Besides, Wilson won an F1 race – of sorts. In 1980 she campaigned an ex-Jody Scheckter Wolf WR4 in the Aurora AFX British F1 Championship, racing it to victory in the Evening News Trophy at Brands Hatch, beating a field of male drivers, some of whom had at their disposal more modern ex-works F1 machinery than she did. Thereafter, sharing driving duties with Alain de Cadenet in his eponymous World Sports Car Championship car, she went on to win the Monza 1000km and the Silverstone Six Hours. Believe me, Wilson was the real deal.
But, since today is Galica’s 80th birthday, I should focus on her, not Wilson. Divina now lives in Sebring, Florida, and, when I last spoke to her on the phone, just three days ago, on Saturday, she was preparing for her trip to Salt Lake City to see her old friend. “I’m usually up at the crack of dawn because my cat, Ginger, wakes me up at that time,” she told me. “But this morning I slept in a bit because I was reading a James Patterson novel, Sail, until after midnight. I thoroughly recommend it. I hadn’t read any of his books before but I’ll definitely read some more now. Anyway, I’d better get on. I’ve got to check Ginger into a cattery before I fly.”
Despite her four-score years, she remains remarkably fit. “I’d love to be able to go for long runs and play tennis properly, as I used to,” she says, “but I can’t really do either of those things any more because I’ve got cartilage damage in my back and my knees as a result of all the tumbles I’ve taken, not only in race cars but also on skis. I walk a lot though – 90 minutes a day if I can. In the winter I love taking in the great outdoors, but in the summer Sebring is simply too hot and too humid for that, so I pound away for an hour and a half on a treadmill in a local gym.”
Galica was a first-class skier before she ever thought of racing cars, which she did only because she had finished a fine second when in 1974 she had been invited to drive a Ford Escort in a celebrity saloon car event at Oulton Park. Duly impressed, John Webb, the famously long-serving Brands Hatch chief executive, took her under his wing and encouraged her to go racing. First she drove karts, but soon she stepped up to Formula 2 Chevrons and Marches, then she did two seasons of the Shellsport International Series in ex-works Surtees F1 cars run by the Whiting brothers, Nick and Charlie. Yes, that Charlie Whiting, god rest him. In her first Shellsport season, 1976, in a Surtees TS16, she recorded two seventh places, three sixth places, one fifth place, and two fourth places. The following year, 1977, now in a Surtees TS19, she racked up four podium finishes: two seconds and two thirds. Also in 1977 she raced a Lola T490 in the then new Sports 2000 series, winning 10 times and only narrowly failing to take the title. And in 1978, in her now ageing Surtees TS19, she entered one round of the Aurora AFX British F1 Championship, at Zandvoort, finishing second. OK, Desiré was “quicker than I was”, according to Divina, and, as I say, perhaps most motor sport cognoscenti would agree with that judgment, but Divina was no slouch either.
Galica (right), with British skiers at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Japan
Express/Getty Images
For all that, ask her about her racing exploits, and, unless you press her, she tends not to want to dwell on the subject. But on your behalf, dear reader, I promise to badger her another time. She is more comfortable talking about skiing, and here’s why. She competed in slaloms, giant slaloms, and downhills in four Winter Olympics – 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1992 at the age of 47 — captaining the British women’s team in 1968 and 1972. Her best season was 1968, in which year she scored two World Cup third places in downhill events, at Badgastein (Austria) and Chamonix (France). After the 1992 Olympics she took up speed skiing – and in 1993, at 48, she broke the British women’s record, reaching a hair-raising 200.699km/h (124.709mph).
Unsurprisingly, she lives a somewhat quieter life now, although she has never stopped working. In the mid-1990s she turned her attention to driver coaching, first for the Skip Barber Racing School in Texas then for the Bertil Roos Racing School in Pennsylvania. Even now, at 80, she still does a bit of freelance coaching for a small clientele of gentleman drivers.
Oh and she avidly watches every F1 grand prix. “I’m a big, big, biiiiig Lewis Hamilton fan,” she told me on the phone on Saturday, her inimitably luxuriant vowel sounds brimming with enthusiasm. “I thought his comeback win at Silverstone last month was fantastic. In fact I think it may have been his greatest race ever – so far.”