Patrick Dempsey: Racing Le Mans

[Nordic]

The film skips the March bit and takes him stright from F3 to BRM, the drive in which is paid for by a loan he has taken from a bank. Much is made of the lack of money from his family.

I do recall reading that this is broadly correct, he had the banks symbol on his helmet well into the 80's I think. I would assume the loan had to be underwritten by someone.

Its not a bad film by any strech, the gory bits never made it to the final version for example and the guy who plays Lauda is very good, as is the Clay actor, the ending is a nice touch.

[Boorish Grobian]

Agreed Nordic, now that I think of it, even though he came from a wealthy family, they wouldn't have anything to do with funding his racing (much the same with Francois Cevert).  I recall reading his book My Years With Ferrari, where he mentions the bank loans, and how insane it was to take those out, and that he would never recommend anyone in a similar situation do something as risky.
As well I remember seeing Raiffeisen Bank logos on his helmet and overalls for years.
Its interesting that when he was taken on by March, he was seen very much as a rent-a-schmuck, but by the end of the season he had gained quite a bit of respect.  He wasn't totally blown into the weeds by Peterson, as many had predicted, and seemed to have a good feel for setting up cars, something that was always a weakness of Ronnie.
The film opens for nationwide release over here on the 27th, I'm going with a few friends of mine who have become more recent F1 devotees, they know that the 70's is my golden era of the sport, and wanted to see it with me.
Fax

[jimclark]

My recollection (pretty dang sure it's correct) is that he got the loan against a life insurance policy...

[lofty]

B.G. i found an article about the bently boys the other day.they started it.a gang of playboy millionaires havin fun.dring fast cars swilling champers and shagging tarts.racing was a proper sport then when people did it for fun.

[jimclark]

Googled "Niki Lauda and life insurance" and the first result I checked was Wikipedia:

"Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. His career seemed to be going nowhere in particular until he took out a large bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971."

I know it's Wiki but I was following back then and my recollection is crrectomundo.

P.S. Confirmed midway, second paragraph: http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/hall_of_fame/221/

[gatordad]

I liked it...just my $0.02