“I’ve been obsessed with cars since I was a little girl”
معلومات عن الطاقم
H TW
- Helen Tait-Wright has been obsessed with cars since she was a little girl. In the UK she was a marshal at race meetings and a member of different car clubs. So, no surprise she met her husband at a car club.
- She started out as a wedding and special events dress designer before switching to interior design. When she moved to France, she and her husband began buying ruins and doing them up.
- They chose to settle on the Maine-et-Loire/Deux Sevres border because Helen wanted to be close to the Le Mans circuit while her husband wanted to live in a wine growing region.
- When she was still living in the UK, she used to go to the Le Mans 24H every year. Then a week later she would attend the Royal Ascot horse races to look after her clients. It was always a big rush and Helen remembers sewing linings into their own clothes in the car on the way to the races!
- She met her co-driver Marcella just after she had moved to France. They nearly hit each other while out driving. Helen was particularly impressed with Marcella’s Isuzu Trooper. A few days after their near miss they met at a dinner party and became firm friends.
- Although maybe not as fanatical as Helen, husband Chris also likes his cars and used to have a full competition licence for circuit racing. His dad took part in the famous RAC Rally in a Mini Cooper.
M K
- Marcella Kirk isn’t particularly into cars. Her thing is horses. As she says, “I’m not interested in how many horses are under the bonnet. I’m interested in the horse I’m sitting on”.
- She doesn’t remember the near accident with her friend Helen but she does remember the dinner they were invited to a few days later because it took hours to arrive and gave Helen and Marcella plenty of time to get to know each other. They’ve been best friends ever since.
- With both their partners going away for work and them both being in a foreign country they provided mutual support as they navigated French culture. Marcella’s son Sam, 7 at the time, also became their shared translator, as he was going to French school and mastered the language much quicker than them.
- Eventually Marcella retuned to the UK where she opened a couple of restaurants / bars. The first one was ‘Maison des Amis’ and the current one is Deja Vu, both in Chesterfield.
- Marcella lives half time on a boat moored on the River Dart, a mere 5 hour drive from her business. Fortunately, she shares her horse with two other friends and her son and daughter look after her two Bernese Mountain dogs when she’s not there.
- In a previous life Marcella worked as cabin crew aboard Boeing 737s so their race number is highly appropriate!
طموح
H TW: “I didn’t start competing until I moved to France and did a couple of Rallye des Gazelles and some other rallies with Marcella. And the desert just got under my skin. I was obviously aware of the Dakar Rally but it was completely out of my reach until they launched the Dakar Classic which turned it from ‘impossible’ to ‘vaguely possible’. Then I met Andrew Graham at a Land Rover meet in the UK and he went on to do the Dakar Classic in 2024. He asked me for some advice about driving in the desert and while he was on the event I spoke to him every evening. That was when ‘vaguely possible’ became a burning ambition. Although we had a few Land Rovers already, nothing was suitable so we brought a wreck of a 110 dubbed Purdey (from the New Avengers series) in Wales and gave it to a company for them to build into a rally car. But the arrangement wasn’t working, so we brought the salvageable parts back to France on a trailer and started rebuilding it ourselves. From October of last year until April 2025 we worked on it without a break. We’ve decided not to run any computers for the regularity and instead use old fashioned instruments to be eligible for the “Authentic Co-driver” category. It is unrealistic to hope for too good a result first time out but we’re competitive and will be doing our best.”
M K: “A while ago I had a bit of a health scare and so with my son Sam, we decided to go to France to an apartment I kept there. Of course, we went to see Helen and her husband Chris and all the good wine came out. By the end of the evening Helen, Sam and the wine had persuaded me to sign up to do a rally! I did two rallies in Morocco with Helen. The first one went really well and then the second turned into a bit of a nightmare and we nearly went home half way through. After that I told Helen my rallying days were over. Then Helen told me about the Dakar Classic and how she really wanted to do it with me. The Dakar comes at busy time for me. Christmas is always a lot of work in the hospitality business and we do a Christmas lunch for 150 homeless and lonely people that takes quite a lot of organising. In addition, I’m moving house just before I leave for Saudi Arabia. Fortunately, Helen has done all the car prep with Chris. She occasionally rings me up to make sure I’ve applied for my visa, stuff like that, but apart from that she has taken care of everything. Once I’m on the rally though I’ll be 100% focused. Helen is a really great driver and I want to make sure I don’t let her down.”
