More Irwin memories

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Sir,

Thank you for the article about Chris Irwin in your March edition, and thank you also to Mike Gardener (Letters, April 2003) and the many people from all over the world who read it and took the time and trouble to send me a message. And I see I have popped up again, in the Keith Greene interview. All this fame could go to my head!

Poor Keith, he was well and truly lumbered with a snivelling stranger after Chris’s accident at the Nürburgring. I do recall Frank Gardner, who was driving the other car, coming to the hotel in Bonn and, in an effort to distract me, offering to race anyone who cared to challenge him in swimming across the Rhine. Luckily no-one did.

But to paraphrase Mr Dickens, it was the best of times as well as the worst. Chris knew exactly what he was doing and would not have changed it for the world.

I watch today’s drivers swanning around the world, and while I envy them for their money, they don’t look as though they have half the fun we did. I can think of several additions to your ‘100 Things That Made F1 Great’ (April 2003), but enough of wallowing in nostalgia.

I am, yours etc,
Loti Irwin, Staines, Middlesex