'I let out a guttural scream': Richard Meaden on the race that changed him

Returning to Cadwell Park was both a treat and a trip down memory lane, for I took part in my first-ever race at Cadwell, way back in 1993. I was working at Carweek magazine when the road test desk received a guest drive invitation from BP, who were sponsoring a ‘VIP’ Caterham in the then-new K-Series Roadsport championship. To my amazement neither of my esteemed colleagues, John Simister and Brett Fraser, seemed remotely keen.

In hindsight I suspect they knew better and could see how keen their young road test pup was to try his hand at racing. Up until that point I’d done a bit of indoor karting with mates, but nothing remotely serious, so I’d be racing a type of car I’d never driven before around a racetrack I’d never even seen.

> Should we worry about our kids becoming car enthusiasts?

Undeterred I arrived at Cadwell with my freshly printed MSA National B licence, buzzing with nervous energy but in blissful ignorance of exactly what I’d let myself in for. With no internet (Tim Berners-Lee had only just released source code for his curiously named ‘WorldWideWeb’) my preparation extended to buying a road atlas so I could find Lincolnshire. I’d already got my own crash helmet – a Simpson Bandit, don’t judge me – but had no other race kit, so ended up borrowing a ridiculously oversized Nomex suit from the kindly (and much taller) boss of the Hyperion Motorsport team that were running the BP guest car. Think ’90s-spec Jacques Villeneuve without the peroxide blonde hair.

There was a test day immediately prior to the race weekend, which helped me get a rudimentary feel for the Caterham and gain a working knowledge of where the track went. Jez – Hyperion’s Akubra hat-wearing chief mechanic – was an absolute genius, adjusting the Seven to flatter my ham-fisted efforts.

I couldn’t tell you where I qualified other than it was in the top ten. Having spent most of the morning sick with nerves, by the time we filtered out onto the track, completed a green-flag lap and formed up on the grid, I honestly felt like my head would explode.

Strapped in so tight I could barely breathe, hot and claustrophobic beneath my crash helmet and voluminous borrowed suit, I was completely overwhelmed. Surrounded by other Caterhams, engines holding high rpms in the roiling riotous few seconds before the start, the noise and barely contained energy remains the most visceral thing I’ve ever experienced.

If I could I’d have undone my harness and jumped out of the car, made like Forrest Gump and not stopped running until I reached the A1 southbound. But it was too late even for cowardly self-preservation. Instead, I let out a guttural scream to release the pressure. Then the lights went green and everything changed.

Like all Caterham races it was mayhem from start to finish. I got mugged in the first few laps, but eventually managed to locate, sharpen and extend my elbows. My overriding memory is of getting a good run on a car in front as we entered the back straight. I even began to pull alongside, only to realise in the split seconds before the braking zone that my strategy extended only as far as waiting until they braked before I braked. There was no Plan B.

My rival obviously subscribed to the same binary tactic. By some miracle there was no contact, and I even made the pass. But only because I scrabbled back onto the track quicker than they did. Hardly textbook, but strangely enough I wasn’t too bothered. I finished fourth and got the Caterham ‘Driver of the Day’ award, which was very lovely. Unlike the cheap bottle of bubbly that came with it.

Fast-forward to today and Cadwell seems even narrower than it did in 1993. Age does that to a man’s judgement. What hasn’t changed is the joy of driving a Caterham around this absolute gem of a circuit. If you’ve never driven either you really need to remedy that situation. Not necessarily in one hit, as I did, but both are absolute must-do experiences.

This story was first featured in evo issue 322.