You Don't Have to Be a Champion

From fitting wheels to wheelbarrows in a builders' merchant, Brian rapidly climbed the business ladder and became a Xerox salesman. He was unaware that the professional selling skills he was learning would one day propel him into the glamorous and overtly commercial world of F1. A disastrous debut at a racing driver school was the spark that lit his passion for motor racing. Aware of the need for some serious financial backing to be able to take part, Brian embarked on a variety of highly innovative and often extremely entertaining ways of securing sponsorship, including working with the cast of a top 1970s' BBC sit-com, as well as with John Cleese, of Monty Python fame. A chance meeting on a plane with Max Mosley offered an opportunity of managing one of the most popular F1 Grand Prix circuits. This, in turn, led to the heady heights of a factory drive for Mercedes and the establishment of South Africa's first racing driver school. It was only a matter of time before Brian's exceptional sponsorship-acquisition skills took him to F1, where he quickly made a name for himself by securing multi-million pound deals with three of the most sought after global corporations. However, Brian's greatest achievement in motorsport was to establish the Motorsport Industry Association in 1994, in a bid to secure government recognition of the industry in its own right. Once again, Brian's sales skills played a key role. Without ever becoming a household name as a motor racing champion, Brian's story of how he most definitely became a winner is not only inspirational, but highly entertaining, amusing, often irreverent and informative. You Don't Have to Be a Champion… to Be a Winner is the story of Brian Sims, who left school in 1963 with just 5 GCE O-Levels and a shattered dream of following in his father's footsteps as a Royal Air Force pilot.
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