Alastair leaves ATS and decides to set up his own business in self-storage. It's not as straight forward as he expects.

The obvious thing to do when I left ATS was to start my own racing team. I gave much thought to it but the real purpose of Ron Dennis, and the real purpose of Sir Frank Williams, is to beg for money: that’s their number one requirement in life, because they can’t survive next year unless they get some millionaire to give them a bunch of money. They have to persuade them by bullshitting: this is how the rich guy should spend their money. This means they have to pander to them: take them out, entertain them, build a fantastic polished factory, send them flowers. I thought: ‘I don’t want to beg for money.’ I could have gone to Phillip Morris, who I had a very good relationship with, and he would have helped me with funding but I wouldn’t have been able to start in Formula 1, I’d have had to work my way up the ranks. If I had gone that route I’d probably still be in Grand Prix racing today.

I sat on planes and made lists because it was the only free time when I was forced to sit still that I ever had. I could do all my paperwork and make plans because, as soon as I landed, I was either fixing the house, looking after the children or going to work – or all three at once. I'd missed my children's upbringing completely. They were always in bed when I got home and they were asleep when I went to work. I didn’t see them for months. My wife used to bring them to McLaren and cook Sunday lunch for the mechanics so that I would stop and talk to my children during lunch.

So I made lists on planes . One of the things I’d seen in the US was ‘self-storage’ and, of course, there was nobody doing it in the UK. I thought:'This must sell in England, it must work.' Self-storage was one of the things on my list alongside starting a restaurant and starting a race team; I had lots of ideas. When you travel to America you get lots of business ideas. Drive around and within the space of an hour you'll see a business that exists in America that doesn’t exist here and will work.  Dog shampooing: that started in the States. Nail salons: that started in the States. Self-service storage started in the States. I knew this was definitely the way to go because it’s based on property so it would be easy to borrow money.

I decided to start my own Self-storage business and stupidly left my position at ATS. My position at ATS was ‘God’ and I could do anything I liked because my boss was never in the country, he was back home in Germany. I could have run the Grand Prix team for another year and gone in only once a week.  I could have gone in on a Friday afternoon, signed the cheques, given them all the stuff to do, listened to their worries, made the decisions – but I didn’t. I thought I could stop work and be in business within a week .

It took me exactly a year to get my first customer.

• 1943 Alastair's early years
• 1955 Licence to drive
• 1957 Alastair's High School years
• 1959 Evading the police
• 1960 Becoming a mechanic
• 1966 The Tasman series
• 1966 Leaving New Zealand
• 1967 Joining McLaren
• 1967 CanAm Door Catches
• 1967 Monza
• 1968 South Africa
• 1968 CanAm
• 1969 Driving the Formula 1 Cars
• 1973 Fittipaldi joins McLaren
• 1973 McLaren Team manager
• 1974 Montezemolo
• 1975 Hunt replaces Fittipaldi
• 1975 Hunt gets paid little
• 1976 Inventing the Air-Starter
• 1976 Six-speed Gear Boxes
• 1976 Misbehaving in Canada
• 1976 Japan
• 1977 Adidas Uniforms
• 1977 Changing Tyres
• 1977 Leaving McLaren
• 1979 Nelson Piquet
• 1980 Skirts on Formula 1 Cars
• 1981 Leaving Formula 1
• 1982 Making Lists
• 1982 Signing on
• 1982 Creating Space Station
• 1991 Highland Fling
• 1991 Classic Marathon
• 1992 Getting the Austin A35
• 1992 El Salvador
• 1993 Carerra Panamerica
• 1993 Centre of attention
• 1993 Nicest car in rally
• 1993 LeJog
• 2000 London to Sydney
• 2000 Porsche Racing
• 2000 Porsche Crashing
• 2001 Ferrari
• 2001 Inca Trail
• 2004 Berlin - Moscow - Berlin
• 2005 World Cup Rally
• 2007 Norway
• 2008 Liège-Brescia-Liège
• 2008 An Icelandic Odyssey
• 2008 North & West Africa
• 2009 West Coast America
• 2009 London to Casablanca
• 2010 New Zealand Festival of motor racing
• 2010 New Zealand Big Sky Adventure