It was weird the first time I met Carroll Shelby. We were on the lawn in front of Goodwood House some time in the late 1990s, admiring Gerry Judah's latest creation in the dark and escaping the noisy melee not so far away as ball-goers bopped away to Suzi Quatro (or someone else, but it always seemed to be her back then so that's my guess).
It was one of those moments when you never know whether to invade someone's airspace or just leave them be, so I resolved to just go up and say a polite hello, shake his hand and then instantly retreat and give him some space.
"Evening Mr Shelby I said," but as I went to pull my hand back, he didn't let go and started chatting about the sculpture. It seems he wasn't entirely convinced about it as "art", but he loved the engineering of it.
I didn't say much because I was rather in awe of him. It's no exaggeration to say that his very name embodied something huge in the same way as Ferrari does. It means power and victory, but it also means more, bringing with it a maverick element, a hint of punk rebellion and usurping of the established order.
For a car-mad lad brought up in England it was hard not to view Shelby as a cowboy. An actual cowboy, riding into town on a horse and telling people in that Texan drawl to get off their horses and drink their milk.
