Chapter 138

A true story from Smokeyjoe34

In 1984 the final local Australian Grand Prix held at Calder raceway, Victoria, before the first official Formula One was held in Adelaide in 1985, we had the pleasure of having F1 world champion Nicki Lauda as a guest driver, amongst others.

On the Saturday after practice, myself, my then 10 year old son, my girlfriend and 4 other flag marshals where walking through the pit area when we bumped into Nicki, of course we had to try to talk to him. He graciously stopped to have a quick chat with us. During this, one of the tv reporters tried to interrupt by sticking his microphone under Nicki’s nose. At this, he turned to the reporter and said “If you don’t mind, I’m talking to these people, if you don’t like it you can fuck off” (in an Austrian accent).

He then finished talking to us, (about 5 minutes), also getting down on his knee to talk to my son and signed his tee shirt, which he’s still got by the way covered in plastic, then thanked us for being there officiating and doing a great job, then said, “Now I’ll talk to this fucking idiot”, turning to the reporter.

Thanks for the memories, Nicki.