It’s me, Mark Stone, and in this episode of the Backseat Driver Podcast, I’m joined by Derek Daly, whose remarkable career has taken him from the highest levels of motorsport to life as an author, broadcaster, and motivational speaker.

Derek shares the unexpected story behind his autobiography, revealing how a chance conversation during a flight inspired him to put his extraordinary life into print. We look back at his journey from humble beginnings in Ireland to competing in Formula One, reflecting on the determination, setbacks, and defining moments that shaped his career.

We also discuss the realities of racing at the highest level, including the fierce competition, the serious accidents that tested his resilience, and the lessons he carried with him long after stepping away from the cockpit. Beyond motorsport, Derek talks about his life after racing, including his work as a television broadcaster and motivational speaker, as well as his innovative idea for a motorsport-inspired toothbrush designed to encourage children to look after their teeth.

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I'd like to introduce to the backseat driver a man, an incredibly successful racing driver, Formula one Indy le mans, who then went on to a fantastic radio and television career, had his own racing academy, designed a toothbrush and author, motivational speaker, and the man who has just written his own, his autobiography, which is a truly fascinating book, and it's definitely a warts and all.

I've never read an autobiography like this.

So without further ado, live from his home in America, where he now enjoys gardening, the one, the only Derek Daly.

Derek, welcome to the backseat driver.

Yep.

Thank you.

You sound like my marketing agent.

What, do you normally pay him?

No, I read in your book that the idea for the autobiography came from a chance conversation on a flight.

Is that true?

And what was it about that conversation that suddenly made you decide to write this unbelievable autobiography?

So, Mark, I'm in television broadcasting.

I'm flying across America.

I sit down beside a lady who I'd never met before, and we just strike up a normal type of conversation.

She starts to ask me questions.

The more answers I gave her, the more questions she had.

And at the end of the flight, which is about four hours across the country, say goodbye to her.

She leans over, puts her hand on my arm, and she says, I'm a publisher, and you need to write a book.

Now, I never thought that the experiences that I relayed to her during the flight because of our questions meant anything other than friendly conversation.

But she thought the experiences should have been captured because in her profession as a publisher, she said, if you don't capture these stories, they're lost forever.

And, Mark, sometimes you log something at the back of your mind that you don't have time for, but maybe down the road, you will.

That sat there for all those years as a possibility.

And it was only when Covid hit that I suddenly had a time block, and I thought, here we go.

I've waited all these years.

I'm going to capture some of the unbelievable experiences of life of which formula one was only a small part of it.

Yeah.

When you read the book, you realize that F1 really was a small portion.

You started racing.

The inspiration came from finding a van outside your dad's grocery shop near Dublin that belonged to a racing team.

I'm walking home from school.

I'm 12 years of age.

My dad had the local grocery shop, sold vegetables and groceries to all the neighbors.

And outside of the neighbor's house, there was a green British registered truck with Sydney taylor racing written on the side of it.

I go to my dad and I said, maybe there's a racing car in it.

And my dad says, the lady who buys her groceries, it's her brother, Sidney Taylor.

Yeah.

And at 7:00 clock that night, you can see the car.

We went back at seven o' clock, they opened the doors and here's a white Brabham BT8 sports car with an Irish shamrock on the door and a green stripe down the middle.

And that was the first racing car I touched, physically touched.

It was a big day for me and my dad said, I'll take you to see a race tomorrow in a small village on the outskirts of Dublin city called Dunbo.

Out we go to Dunbo.

Sat on the grass bank.

There was also a safety fence.

And the noise and the smell and the speed and everything about what I saw that day really set the career path, the life path, Mark, for the rest of my life.

Because I told my dad there and then, that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to do that.

Remember, we, we didn't even racing surrogate in Ireland at the time.

No.

But I told him that's what I'm going to do.

And little did I know the rest of my life will be consumed by the sport in all sorts of areas of interest.

Now, the one thing I've always known about Ireland, not so much racing, but Ireland is passionate, almost fanatical about rallying.

Did rallying not appeal or was it pure circuit?

The first thing I saw was circuit racing and that really was the big appeal to me.

I enjoyed rallying, but it never captured my interest the way racing did.

Road racing did never.

I don't think there's another driver out there that's progressed through the ranks with such success as yourself, is there?

I don't think so now, considering my background was nothing to do with competition or my family had no racing or competitive background at all.

Yet I ended up jumping from Formula Ford.

Now, Formula Ford is everybody knows the basic low first level learning entry category.

That's where everybody starts.

I ended up going from Formula ford to Formula One in 13 months.

Yeah, it's unheard of.

It's still a record today.

I believe that nobody's ever jumped from that low level to Formula one that fast.

Yeah.

What do you put it down to besides your own innate and inane skill behind the wheel?

So I was obviously born with a certain level of skill and I think I met key people at the right time in my career, and those key people gave me the opportunity to take the next step up the ladder.

But here's what I.

Here's when I look back on that mark, people can open doors for you.

The most important thing is that you walk through the door yourself.

Yeah.

And prove that you're ready for the next step.

I was able to do that.

I was able to go from Formula 4 to winning the F3 championship the following season.

As soon as I won that, I was thrown into a Formula 2 car and set fastest lap of the race at Estoril, the last round of the European championship.

And right after that, I was thrown into a Formula one car of Goodwood.

At all those steps, I was able to master it.

That's the key.

I never faltered.

My career never faltered until I was in Formula one.

But on the way up, never faltered.

Got the chance, grabbed it, made a success of it and grabbed another chance.

The one thing is, it's like when I used to race.

All of a sudden you find yourself away from home on your own.

How did you react to that?

To start with, I was, shall we say, I wasn't shy.

But after I'd done what I was doing, it was back to the hotel or wherever and be quiet and relax and everything else.

It seems strange not to be at home.

You say you're not shy.

I was shy, yeah.

I was very shy and introverted.

Moving away from home never cost to me, I thought.

I went to Australia in the end of 74 to be an iron ore miner for very chunk of money to buy a good Formula Ford.

And leaving home then never cost me a thought.

It was a normal route that you would take.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that never bothered me at all.

1976, When I moved to England, literally just to race as many times as I could.

Lived in an old tour bus that became a motorhome, a workshop.

And you didn't realize at the time, but, you know television, you'd know shower, you know, cooker.

Oh, you had a recanting Bunsen burner to heat something that you bought along the way.

Yeah.

But you never.

It never dawned on you that life was difficult because it wasn't.

It was a great adventure.

Yeah.

It's like you said, you've no shower nor nothing.

Probably like me.

It won't be the first time you've showered under a cold tap somewhere on the standpipe kept in the back of a car.

In your case, in the back of a van.

It struck you then, as nothing unusual did it?

It was the wealthy Boys who had the motorhome and everything else.

But most of us just got by like that, didn't we?

Yeah.

And that was normal.

People thought, what was the hardship like?

It wasn't a hardship.

It was.

It was normal.

You worked hard, you went after it.

And here's the thing, making it to Formula one, when I was coming up, Jackie Stewart and James Hunt and Niki Lauda, they were all out there as size of the sport, I can't tell you.

I cannot tell you that I said, oh, I'm going to be a Formula one driver.

But what I did promise myself was I was going to do everything in my power to give myself an opportunity to go as far as I could.

Yeah.

And however far that was, so be it.

But I didn't set out to say, oh, I'm good enough to be a Formula one driver.

No, I'm passionate enough to give myself an opportunity and work hard to go as far as I can in the sport.

And even if I have to borrow money, I had a lifetime to pay it back.

That was my mentality.

And it just happened.

It got me all the way to Formula one.

Now, back then, the teams, the team owners, the managers and everybody else were far more available and accessible to the public and to other drivers.

Did you find this a benefit that you could go to a race meeting and the team owners and the top drivers were there and you could go and talk to them?

To be quite honest, Mark, I didn't even know who they were.

I was so naive and I so shy, I'd be afraid to go talk to them anyway.

Yeah.

But I had Goebbels Horsley called me from Hesket one time and my heart started pounding them because I knew Burke Bubbles.

Horsley to me was a bit of a celebrity.

Yeah.

Guy to James Hunt.

I couldn't believe he was calling my phone number.

Maybe he got the wrong number.

He thinks I'm somebody else.

So I wasn't that good at promoting myself, but my results on track led to people calling me, which led to the steps that I was able to take.

Yeah.

And that's the one thing, unlike today's Formula one, where I won't name names, but they are sat in those cars because daddy has a lot of money.

Back then, okay, you needed money or you needed to find access to it, but it was more of a skills based thing, wasn't it?

Now if you've got something like 30 million quid in the bank, away you go and drive an F1 car.

Yeah, it was still the same back then, Mark.

People could get sponsorship and get themselves on the grid.

I think it might always be like that, but it's still to be successful in Formula one.

It was still the most difficult form of motor racing in the world.

It was the most challenging, the most difficult, the most technologically advanced.

Even in our day it was like that, just as it is today.

Yeah.

I think it's important to remember that their cars were nowhere near as sophisticated as they are today.

Yes.

A Formula 3 car was just a bigger, faster, wider, tired Formula Ford, except it had a monocoque.

Formula 2 was just bigger, faster again.

Formula 1 was just a bigger, faster Formula 2 car.

Yeah.

Normally aspirations six speed gearbox, monocoque chassis, fiberglass body.

So you just.

Everything just went faster.

Yeah.

So in a way it was easier.

But I think today's cars are so sophisticated, I don't think they're as enjoyable to drive as the cars we drove.

Formula one car is an hour day.

The harder you drove, the faster you went.

Yeah.

If you got the car sideways and you're prepared to hang on and hit the power, you could still go faster.

Today's Formula one cars, you get sideways, you go slower.

I miss that flamboyant style that you could have.

Still, in my early era of F1,.

You, I don't know whether you saw the Grand Prix or mainly the practice on over the weekend gone.

And you look at that.

The modern Coys do not like getting out of shape, as you said.

And this strikes me as why modern F1 is not.

But he's not spectacular.

It is, but it isn't.

And the drivers don't seem to exhibit the skills of the guys from your generation.

Somebody said to me, there's only one modern driver who could probably drive a Formula one car from your era and that's every chance to be in Verstappen.

Do you think your skill levels exceeded those of the modern drivers?

I don't know, Mark, if I say that the skill levels of a Verstappen is as high as anybody I've ever seen.

Yeah.

And.

But his skills are different also.

He's got obviously instinct, reflexes, just like we all had.

But now you have to think.

You have to think in a much broader capacity.

Like for example, in the race at the weekend, Russell was playing out the strategy of racing cars that were around Him?

Yeah.

Never mind.

Just his own car.

We didn't have strategy calls like you did today.

Essentially making a pit stop.

If you had to make a pit stop in my day, you're done, you're out.

But.

So we didn't have strategy that's added to the races like you have today.

Yeah.

When you came up against people, one of your teammates was Keke Rosberg.

When you were up against them, could you see that they were better?

Not being funny.

Don't take this wrong way.

Better than you or quicker than you or different to you.

Could you spot the names?

Could you see them and think, yeah, the guy is quick.

No, no, no.

Because remember, I raced with Gecki in Formula two for a couple of years.

They fought, by the way.

That's not to say you weren't as good as them, but you look.

No, I know what you mean.

I know what you mean.

Yeah.

But Kiki and our teammate at Macau.

Yeah.

And so I knew.

I knew how I ranked against him.

So when I was up against him at Williams and suddenly I was one and a half seconds slower than he was, there was something going on.

And the autobiography gave me an opportunity to detail that, to tell that story.

Yeah.

Because.

Because quite honestly, until I wrote the book, I never even looked into the story.

I never even researched as to what might have happened in my last year in Formula two.

That literally pushed me out of Formula one.

Yeah.

Until the autobiography.

And it was really interesting that my career was sabotaged to help Keke because for all the reasons that I detail in the book, it was a fascinating story, really, to unravel myself.

Yeah.

How did you find out about it?

Because I know you cut in the book.

It states that Rosberg had basically a quicker car.

I found out about it by researching all the lap times of the races.

Yeah.

And the lap times of qualifying.

And I was one point.

I was an average about 1 1/2 seconds slower than Kecky in qualifying.

Everywhere.

Yeah.

And so at a place like Brands Hackster, I knew there was nobody faster than me at Brands Hatch.

Yeah.

That is not an arrogant statement.

No.

I proved it in every category.

I proved it in my Grand Prix debut.

I loved the circuit.

I knew every inch of it.

Yeah.

There was Nobody 1 1/2 seconds faster than me, especially Keke Rosberg.

And yet that's what happened in qualifying.

So I knew there was a car difference.

I knew there was a lightweight car.

I knew there was an engine difference.

And it is what it is.

Life goes on.

And what I didn't realize at the time when I got pushed out of Formula one, I went to America, a whole new world of experiences opened up that were unbelievable.

That's the one thing I've interviewed people involved with Indian nascar.

NASCAR is almost a religion in America.

But as Indy cars, I get the feeling I might be wrong, that an Indy car is a simpler machine than a Formula one car.

It's more basic.

Yes, much more basic and much faster.

Yeah.

High speed oval track racing in America is a tingle in your fingers unlike any other form of racing in the world.

Europeans still don't understand it because the eye, you just turn left, you're going around, you're averaging 230 miles an hour with four 90 degree left hand corners every 45 seconds.

Yeah.

You're so on the limit and the danger level of it is so apparent that it makes it the most amazing form of racing in the world today.

It truly is.

And 350,000 people go to watch it live every year, making it the largest motor racing event in the world.

It really is unbelievable.

Yeah.

Now the Indy cars, besides the ovals, they do race a form of road circuit as well, don't they?

Yes, they do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very much like Formula one.

Not at the level of Formula one.

Yeah.

And the cars are nowhere near as sophisticated and they're much, much heavier.

You like four or 500 pounds heavier.

So they're a much slower car on a road course.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's, it's, it's a.

Definitely a level below Formula One.

Yeah.

Now looking at it, the road cars are the road circuit cars look to the uninitiated like a big F1 car.

The oval cars are offset, aren't they?

Yes, yes, A bit offsets.

And the cambers are offset obviously.

Much smaller wings.

Typical.

Just how to go faster.

Yeah.

Every car that will qualify for the Indy 500 will probably be doing straight line speeds of 235 miles an hour.

That's, that's honking along there when you're going, when you're going flat out into a 90 degree left hand corner.

Yeah.

And if memory serves, the IndyCar, you've to steer it in a straight line.

But it will, without being too, shall we say, rude, it will go around a corner on its own, won't it?

Yes.

You, you offset the cambers to the point where the, the car actually would crack itself around the corner.

Yeah.

And that, that the fastest way around a corner is for the car to automatically track itself.

That's the least amount of scrub.

Yeah.

So you actually hold the Steering wheel in a straight line down the street and literally release the pressure when you get to the corner and allow the car to track itself around the corner.

As soon as you have to turn the steering wheel, you're scrubbing the front and slowing the car down.

Yeah.

Is this a technique you had to get used to?

And if so, how long did it take you to get used to?

Because it's a completely different way than driving an F1 car.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

It's a different technique.

It doesn't take long to get used to it.

But it, but.

And there are drivers that become specialists as over track racing.

Like Rick Mears was a great specialist back in the day.

A great specialist.

Ari Lynde, believe it or not, from Holland.

He was excellently good at high speed.

High speed racetrack.

Yeah.

And it rather brings me on to the.

To the famous accident in many ways mentioned Derek Daly to somebody.

And it's got to be not being rude.

The most famous thing you're renowned for is the accident.

Monocle in Formula One.

Yes.

Yeah, sorry.

And writing the book, Marc gave me an opportunity to, in detail, bring somebody along the journey of that accident with me.

That was one of the reasons I wrote the book myself.

I didn't use a ghost writer because, Mark, I have an uncanny ability to recall experiences that fascinated me and experiences that were very dangerous.

Yeah.

And so I didn't want to use a ghostwriter because I could see it so clearly in my own mind.

Just putting in the one thing the Irish can do.

Tell a tale.

Exactly.

And so I want.

I didn't want to have the frustration of working with a ghostwriter when I could clearly see in HD video, slow motion the experiences myself.

So that's why I wanted to write them as I saw them.

Yeah.

And quite frankly, some of them are shocking.

Some of the photos.

You've seen all the photos now, Mark.

There are some of the photos in there that are shocking.

The photographs are actually in front of me.

The book's in front of me, and I'm looking at the sequence of black and white images of you crashing.

Yeah, yeah.

And so there was no video of my IndyCar accident.

But the, but the still shots that are in the book are quite shocking because by all rights, I should never have survived.

No, drivers can't survive accidents like that.

So to.

To survive it was.

Was one of the reasons why this book became known as Serial Survivor.

So many things happen both on and off the track that you're forced into survival mode.

That Serial Survivor was a name mark that sort of grew organically through all of those experiences.

When you started writing the book, did you start by writing about the accident and how much about the accident, or can you actually remember?

I can remember the Monaco crash in minute detail.

Yeah.

Right down to Mark.

I remember my car, the Turrell, standing on its nose, and I looked down at the ground and I laid a focus on the pebbles, the asphalt on the road.

I could see the pebbles of the road in clear focus because I thought the car was going to go forward and land on the roll bar.

Yeah.

And so the danger level went up.

And so I remember in clear detail now my IndyCar accident.

I only remember losing control of the car.

I remember prepping myself in the cockpit just in case I did hit anything hard.

Then I went unconscious.

And about two seconds before the car stopped rolling down off the banking with my legs dangling out the front of the car, I suddenly woke up again.

Yeah.

So there's about three.

There's about three or four seconds of my life missing, which never came back.

I often thought they might come back someday.

Yeah.

But they never did.

But the other experiences I remember in my mute, clear HD video detail, it is strange.

I can remember mine, and it's strange I found in an accident.

And it might sound strange, but life seemed to go in slow motion.

I've had that so many times.

Yeah.

And when the brake failed, the caliper broke the bottom wishbone.

And so I had no steering and no front brakes, and the car careened straight ahead into the guardrail.

In that three or four seconds, from the time that it broke to the time of impact, my life went before me in slow motion.

I saw my life in a video.

I saw myself and my brother running around Ireland when we were five years of age.

I saw my mother sitting by the fire in Dublin when the phone rang to tell her that I was killed at Zandvoort in Caroline.

I literally saw all that unfold before I ever had impact.

And what happens is, I realized afterwards what happened.

In times of grave danger, your brain processes information at a much faster level.

That's why it slows down in your own mind.

That's why you visually see it in slow motion, because your brain is processing so rapidly.

That does explain something, because I'd often wondered why you Think it's strange.

Is this because I'm doing this afterwards?

You think I'm doing X number of miles per hour life is going on at the space it was doing.

Why all of a sudden, have I mentally slowed down?

But believe it or not, I've had that happen during qualifying sessions and during races.

Sometimes we call it.

Technically, I call it being in the zone where in a qualifying lap you're going faster than you've ever gone before, but it feels slower.

Yeah.

Because your brain has.

You've gone into that subconscious zone where you make decisions faster than you can think.

Yeah.

That's the sub D zone, the subconscious zone.

And people like Ayrton Senna, I'm sure, had access to that way more than any other drivers I had.

I had access to it, but not as often as a Senna had.

Yeah.

And I can remember situations like that slows down and it's physically way easier than it ever was before.

And the other thing I noticed at times was you mentioned, like, a subconscious thing.

You will correct a car coming out of a corner and you don't realize you've corrected it.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That's just natural.

If you have to think about what you have to do, it's way too.

You're too late.

Yeah, I know.

Sometimes I thought, bloody hell, I caught that.

Well done.

Anyway, now, just.

So I'm glad you read the book.

What were the surprising pieces here?

Because people that read this are shocked that they never heard some of the stories that are in there.

Like my time in Australia on the drugs.

Did you think it was a bit of a shocker?

No, because that was at an era when people did it.

I'm not being funny, I've never been tempted.

But that was at an era and a time when people took drugs.

Especially if, as, like you said in Segway, it helped you to work or helped you to relax on what was apparently a backbreaking job.

And for me, it was just curiosity.

Yeah.

My partner was a drug addict and said, oh, this will make you feel great.

You know, me being naive, which I should never have done, said, okay, give me a go.

And that.

That could have killed me.

Because that's.

People who do that these days with the strength and drugs they have these days do die.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Isn't able to withstand it.

I conclude the experience made it that you didn't want to do it again.

No, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And unfortunately.

But unfortunately, I got hooked on opioids after my big accident in America.

Yeah.

And that's all detailed in the book also.

And really it's.

I'm glad it took me three and a half years to write this, Mark.

But I was so glad I put the effort in because now it's captured forever.

Yeah.

Now when I'm dead and gone, my grandkids say, what did my granddad do for six decades after this?

1960S.

It's all there.

Yeah.

And if I want anybody to take anything from this, I was naturally hardwired to be a risk taker.

Yeah.

But I would love this book to be a sort of a mentor in print.

You know what I mean by that, Mark?

Yeah.

I want people, I want dreamers like me to be able to read it and say, wow, as difficult as it was, there is a way to keep going forward.

There is a way to survive, no matter what happens.

That's the main message I want this book to leave with people on the.

One experience, regrettably, nobody will ever be able to repeat.

You were able to do it.

I was able to do it on about four occasions.

Was to be in the company of the one, the only, Colin Bennett.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Oh, yes.

Colin was such a great man.

Sorry.

85, After my injuries, I was in therapy for almost three years.

Yeah.

And eight months after my big accident, I could hardly walk to a racing car, but I could drive one.

Yeah.

Driving.

Walking to a racing car was more difficult than actually driving it because driving up with non weight bearing on my damaged feet.

And Colin Bennett taught that whole team together.

You had a group of guys from England, brought engineers, brought himself, brought the character, the quirky character that he was, brought his comedic input at times, when necessary.

All because of the effort Colin Bennett put in.

And I was sad to see that he's no longer with us.

Yeah.

Also, and you'll agree with this, I think Colin Bennett was the only man I ever knew who could outswear an Irishman.

He's.

And we love them bars.

Now, the other thing I noticed you make a comment early on, but the cars you would have loved to have raced were things like Ford GT 40s and things like that.

And they're the cars that if I'm at an historic event, I love to watch what you would call the proper old big banger sports cars.

Have you ever had the chance to drive any of.

No.

I built a Cobra Myself during my recovery from the accident, just for the fun of it.

And it was absolutely the most dangerous thing I'd ever driven.

It had so much horsepower, wheel spin than almost any gear.

But yeah, the romantic in me.

If I had a choice, I would have rather race in what I call the slip and slide era.

Yeah.

Cobras, Ford GT 40s, those type of sports cars and early 70s, mid 70s, Formula 1 cars that had the big rear tires, the big air boxes, the suspension that bounced up and down.

To me that was still romantic era of racing.

Yeah.

Mine was the high downforce, stiff suspension, brute force grip, which, you know, wasn't quite as enjoyable a character race.

Yeah.

Now I noticed because you went on to drive some endurance sports cars, didn't you?

And Le Mans, et cetera.

Did you enjoy it?

I loved it.

I was so fortunate that the, the last seasons of my career was in sports car racing.

If I would, if I wanted to come to England to do a test.

Everything went well, went with Tom Walkinshaw.

And that was when he said, and this was all in the book, he said, when he gathered all the drivers together, he said, I want you to drive this thing as hard as you can possibly drive it without abusing any piece of it.

Yeah.

That was when I knew we were expected to drive this car flat out.

Because sports cars, the 956 and the 962 had become so reliable that the old days of 24 hour racing being raced for two hours, cruise for 20 and race for the last two were over.

Now you drove these things flat out for 24 hours.

And so I had a great time in the Jaguar and that led me to the Nissan GTP program in America, which quite frankly was the biggest and best sports car program in America.

Jeff Brabham was my teammate and I ended up doing two and a half years, I think in that.

And that was where I ended my career as a race winner on top in sports car racing.

Walked away and I already had a television broadcasting career well established.

So it was the perfect situation for me to end my career behind the wheel.

Now you brought the TV side up.

I used to do TV in France and Germany and I was told, and it purely came about by chance because of One of the 9 11s I was driving.

I didn't speak French, I didn't speak German.

And they said, don't worry, we'll just Overdub you or subtitle they said, but because of what you're driving, won't tell you.

And that turned into nine years worth.

Somebody said to me, they said, racing drivers are natural talkers and the Irish are natural talkers.

Did you find being Irish and being a racing driver helped you considerably with your TV career?

Yours was far more successful than mine was.

Believe so.

Yes, Mark, I do believe so.

And I was in a wheelchair about, only about four months after my accident when I did a television.

I did a television interview with espn.

ESPN was our biggest sports broadcaster in America.

Yeah.

That television interview turned into a 10 year contract.

He had a call a week after my interview and said, Derek, would you like to do color?

I said, sure.

Do you know, Mark, I had absolutely no idea what I agreed to.

I'd never heard the term color before.

I wasn't familiar with American television vernacular.

But ESPN were going to pay me to talk about racing while I'm in recuperation.

It was a gig perfect.

And so I jumped straight in.

With no formal training, I had very good executive producers who would guide me and tell me, hey, this is what you should do.

But I found it very easy to be able to watch, talk and listen all at the same time.

Watch what's on the television, talk about it, listen to what the producer says in your ear and be able to multitask like that.

I found that relatively easy and I loved it.

I actually had a bit of, a, bit of an adrenaline rush on live television.

A bit like I felt in the car.

Yeah.

And so I was able to bring a bit of energy and excitement to television.

And so without any formal training, I developed another 24 year career.

It was unbelievable.

And some of the stories in that was incredible.

Yeah.

Not being funny, very much like the late great James Hunt.

He was in my opinion the ultimate F1 commentator.

Absolutely fantastic guy.

Exactly.

And he was there, been there, done that.

And I became a similar, used a similar model to what he was doing in America and it went down great.

They loved it.

Yeah.

Now you also had your own racing academy, did you not?

I did.

I'm always up for a bit of a project.

And when they built the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it was a $200 million facility on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

And I was out there one time and I saw that they had a racing school on the board but nobody to fulfill it.

They hadn't done a deal with anybody.

And I thought that would be an interesting project because young drivers and I had a passion for.

But I thought Las Vegas is the perfect place because of the conferences that you could run a racing school and do corporate events, which is basically what Jonathan Patter were doing in England.

And so I had an investor who had already told me if you want to do a business investment, I'd like to do it with you.

And so we built a racing school.

It was called Derrick Daly Academy.

I was the first one to call racing development program Academy.

Everybody now used and we ran it for oh, 10 years in Las Vegas.

Had a great time unfortunately exposed when the, when the, the crash of 08, I think was it 08 or 07 when Vegas literally closed down all of its corporate events because of the financial crash and the derritaily academy was interposed.

Now you also designed a tooth Brook.

What inspired you to design a tooth?

It is in the book, I'll tell you.

I know it's in the book, but it's got to be asked.

Tell you what, Mark, I've never been asked that question.

There you go.

This is unique.

So I'm always thinking of different things.

I'm always scheming wild things.

And I realized that maybe I could take two industries and combine them to be beneficial.

Yeah.

And I knew, I knew that one of the big problems mothers had getting kids to brush their teeth was just getting them to do something.

I didn't want to do it yet convinced tell them stories.

And so I thought if you had a kid that's interested or has a favorite racing driver here, let's say, and he enjoys that particular car and what if that favorite racing driver had about won some races and there was a great commentator call of about 20 seconds or 25 seconds of him taking the checkered flag.

I said what if he could pull that television commentator a favorite race winning call and have that run for 25 seconds which is about enough to brush your teeth.

Wouldn't that be an attractive way for a child to have his favorite racing driver sitting on the sink every night and when he's picked up the toothbrush, suddenly the call of that great race room would start and he wouldn't end brush on his teeth until his favorite driver took the checker flag.

I thought it was an amazing idea.

And so I called Mario Andretti's manager, John Capanegro.

Yeah.

I said because I knew John knew a guy called Don Levine who was GI Joe.

Have you ever, have you heard of GI Joe?

Yes.

The figurine?

Yes.

All over the world they heard of GI Joe.

GI Joe's dad was Don Levine.

Mario.

Mario Knew Don Levine.

And so I got onto Mario's manager, John Capanegro.

I said, can you introduce him to Don Levine?

I told him what my idea was.

He thought it was a great idea.

Yeah.

Asked me to come and meet him in his home, said he would design it, the final design.

He would take it to his factories in China, produce it.

And right after the prototype, which is pictured in the book, right after the prototype, the planes crashed into the World Trade center on 9 11.

And so suddenly, Don Levine put off every project he was working on because everybody wanted the New York Fire Department and the New York Police Department figurines like GI Joe to be produced.

And that was the big sell point.

And everything else got put on hold, including my racing toothbrush.

And I'm just.

It's just one of those quirks of timing that was unfortunate.

But it was a great project.

And I just thought it'd be interesting to throw it on there in the book to.

Just to see how my fertile mind operates at times and how something like that almost came to being.

Now, the only thing you do is a lot of motivational speaking.

Is it something you still do?

I still do it.

I love to do it.

Yeah.

I don't do it as much as I did because I.

Quite frankly, Mark, I don't want to cable as much.

But I found it interesting that the admired skills of the world's great racing teams can be transferred into corporate culture.

Yeah.

And all I am is a storyteller.

I in front of corporate America.

In fact, I do it across the globe.

Now, I was in England just two weeks ago for one of the largest name brands, Pepsi, in the world.

And I enjoy being able to storytell and being able to bring corporate decision makers into my world, into the world of Formula One, into the world of the Indy 500, and explain to them how people operate right on the edge of what might be possible.

Yeah.

And corporations can do the same thing if you emulate the model of motorsports that is Formula One and the Indy 500.

And they love it, and I love to do it.

And to think, Mark, after all these years from that day when I was 12 years of age walking in my neighborhood to see Sydney Taylor's van, all these years later, I'm still immersed in the sport.

I can still use it to influence corporate America.

What a gig.

Yeah, some of those things.

It's like you said, decision making.

When you're behind the wheel of a racing car, your decisions are taken in less than a second, aren't they?

Yeah, yeah.

How to operate on the edge of what might be possible.

Yeah.

How to make quick decisions with limited information.

All the admired skills of the world's great racing teams and I simply storytell and I allow them to understand what that model looks like and hopefully they can employ similar decision making, similar models, similar business model to become more successful than they ever were before.

Now the other thing is like I said at the introduction, one of your hobbies now is gardening.

But I know you stop racing.

Do you miss it?

No.

I never had the yearning to go back.

Did it at a high level.

Loved it.

But I'm a focused forward person.

Hardwired to be a risk taker.

But I'm very much a focused forward person.

The next chapter of my life.

And I got to a point where when I began to slow down, I enjoyed Mark being at home.

I loved being at home.

I loved being out in the front garden.

I loved growing flowers, I loved creating designs.

I live between Indianapolis now in the summertime and Phoenix, Arizona in the winter.

Yeah.

I love doing both things in each home location.

And I just.

Some people like to have wineries and stuff like that.

I didn't.

I like the simple things of looking after gardens front and back and growing flowers and shrubs and bushes.

Yeah.

And one question I always ask all racing drivers.

What's your daily driver?

What do you drive around in?

I have a couple of things in Indianapolis.

I have a boat so I need something to tow the boat.

I have a Toyota fj.

Do you know what they are?

Is that the big fa?

Yeah, it's a four wheel drive.

Yeah.

I also have what they call a Chevrolet R. Oh yeah.

Yeah, and six.

I think I have one of those in Phoenix.

I have a Corvette C8.

You know what a Corvette C8 is?

You know I saw the racing Corvette, the mid engine Corvette.

Yeah.

But they race at IMSA now.

I have a road going version of that.

So do you still like to get your foot down?

No, not at all.

I don't.

I don't.

I seldom ever get onto a racetrack anymore.

I've been to Goodwood twice.

I really enjoyed Goodwood.

I'd like to do Goodwood again.

Yeah.

But not in anything that I would term as being fast.

I would never race historic race of a Formula one car or a sports car.

I just don't have an interest and Quite frankly, Mark, I'd be afraid.

I'd be afraid.

I wouldn't want to take the chance to get hurt again.

I got hurt so badly, I wouldn't want to risk that happening again.

So now you enjoy a reasonably quiet life.

Have you any more books in mind?

Remember, that was when Vilna was killed.

Yeah.

Pe Roney's career ended passing me at Hockenheim.

Paletti's life ended in the Canadian Grand Prix.

So the turbo cars came on hot and heavy.

I might do that if it's as.

Good as your biography.

Autobiography.

Great for anybody who's not interested, who missed my online review.

It's called Derek Daly, Serial Survivor.

And it is by Everell Publishing.

And you've just enjoyed a phenomenal book tour with this, haven't you?

Yes, it was really good and it's surprisingly interesting.

People sometimes, you never know, what will people think?

Will they like it?

But I presume, I think you know, that the publisher nominated my book for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.

Oh, yeah.

I was.

I was shocked that they thought that highly of it.

And also it's been nominated as for the RAC Motoring Book of the Year.

I'm pretty jazzed that people have enjoyed reading it and coming along the journey with me.

And it's deliberately honest, Mark.

It's deliberately blunt.

It's actually.

It's frighteningly honest and it's deliberately raw.

Yeah.

Because, Mark, I want you to come on the journey with me.

That's why it's raw and honest and blunt.

And so, for example, you know the picture of this, of the golden Mercedes that's destroyed, that killed my best friend.

Yeah.

Nobody ever saw that picture until this book.

Gary Gibson, who was my best friend, was driving that car.

He got killed.

His wife never even saw the picture until it was in the book.

And she was shocked, as other people were.

The reason I put it in there is I was shocked when I saw the car.

I want you to be shocked when you see the picture.

I want everybody who knew him to be shocked, because I want you to come on the journey that I was on when I saw that crashed car for the first time that killed my best friend.

Yeah.

And the other advice I've given to people I know, a couple of people who've bought the book, I have two other people who want to borrow it.

I said, when you read it in an Irish accent, I said, it will actually add to the enjoyment and you will truly understand how an Irishman thinks.

I can't say I've heard anybody say that, Mark, that's great.

I was once told that by a great late friend of mine who used to edit my work.

He said, I read your words with a Lancashire accent.

He said, all of a sudden, they make far more sense.

Yeah.

Derek Daly, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you.

Thank you so much for joining me on the backseat driver.

I know you're extremely busy and there have been and will still be a queue of journalists and presenters waiting to talk to you, but once again, Derek Daly, thank you very much indeed, sir.

Thank you, Mark.

My pleasure.