Retirement: it’s a dirty word for racing drivers

Why are we always so keen to skip to the end? Once racing drivers hit a certain age, typically around their mid-to-late-30s, it’s so often tempting to start asking them about their plans for the r-word: retirement. In my experience with racers, it tends to trigger a response akin to saying ‘Voldemort’ out loud in Harry Potter’s world: there’s a shudder, a sucking of teeth, perhaps even an involuntary twitch of the eye.

They don’t want to talk about the end, they don’t want to even think about it. C’mon, why would they? For the majority who toil in the mundanity of the real world, retirement is a sunny horizon. But if you are one of the privileged few who can actually make a living driving racing cars as fast as possible… why would you want to give it up?

Yet still we ask them, because it’s only natural for every story to have a conclusion. And even on the phone you can hear them tighten. Some of them even struggle to say the word.

This year, in the (mostly remote) conversations I’ve had with older racing drivers, retirement seems to have become something of a running theme. Perhaps that’s down to the generation I grew up with having made it far beyond the age when racing drivers tended to call it a day. We’re no longer talking about mid-30s here, but at least 10 years further on.

Off the top of my head, I’ve had the ‘what next’ chat in some shape or form this season with Andy Priaulx (46), Johnny Mowlem (51), Darren Turner (46), Peter Dumbreck (47) and Oliver Gavin (48), the latter just last week.

They’re all still pressing on because racing is all they really know, they’re all in good shape because they look after themselves a damn sight better than most of us… and most crucially they’ve all still ‘got it’. But they’ve all got kids too, some of whom are grown up and have already fled the nest. It seems natural to ask them what’s on their mind for the future – even if it does make them uncomfortable.

Gavin’s response last week was typical of the breed and offered an insight into why he’s been so successful over a career that spans a remarkable 30 years. That’s a lot of flights, hotel rooms, race starts, chequered flags and debriefs.

At the pandemic-delayed Sebring 12 Hours earlier this month, he officially concluded his full-time racing career with Corvette, which stretches all the way back to 2001. It was an emotional weekend, both for the Gavin family and for the Pratt & Miller team that clearly thinks the world of him. But when I spoke to him, he pointed out he’s not completely done yet when it comes to racing Corvettes.

He couldn’t tell me when, where or how often, but the 1995 British Formula 3 champion still looks set to make some appearances in the mid-engined C8.R during 2021 – and naturally, he steered me away from the r-word.

“Retirement is not a word I’d use,” he said. “I call it the next chapter. It is a funny thing making the transition from being a competitive sportsman and understanding there is far more of your career in the rear-view mirror than there is out the windscreen. My wife would say that’s been the hard thing I’ve been battling with the last six months, and I’m still trying to figure it out. To stop after so many years of focus… all of a sudden to stop and have nowhere else to channel your energy, it’s very strange.”

Gavin would readily accept he’s lucky to be in a position to wind down rather than be forced into an abrupt halt. Some, like Dario Franchitti, don’t have that choice. In 2013, the Scot endured his ‘big one’ in an IndyCar race in Houston, sustaining injuries that forced him into immediate retirement.

Looking lost is perhaps a little strong, but in the years after the shunt it was obvious that Franchitti was grappling with the prospect of finding a new direction in his life. Initially he never thought he’d race anything again, but with huge relief has at least now found a happy outlet for his addiction in historic motor sport.

Others, most famously Jackie Stewart and Jody Scheckter, walked away by choice at the top of their game and never raced again. Stewart was 34 when he quit as world champion at the end of 1973, Scheckter just 30 when he walked down the nose of his awful, obsolete Ferrari 312T5 in ’80, a year after winning his title. But they raced in a far more dangerous era in which motor sport robbed them of far too many friends and colleagues.

Self-preservation was a far greater factor then than it ever is today. And even then, Scheckter struggled to leave it alone more than it might have seemed. He’s admitted there was temptation when Renault offered him a ‘money-no-object’ deal to race on and at first, he dabbled in race promotion, even looking into setting up a global series in the style of the old International Race of Champions (IROC), before he headed to the US to set up what was ultimately a hugely successful defence training business. But it was a hard transition going from being a ‘somebody’ to a ‘nobody’.

“I always said I went from first class to stand-by in one year,” Scheckter told me in 2013. “When we went over to the States we started in a hotel that didn’t even serve breakfast. Then we lived in a small apartment in Hilton Head, South Carolina, then on to Atlanta. Nobody knew my background. I would go to a show to talk about my idea and while I was talking to a guy, he’d just turn around and walk away. I was there with my cashmere jacket, which in those circumstances was completely out of place.”

No wonder most successful racing drivers do their best to stick with what they know. And for every Scheckter or Nico Rosberg, another who looks unlikely ever to drive competitively again, there’s a Jenson Button, who has made it clear that even with 17 F1 seasons behind him and the 2009 world title in his pocket for the rest of his life, he’s still not had his fill.