Special Feature

How to Get a Formula One Ride

Steve Natale

Canadian Bill Brack was running a Lotus 41 in 1968, as well as the “Hot Wheels” Mini Cooper, and I acted as his sponsor-hunter and team manager. The toy company Hot Wheels was our sponsor. We did displays introducing the new products all across Canada, in fact we basically introduced the Hot Wheels line of miniature cars in Canada. All we had was a couple of college students working for us and a station wagon. The college students would set up the Hot Wheels display. None of this would have happened without the support of the then-president of Mattel who was an English guy and a car nut. There were Hot Wheels contests where we would set up ramps and have races toward a championship. After all these events, we declared a champion and had the champion come to the Canadian F1 GP at St. Jovite, courtesy of Mattel and Bill’s Lotus Canada operation and dealership, Sports Cars Unlimited, to meet the winner’s heroes.

Phil Lamont

Main Topic Hubs

Join The Community

Become A Member

 

Members only$29 / year

Keep going. This is where it gets good.

Supercars.net Membership is for people who'd rather know the spec sheet by heart than skim ten headlines. The rest of this story — and every other one like it — is a few seconds away.

  • Thousands of members-only stories

    Deep dives, driven reviews and the full archive back to 2005.

  • No ads. None.

    The whole site reads like a magazine, on every device.

  • Every car, every spec

    Twenty years of models, numbers and history in one place.

  • 30% off the shop

    Every Supercars.net shirt and piece of merch, all year.

Join Supercars.net — Keep Reading

$29 a year. Cancel anytime, no hoops.
Already a member? Sign in

BY CAR PEOPLE, NOT A NAMELESS MEDIA COMPANY. Your membership keeps a small independent team that celebrates the brands and cars that defined this industry doing this.

Join — Keep Reading $29/yr