There is a scene in the film Rush where ‘James Hunt’ wins the 1975 Dutch Grand Prix with his team boss watching on in glowing satisfaction.
Lord Hesketh remembers the original scene. He had achieved his ambition of seeing a Team Hesketh car “crossing the winning line with two Ferraris in the background”.
“The film was quite true to life” he once told me, “but the girls were much more attractive in reality.”
Team Hesketh only survived five years in the multi billion pound Formula One industry dominated by huge corporations. (To put the finance into perspective – Lewis Hamilton’s annual salary and bonuses could buy the entire UK greyhound industry a couple of times over.)
But in that five year buccaneering period, the one-time Chairman of the Conservative Party gave a young playboy driver, who had a reputation for crashing cars on the track, without actually holding a driving licence, the chance to further his career and eventually become a world champion.
Australian Alan Jones also used Team Hesketh as a stepping stone to world titles.
Given those odds and costs, you can understand why the Towcester promoter was less than fazed by dark tales of foreboding when the Northamptonshire racecourse decided to become a greyhound stadium in November 2014.
Nobody in their right mind opens a greyhound track!
A couple of years on and Hesketh and his charismatic Chief Executive Kevin Ackerman (Team Hesketh was built on spotting and nurturing outstanding young talent) would admit to having made mistakes.
Wrong advice was something taken and mistakes were paid for as other racecourse promoters rolled their eyes knowingly.
In hindsight they might have cloned the best greyhound circuit in the world instead of listening to ‘experts’ and attempting to create one. They might have managed their racing strength differently.
But they got so much more right than wrong. Towcester’s spectator facilities are superb. They offer huge prize money, they engage with their trainers, and are prepared to take on some of the major racing fixtures that no one else wants to accommodate.
And when the Big Brother Bookie informed Hesketh that he should dumb down his racing or else . . . he was metaphorically escorted off the premises.
To take on the might of Ferrari and McLaren you need barrowloads of self belief and Alexander Hesketh exudes that spirit of dashing aristocratic Britishness that 200 years earlier might have been claiming a new colony for king and country, or charging into Sevastapol on a white steed.
But there was nothing reckless about this venture. Team Hesketh saw a different opportunity in greyhound racing. As they approach their second birthday, they are about to roll out their new prototype.
On Saturday Towcester stage their first morning fixture. No deals have been announced – but you can bet your best ermine that somewhere the ink is drying on a parchment in a solicitor’s in-tray. Possibly, more than one document. . . and the timing could not be more opportune.
The current BAGS/SIS battle is coming to a head. It could, if it went septic, cost the industry probably half of its remaining 24 tracks. So many tracks have tied their futures into one organisation and many could be gone by January.
Towcester isn’t in the ‘bookmaker owned’ camp or even part of the new media group. Instead, they have looked to engage different partners and offer the digital age betting industry, at home and abroad, a broadcasting alternative to SIS/BAGS.
There will be a line of promoters insisting that it won’t work. But what if it does?
While current thinking is that greyhound racing’s main role is to provide filler for betting shops, Towcester are thinking bigger.
Fundamentally, they believe in the core product. (There would be a lot of first-time racegoers who would agree with them).
Hesketh and his team can see a product that is tailor made for gambling from the home, office, and all points in between. It is far cheaper than horse racing, and easier to follow and manage.
Technology now makes it easily deliverable and nobody disputes that on-line gambling is the future of the betting industry.
Compared to that famous day in January 1975, this is an easier race to win.
