“So I put the phone on the passenger seat. I was in a left-hand drive recce car that I used to have – a [VW] Golf which was just a left-hand-drive car – and so I pulled over into this lay-by and the conversation started.
“And Paul said, ‘Yes, so obviously it’s Paul Howarth from Prodrive, I’m just doing some junior driver profile updates and I’ve got a couple of holes on yours and I’m just wondering if you’ve got time to answer a few questions?’
“‘Yeah, no problem.’ So the conversation ensued.
“And at that point, once I knew who it was, the 30 seconds of realization of finding the safe spot to pull over, I can tell you now, the heart started racing. What the hell? What does Paul Howarth… because at that point, I’d said hi to him probably a few times through the service area. Hadn’t really had a conversation with him, but you know, as a youngster, you know obviously David Lapworth, Paul Howarth, David Richards were synonymous with Prodrive. They were the names. Just like Malcolm was and still is at M-Sport.
“And so my heart started racing before I even got onto the phone call proper, as it were. So yeah, he ran through a few questions, asked me a few details. At the end of the conversation, he said, ‘Don’t read into this phone call too much. I may be in touch in the future or I may not.’ So I said, ‘Oh, that’s fine. Absolutely no problem. If you need anything else, just give me a call’.
“So I put the phone down and by this point, my head is starting to spin. Suzuki are pressuring me because I had a one-year contract. Suzuki, literally for the previous two weeks before that phone call, are pressuring me to sign a contract. Suzuki wants a two-year extension for ’05 and ’06.
“I’m not even thinking there’s a WRC car opportunity coming on the horizon. So I’m thinking, ‘Wow, yeah, great. I’ve secured my opportunity.’ I didn’t really need money at that point in my life. I’ve secured an opportunity to drive a rally car for free for another two years. Get in! But let’s just make sure we can take a bit of advice and look at this in a bit more depth than previous years.
“So, for two weeks they’ve been pressuring me to sign this because we’ve ironed everything out. I’m just holding off, then I took this phone call, so I ring my dad straight away. I said, ‘Dad, I just had this phone call from Paul Howarth’. At that point, I probably needed to explain to my dad [who he was] because my dad was headlong into business.
“I gave him a word for word The driver Subaru wanted but couldn’t have DirtFish because he said, ‘Look, what did he tell you at the end? That’s the most important’. I said, ‘Dad, what did he mean by this? “Don’t read into it too much,” but why has he called me?’ He said, ‘Well, he’s just doing exactly what he said. He’s filling junior driver profiles. Obviously, you’re on the radar, and he’s just asking a few questions.’