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!"