Have you ever seen footage of a Jaguar XJ220 racing series? I recommend it if you haven’t.
Called Fast Masters, it was run in 1993 in the US as a way of building the Jaguar brand there – and, helpfully, it occupied some of Jaguar’s supercars, which after the recession of the early 1990s weren’t exactly leaping out of showrooms.
(Some people who ordered them, finding themselves suddenly cash-strapped, walked away from their deposits rather than buy the finished article.)
Jaguar and broadcaster ESPN attracted mostly retired big-name drivers in the US and invited them to race in this one-make series. The XJ220 wasn’t designed as a race car and didn’t seem to become much less of a handful when race-prepped.
The series was nicknamed Crash Masters and remains a great watch.
It remained a single-line entry in my notes app throughout 2024, worthy of mention in a column but apparently not so worthy that I could big it up to 700 words of its own, so it sat there neglected.
But, as ever, I’m keen to empty my notes for the new year, so here it is. See also a single-line entry: ‘Paula Radcliffe Way’, which is a bypass near Bedford named to celebrate the area’s famous world-champion runner.
Amazing to have something named after you, I’d have thought, notably when you’re alive and can still enjoy it. Most things named after people only get so once they’ve died.
But I wonder: how does any celebrity in question feel about it if it’s scruffy or neglected, as is likelier with a road than, say, a bridge or a race-track corner or a stadium? Would you feel hurt to see it strewn with fast-food packaging? Would you organise a litter pick?
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