With apologies to Charles Dickens, we offer a Christmas rags-to-rags tale of a young motorist and his adventures in the world of Formula One. Justin Hynes hears the tale from Perry McCarthy
Close on 13 years ago Perry McCarthy landed himself a three-race, end-of-season stint in Formula 3000 with the RCR team.
After too many seasons bouncing around the periphery, he thought Christmas had come early that year. At the very least he could look forward to some certainty in his racing career, away from spiralling debts and the perennial worry about where he would be in the new season.
At Spa-Francorchamps he found himself dicing with a young Irishman by the name of Eddie Irvine. Irvine was a Marlboro-sponsored driver on the way up.
McCarthy banged wheels with Irvine for a couple of laps before sneaking by to claim seventh place. Irvine finished behind him.
Ten years on and Eddie Irvine was racing for Ferrari, taking Mika Hakkinen to a final round title duel in Suzuka. The Irishman had already earned untold millions from the sport. He had a fleet of pedigree sports cars at his sundry homes from Milan to Miami, Oxford to Dublin.
Half the time, though, he didn't bother with them and lived on his yacht, the Anaconda. And he'd recently off-loaded a helicopter he didn't really use.
And Perry McCarthy? He was selling office furniture.
It should be a sob story: the tale of a great white hope who never got the breaks, blew his chances, missed not only the boat but also the 50-metre yacht, the private jet, the Ferrari 575M and all the attendant luxury of a Formula One star.
But McCarthy's tale isn't that kind of story. For the most part he laughs like a drain when he recounts episodes from his rags-to-rags motor racing life.
After battling for too long through Formula Ford, British F3, F3000 and innumerable side roads along the way, he finally got a break - he was invited to race the 1992 season in Formula One, for Andrea Moda.
"I knew it was bad from the start," he says. "But the final straw came one night in Ancona with the team. I'd gone to have it out with Andrea. There was definitely something not right about him. He had enemies.
"A month before I went there somebody had burned down his night club. Then, after my visit, one of the mechanics was sent to town for parts. A few blokes recognised the team mini-van and started shooting at it.
"Anyway, the meeting accomplished nothing. Later I was waiting for someone to come to take me back to the hotel, when the sliding door of the garage opened and in walked some really big blokes and I thought 'God, they're gonna do me'. I thought, 'Well, I'm not going without a fight' and I reached into a drawer and grabbed a bunch of iron bolts and held them in my fist.
"One of the blokes came over and says: 'Are you Perry McCarthy'. I nodded and was about to smack him when he says: 'You are a great driver. I see you race in America!' And he stuck out his hand. Of course, I had to drop the bolts before I could shake his hand. He looked at me a bit funny after that!"
This is the metier of all McCarthy's stories concerning his racing career, and they are legion. How about the time he impersonated James Hunt to get an audience with a company CEO to try and prise sponsorship money from the executive.
Or the time, when deputising for Alessandro Zanardi at a Benetton test, McCarthy attempted to take the notorious Bridge corner flat out, having been told by Michael Schumacher that was the way he did it. McCarthy nearly demolished the Benetton only to later discover that Schumacher had meant it could be taken flat out when in qualifying trim and on new tyres.
Or how, when he did his drive in F1 with Andrea Moda and cadged the money to get to Sao Paulo from friends, his race licence was taken from him just eight hours into his new career as he was deemed to be under-qualified to drive in F1 having not raced enough in F3000.
All these stories and countless others are related with the impish grin of a schoolboy prankster, and it is how McCarthy sees himself.
Born within the sound of Bow bells to a working-class family, McCarthy was not of the stock usually associated with budding racing drivers.
In stark contrast to the likes of supermarket heir Pedro Diniz who bought his way into the failed Prost venture to the tune of $15 million, McCarthy scrimped and saved every ill-gotten penny he could scrounge to finance season after season of racing, eking the best from unlovely but affordable machinery in junior formulae.
When he did make it to Formula One, the Andrea Moda team, which failed to even make the close of the season, couldn't pay him. He made his travelling expenses handing out tickets for a Grand Prix tours company and by giving talks to fans at races.
McCarthy, though, has no regrets. "I was so used to adversity," he tells me, "that everything that happened to me along the way was just another challenge to be overcome and that's what I like. I was used to doing insane things to survive and I think I'm well known for that attitude. The most important thing about my whole career has having the desire to succeed, to survive and stay determined. That and having an adventure and making the friends I've made."
The adventure had to come to an end eventually. After the Andrea Moda debacle, which degenerated to such an extent that, at Silverstone, McCarthy made it to the circuit but the team didn't, McCarthy landed a test with Williams but was up against the younger and better-funded David Coulthard. When the Scot got the drive, McCarthy had had enough.
"I was devastated," he admits. "I just couldn't take any more disappointments. I'd tried everything and I'd fought the world but at 32, I'd lost faith. I just didn't believe there was a way through any more."
That and the fact that his house had been repossessed, he was several hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt and had a wife and two children to support.
WE said this was no sob story. And it isn't. McCarthy admits he was heartbroken by his F1 failure and says he "went into survival mode" in the immediate aftermath of his decision to quit, trading cars and office furniture to pay his ruinous bills.
"But I was desperately unhappy," he adds. "But then came a call from Audi."
This was 1996. The German manufacturer was entering the British Touring Car championship. That drive didn't materialise but McCarthy had the racing bit between his teeth again.
He landed a drive with Lotus in GT before switching to Oreca who would be Chrysler's works team at Le Mans. McCarthy was a racer again. He moved to Panoz for Le Mans, raced in America, began to make what he calls "serious money" and the hard times were, after nigh on 20 years finally over. Finally Audi bit and he raced with the German company at Le Mans before retiring, both from the race and the sport.
Until now. While promoting his book, he can't help drop hints that he may be coming out of retirement one more time, for one more tilt at Le Mans. He says he cannot stay away. "It is very rare in this life that you find a walk of life that you are measured to such a fine degree," he says with adrenaline-infused enthusiasm.
"From a psychological and philosophical point of view you are forced to look deeper into yourself than in any other career. And if in 10 years time I fall down dead, I can say 'well, I had 50 incredible years on this planet that I'd rather take than 80 average ones'."
And is there a moral to his story? "I guess you'd have to say, and this is paraphrasing a great quote really badly, 'sing like nobody's listening, dance like nobody's watching and live like it's heaven on earth'." It's a fine point to end on, and as I'm walking out the door, for one moment I think I can hear Perry gently humming to himself.
Flat Out, Flat Broke is published by Haynes Publishing at €28.40