Roger ButtI was seven years old when John Pearce's 1967 Formula 1 car was unveiled at the London Racing Car Show in Olympia's National Hall. I remember the day well, but only because the news programmes were dominated by Donald Campbell's failed Water Speed Reord. I was transfixed by footage of Bluebird skimming across Coniston Water at 300MPH; the cameraman struggling desperately to keep Campbell's boat in frame. Despite the visual drama of Bluebird somersaulting, what left the greatest impression was Campbell's matter of fact live commentary of his own demise. I had found my first hero of motorsport. A few weeks later, as part of a classmate's birthday party, we were ferried to the cinema to see the film Grand Prix, in which I saw the J.A.Pearce Cooper-Ferrari on its debut race at Brands Hatch, but it was around 45 years later that I realised it, or even knew that the car existed. In 1978, a college friend encouraged me to start reading Motor Sport magazine and effectively introduced me to my second hero of motorsport, Denis Jenkinson. From that point onwards, it was DSJ's commentary on Formula 1 races that I anticipated far more eagerly than the BBC's coverage, and it was he who persuaded me in 1985 of the inevitability that the young arrivista Ayrton Senna would become my third hero of motorsport. In the cathartic moments which followed Senna's crash at Imola, when the unimagined became undeniable, the part of my identity that was my passion for Formula 1 was snatched away, and I felt no compulsion to prevent it. Happily, my love for motorsport was rekindled by going to Le Mans for the first time to see the return of MG to top level racing in 2001. Despite neither of the MG-Lola EX257 prototypes finishing the race, by the end of it I was hooked; the sheer scale of the event, its palpable historical significance, the speed differentials, the inevitable tragedies and triumphs as they unfold and the general bonhomie that permeates throughout. It's a place for heroes. Read More Read Less