Driven To Crime: True stories of wrongdoing in motor racing

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When Goodwin flew in from America, where he had been racing at Sebring, and topped the official pre-season testing sessions at Silverstone, spirits were high and Spires said: ‘It couldn’t have gone better. We now have a true pro-am [professional-amateur] line-up but I think we can win races.’ As Goodwin’s international career was in the ascendency, this wasn’t a drive he needed or even particularly wanted, but he accepted it on the basis that it would do him no harm, keep him race-sharp and reward him with, in his words, ‘a crazy amount of money’. There are, and yes I’m going to say it, the usual suspects: Nelson Piquet Jr and Crashgate, drug-running John Paul Sr and Jr, Spygate, Jean-Pierre van Rossem who bought the Onyx F1 team before his dubious Moneytron firm imploded (he later bought a refrigerated coffin for his wife). It was while Munroe was away on a two-week family holiday in Spain that his life of subterfuge began to unravel. In subsequent interviews with Thames Valley Police, he admitted all the charges of fraud, saying that he did it because he was ‘disillusioned with his job’ and wanted to ‘step up’. He said that he fully recognised that his job had put him in a position where it was easy to take advantage. Initially, he said, he had simply intended to use the stolen money to fund a lavish personal lifestyle, which included buying an expensive Rolex watch, before his greed escalated and he progressed to buying expensive sportscars. With it all seeming so easy, the regularity with which he sent phoney invoices to his employers spiralled out of control. Crispian Besley takes us on a fascinating behind the scenes tour de force of real-life corruption and shady dealings within the world of professional motor racing. Despite more than thirteen years working in this industry, I was unaware of many of the stories featured. At times I found it a difficult read, but only because so many of the characters that I did know were/still are my boyhood heroes, people I’d naively looked up to and tried to emulate… some may say I did a pretty good a job in that respect, because after all my years as both a driver and Team Owner, I also found myself accused of dastardly financial deeds and yes, my alleged “crimes” are in fact featured in Chapter 9 of Driven to Crime! A serial conman and deluded ‘Walter Mitty’ fantasist, James Munroe — born James Cox —appeared to typify dull, unremarkable respectability but led a very public and extravagant double life. During the week he was the bespectacled manager of an accounts department but at weekends he became an attention-seeking, self-styled ‘millionaire businessman’ and ‘gentleman racer’ of a McLaren F1 GTR. Through his extraordinary duplicity, the ultimate vanity project was unwittingly financed by funds embezzled from his employer.

The reality of his life was such that by the time he was in his early 30s he was married with a young family living in suburban Wokingham, Berkshire, and working in middle management in an accounts department. As disenchantment grew with what he felt was a meaningless existence, it simply fuelled his dreams more strongly. He started to make frequent trips to the nearby showrooms of Maranello Concessionaires, the famous Ferrari importer and main dealer. Although his job prospects and personal life didn’t change materially over the next couple of years, he ended up being able to acquire a Ferrari 348tb in the classic and desirable colour combination of Rosso Corsa with cream hide interior. He’s similarly cagey over who organised the Max Mosley News of the World sexposé, quoting from Mosley’s autobiography that “the conventional wisdom… has always been that someone in F1 was behind it”. Besley simply concludes “there are several suspects” – and wisely stops there. I briefly entered the world of motor racing in 1974 (see Sid Miller Chapter 41) and thought my experience bizarre enough. But it was the tip of an iceberg. There’s no doubt that Crispian’s book is a tough read, sometimes depressing, often crushing our idols; people and sportsmen we looked up to. Whether you have been involved in the sport or not, it is a window on the human condition that is rarely demonstrated with such honesty and clarity. Vijay Mallya who is still to this day the subject of an extradition warrant by the Indian government with regard to charges of financial crimes in India. Force India were put into administration and then saved by a group of investors led by Lawrence Stroll.The March sale to the Leyton House whose CEO was involved in money laundering and fraud. He was later jailed and the team was gone. For the second round, at picturesque Oulton Park in Cheshire on 3rd May, there was special dispensation for Goodwin to drive solo because the ‘self-made multi-millionaire’, as Munroe had started to describe himself, was reported by Autosport magazine to be ‘away on business’. Goodwin again put the car on pole position and recorded the fastest lap of the race on his way to third place, complete with the obligatory pitstop. While he was researching it I loaned Crispian my copy of the typewritten ‘samizdat’ Naughty Quiz which lists a range of embarrassing or illegal events in racing, but as only a few can be proven he has wisely skated round these. Even without, it’s a riotous read.

It's a very journalistic, non-fiction style, very straightforward and with incredible eye to detail. Could have been a more fun read with a bit more humor, or subtext. When Munroe appeared at Reading Crown Court in September 2000, the prosecution stated that he had used the stolen money to buy lots of cars as well as to fund the racing team. Besides the cars already mentioned — the two Ferraris and the two McLarens — his fleet of road cars included three Aston Martins, three Mercedes and a Ferrari 550 Maranello. He had also acquired two important historic racing cars, an ex-Gerhard Berger Benetton Formula 1 car and a Silk Cut-liveried Jaguar XJR Le Mans car. He certainly had good automotive taste. Unfortunately, for the victims whose livelihoods were affected by his deceit, the story still didn’t end there. Remarkably, he found responsible employment yet again, in March 2015, by which time he was 51 and once again using his real name, James Cox. Brabham F1 sale to an investment company owned by a Swiss Banker who scammed investors for millions and fled to the USA before his trial has taken place which left the team in dispute of ownership before being sold to the Japanese company Middlebridge Group.Alarm bells started ringing at AM Racing just a few days after the British Grand Prix when team manager Paul Spires called Chris Goodwin to say that there was ‘a problem with the money’. Spires didn’t know it at the time but Munroe’s assets had been frozen by lawyers. By the time of the next round of the British GT Championship, at Donington Park on 7th August, the AM Racing McLaren F1 GTR had vanished from the entry list. The following month, news broke that James Munroe was under investigation. Some of these people are the same kind of pure sociopaths that can steal all the money from an elementary school teacher pension fund, and their only thought is, "how can I do the same thing to the middle school?" The kind of white collar criminals we hear about all the time – who just don't happen to get into professional racing. Drugs: Ian Burgess (sometime British F1 racer); Randy Lanier (drug-smuggling IMSA champion); John Paul Sr and Jr (talented son dragged into a racing father’s drug-running); Vic Lee (super-successful team owner with a dodgy transporter); the Whittington brothers (more misdeeds in IMSA circles).