1991. Alastair and his navigator Anthony finish 42nd in the 4th Pirelli Classic Marathon.

After we got our international licence we did the Classic Marathon in this big white convertible, which became known as The White Whale. We had a lot of good fun. There were some very serious people with communication sets and headsets on and they talked to each other in the car. I went to a bicycle shop and bought some stretchy, spiral, electrical cords and I had a crate of Pimms (I was a Pimms fan in those days) pre-mixed in the boot. I got a couple of these Pimms cans and connected them up to the cord and when we caught up with one of the headset guys and overtook them we used our Pimms cans to imitate them and wind them up.

The early marathons were hard and they had a whole night section when you’d drive the car from 7 o’clock in the evening to 8 o’clock the next day. It was a long and hard night and everybody got lost. You couldn’t manage the average speed so it was flat out through the Alps. We discovered that we could catch and pass many cars that were meant to be quicker than us because our car didn’t look like a rally car. It didn’t have lights all over the front, I’ve never put extra lights in my cars because it makes them look like rally cars. We’d catch up with these guys with their headsets on and their sixteen lights across the front in our old turkey of a Mercedes; it was a huge two tons of car with a 2.2 ltr engine. We’d catch up with them, pass them and, to their complete and utter astonishment, fly-off into the night.

• 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