Martin Angeloni (b1953)
Born in 1953 at Coxton Kerrial, Martin attended the village school school until the family moved to Grantham.
Here, he went to sSt Anne’s, then to St Wulfrums.
His first job was at Bjorlows tannery, then Kontaks. He was also working weekends with local race driver Ivor Goodwin, and after meeting Richard Dutton in 1974 I worked with him at Marston Trailers as well as helping him in the evenings and weekends with his newly acquired race car.
This was followed by a short spell in the showroom of North Road Garages, on London Road, before joining Richard in forming his race team, along with local lad Mark Franklin.
Success followed and many a race was won,in 1986, Martin was poached by an up-and-coming driver called Mark Blundell to form his own race team.
A double championship in Europe and the UK put him in good stead for his future. Plans for a short foray in F3000 in19 87 soon got the bigwigs looking for a new superstar and was duly signed by Williams as test driver. The team folded and Martin moved on to the Benetton F1 team to finished the season.
Martin’s next team in 1988 was the ultra competitive Bromley Motorsport as chief mechanic to compete in European F3000,with drivers Eric Bernard and Roberto Moreno ,duly taking the championship with Roberto. nIn 1989 they remained in 3000 and their driver was Gary Brabham, son of Sir Jack,and won the British Series.
Another three years in the series never brought us any more victories and with the team owner struggling with cancer,it was decided to close the doors.
So in 1992 Martin decided to take a few years off travelling with work and after getting married in 1990, a family soon arrived,,a girl named Dennie,and a boy Olive.
But the urge to return to the circuits was prompted by a great offer to run a team in Europe againso that was taken up for a two-year program.
Then in 1998 a new series was set up in Bedfordshire and Martin was invited to be one of the senior mechanics training new boys to work in motorsport, on was a three-year deal.
After the closing of the series he went to work for his friend Simon Hadfield Restoration building and restoration work on historic race cars, He enjoyed being home every night spending time with Debbie and the children.
The work also meant going abroad and even around the world. They did several F1 support races with the historic F1s and had,Canada,,Mexico,,America,and the best of the lot Singapore.
He retired in 2019 but still helps with race teams at weekends and a couple of days in the workshop just to keep busy.
He said: “To be quite honest, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve ,been to some incredible places, met many wonderful people and to be doing something you love and getting paid for it.”
His son Oliver is also in the same game, working for a team that rebuild GT 40s and other exotic race cars.
As for the darts,I had a great few years with some great players, something that Grantham had an abundance of.
Among his tropheys are: League winners ,White Lion, League winners Vacu lug., League winners Spotted. Cow,Mixed doubles winners,GDDL, LVA with his now wife Deb. and County super league, Granby.
And when he moved to Derbyshire in 1988 I played in local leagues and also in the Notts super league.
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