John Hindhaugh

Radio Le Mans legend The voice of the Le Mans 24 Hours - and endurancing racing around the globe - John Hindhaugh reveals where his love of cars and motorsport began

- by ANTONY INGRAM

IT SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE that John Hindhaugh is an incorrigible petrolhead. Hindhaugh’s love of cars and motorsport positively flows through the microphone, be that during coverage of IMSA or the adjacent and highly entertaining MX-5 Cup, or the main event itself, the Le Mans 24 Hours - a race he’s been involved with since 1989.

Working in the police, Hindhaugh’s father often came home in interesting cars, with everything from a Land Rover to a Ford Anglia and a Mini van ending up on the driveway, as well as a string of family cars from the Rootes group; these would go on to be an influence on John’s own car history further down the line.

Two catalysts, though, stand out in Hindhaugh’s transition from enthusiast to becoming the voice of the world’s biggest and best motor race: the 1971 edition of the 24 Hours, and a spell in hospital following a sports injury sustained in school.

‘When I was around 12 or 13 years old we had a movie club on a Thursday evening after school, showing whatever movies had come out in the last few years, sitting in the school hall on those instruments of torture, the orange moulded plastic seats, with horrible floor-to-ceiling flowered curtains just about keeping out the light...

‘One Thursday evening it was Le Mans, and this was around 1975 or 1976, so the movie would've been a few years old by then. And it was incredible. Bear in mind, I'd grown up in Sunderland and the most exotic thing I'd seen to that point was a Sunbeam Alpine.

‘But these things... I'd heard about them, I'd read about them, I'd seen some pictures, but this was like looking at spaceships. And that opening sequence where McQueen drives into the town square at Le Mans was something else. Then the heartbeat before the start of the race, the Michel Legrand soundtrack, just incredible. I was rapt.’