I never got to meet John Webb. More’s the pity because I didn’t get the chance to say thank you. And there’s a lot I have to thank him for. But for Webb and all that he did at Brands Hatch and beyond, I probably wouldn’t be sitting at my desk right now writing about motor racing.
Brands, thanks to its proximity to my home through my childhood and adolescence, played a key role in firing my passion for the sport that became my living. (Close enough, I have always insisted, for me to hear the bark of a Cosworth DFV when Formula 1 cars were on track if the wind was in the right direction.) I was barely in my teens when I was allowed to go up to Brands unaccompanied. Those days watching everything with four wheels — and on one occasion two — that visited what will always remain for me the greatest circuit in the world are so important in my life story.
