Driven To Crime: True stories of wrongdoing in motor racing

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As the champagne flowed at the Veuve Clicquot-supported event, the slightly chubby accounts manager from Wokingham revelled in all the attention he received from the numerous photographers and journalists, but in reality he looked almost as out of place in those surroundings as he did on a race circuit. Lockie’s contract was annulled and paid off in full by the team patron, after which he took up offers of drives in both a Marcos and Porsche in the GT2 class later in the season. Goodwin leapt in front at the start of the race and led convincingly, building a six-second margin over his nearest rival and setting the fastest lap. 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. His behaviour guaranteed that he would draw attention to himself to such an extent that it was almost as if he wanted to get caught.

Inevitably, like most youngsters with similar aspirations, there was neither the money nor the opportunity to fulfil his ambitions. With it all seeming so easy, the regularity with which he sent phoney invoices to his employers spiralled out of control. Although AM Racing’s previous experience had been mainly in the preparation and running of historic Le Mans cars, Spires had put together a very strong group of engineers and the operation proved to be well up to the required standard. In handing down a four-year prison sentence, Judge Roger Chapple told him, ‘Your naked greed is breathtaking. 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.Now going by the name James Munroe, he fooled himself that he was ready to live the second part of his childhood dream: he was going to become a racing driver.

As anyone involved in a sport such as motor racing knows, adrenalin is a very powerful hormone that can produce extreme emotions and excitement. Unfortunately, for the victims whose livelihoods were affected by his deceit, the story still didn’t end there. Frankly, this book would have better with about a third of it characters deleted as too often I found myself thinking “I can’t be bothered with this guy” and flicking forward - and this was a holiday read!

He started to make frequent trips to the nearby showrooms of Maranello Concessionaires, the famous Ferrari importer and main dealer. Despite more than thirteen years working in this industry, I was unaware of many of the stories featured. McGraw Hill, a highly respected American company that had become one of the world’s biggest educational publishers, employed him as head of its accounts department in its European offices in Maidenhead, Berkshire. In defence of his 36-year-old client, Peter Warne told the court: ‘Munroe describes himself, or his creation, as “a monster which he could not stop”.

Other offences included committing fraud to get the job, obtaining money through fraud and four counts of transferring criminal property. His fellow competitors found him a very ordinary, quiet and unassuming man who made no attempt to mix with them.

Cox was back in the news again as recently as December 2018 when, now aged 54, he absconded from an open prison in Norwich, having been allowed out for a pre-arranged medical appointment that he failed to attend. In the case of James Cox (aka James Munroe), his craving for attention suggested that he received his highs not so much from racing one of the fastest and most desirable sportscars ever made but more from the publicity and kudos that went with it. Inspired by James Hunt’s Formula 1 exploits with Hesketh and having become friends with the World Champion’s younger brother at school, he competed in Formula Ford during the late 1970s but had to face the reality that his results were not going to earn him a place in F1. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

His ambitions knew no boundaries and he acquired from the Parabolica Motorsport team a McLaren F1 GTR, a spectacular racing car that had won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1995. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The season comprised 11 races, one of which was a continental excursion to the daunting Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. He bought a Ferrari F355 Challenge, which was a special race-bred version of the F355, the 348tb’s successor. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Behind the wheel at Silverstone, however, was not Lockie but Chris Goodwin, who coincidentally had raced the very same chassis for its previous owners in the 1997 FIA GT Championship and had been drafted in for this session. Crispian Besley must have taken many years and had countless brushes with the legal complexities of the system before producing this staggeringly good book. He chose the Goodyear-supported Ferrari Challenge, a club-level British championship that catered for drivers competing in a wide variety of Ferrari models divided into two categories, one for older and often standard road models, the other for much quicker ‘modified’ cars. In ‘real life’, away from the race circuits, Munroe — real name James Cox — was still a very ordinary accountant, albeit with a little more seniority than in earlier years.