Those Lucky Pants
That’s pants in the British sense (underwear), not
the American sense (trousers). And they belong to Bob Berridge.
Driving
partners Gareth Evans and Peter Owen were keen (Bob Berridge –
“for the twentieth time”) to tell the story of the lucky
underwear at Paul Ricard recently, and at Spa last weekend, the
story resurfaced. However, although we don’t yet have an image
of the ‘offending item’ - that mission is still on the
job list – they did make a ‘brief’ appearance
at the post-race press conference at Spa.
Bob Berridge
allegedly wore his lucky pants for the first time at Oulton Park
in October 1984 – a race he won. He’s worn them every
time he’s raced ever since, so they’re now 21 and a
half years old…. and very worn (in the bottom area, allegedly).
In recounting
this tale to Dave Addison (at Spa, where David was providing the
English circuit commentary), one of the world’s greatest motor
sport ‘anoraks’ piped up with “I remember that
race – it was October 13.”
Now, how sad
do you have to be to remember the actual date of a race?
“I was
looking at the programme the other evening. I’ll scan it and
send it to you.”
So here we have
the programme from the first race for Bob Berridge’s lucky
underpants – Saturday October 13 1984. At this point even
the mighty Adipose needed to go back and check his facts. He knew
Bob had raced a Lotus 69 at about this time, and a double-check
revealed that the first win for the pants was in a pre-1974 Formula
Ford race, while Bob’s next win was at the same circuit on
March 23 1985, in the opening round of the new Formula E series
(in a Lotus 69). So that made it two out of two, and Bob’s
underwear has seen every race since.
The most recent
win was of course the LMP2 class in the Spa 1000 Kms, in the Chamberlain-Synergy
Lola B05/40 – recounted in full detail here last weekend.
Graham Goodwin couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask the
question at the post-race press conference, and Bob duly obliged
with a glimpse of just a ‘corner’ of the famous item.
Here’s
to many more wins for the pair of you.




PS:
Did you spot the driver of car no. 16, in the March 23 event? "The
March 23rd Formula E race was my first ever race meeting - car 16
- subsequently for many years to become 116. I think I finished
11th," adds Mike Newton. "Bob was one of the 'oldies'
even then!"
|