point, the Indycar series was a whole new ball game.
As told to Mike Jiggle
