Simon Arron obituary

So many memories shared with this guy, this hilarious, eccentric, knowledgeable, clever, enthusiastic friend and colleague.

He never did get a proper job, just went straight from university to writing for Motoring News, where he could use his encyclopaedic knowledge of club racing picked up from fanatical attendance at his local track Oulton Park since his early teens. I say local, it’s about 20 miles from where he lived in Altrincham but before passing his test if he couldn’t get a lift up there he’d cycle. A world outside of motor racing was for other people, nothing to do with him, and he didn’t see the need to get involved in it.

It was a purist attitude he maintained to the end and he remained absolutely besotted by the sport, as any who have encountered him in the last few years taking pictures at Brands Hatch, Lydden Hill, Oulton Park – anywhere racing engines spluttered into life – would attest. He did, though, have other enthusiasms: wildlife, prog rock, Altrincham FC, 1970s cars…

He had a particular fondness for the F3000 category which journalistically he made his own in the 1980s and into the ’90s. There was something about the stepping stone category’s sometimes ridiculous stories of dodgy sponsors and high jinks which suited his style of writing perfectly. His Motoring News ‘silly results’ box took form here, with references to whatever was the current joke, scandal or incident accounted for in the results. He extended it to his irreverent F1 coverage in later years and enhanced it with his surreal driver-by-driver performance summaries from each race. His Kimi Räikkönen persona would typically talk about “sardines, Sunbeam Rapier H120s, frogspawn” etc with Simon then interjecting with something like, “What Kimi was trying to say was he had a little too much understeer in the high-speed bends to catch up.”

His conversation was peppered with similar absurdities that were all his own, invariably car-based. He became a keen wildlife photographer in later years and describing the distinction between a swift and a swallow, he’d explain, “A swift is basically a swallow GTI.”

His Formula 1 diaries in the Daily Telegraph for years hilariously charted the escapades of life on the road covering the world championship. He stood down from F1 some time ago to spend more time with his family, (though tragically his wife Michelle died suddenly not long after).

He returned to his roots, writing in Motor Sport about club racing in his own inimitable style, often accompanied by his own photographs. Here he was, ex-editor of this very magazine (and of Motoring News and the Autocourse annual), ex-Formula 1, and now concerning himself with The Alfa Challenge or the Mini Miglias and loving every second of it.

It was a life too short but inspirational. There were no airs and graces about Simon. He loved what he did and left everyone else to get on with whatever they wished to do without having an opinion on it. His opinions were reserved for what he really knew about – and wrote about with such flair and humour. He was a loving dad to Tom and Lucy, to whom we send our deepest condolences.