They Can't See, But Watch Them Go
Sunday Times Motoring Supplement - Page 9 - 31st August 2003 - Alistair Weaver

Excerpt:
Two blind men have this month set barely believable marks for sightless speed, reports Alistair Weaver, a former record-setter himself.

In my toilet, next to a picture of Britney Spears, is a framed certificate from Guiness World Records. It proclaims that on April 8 last year I reached a world record speed of 141mph while driving an Audi S8 blindfolded. For the past year and a bit I’ve been able to complete my ambitions safe in the knowledge that nobody has ever driven faster than me without the aid of sight.

But not any more. On August 13 Mike Newman, a blind bank manager from Cheshire, achieved a two-mile average of 144mph in a Jaguar XJR. It was a stunning achievement, not least because Newman has been blind since childhood.

But his record did not make him the fastest blind man. That title belongs to Billy “the Whizz” Baxter, who on August 2 averaged 164.9mph on a Kawasaki Ninja motorbike.

In the space of a fortnight two men redefined the parameters of what’s possible for blind drivers. And it doesn’t end there. Waiting in the wings is a cast of other blind speed demons with an eye for ever more demanding records. I decided to catch up with my erstwhile competitors and find out why it is they do what they do.

To my embarrasement Billy Baxter recognises my name when I call his office. “You’re a bloody lunatic,” he exclaims with a laugh, “but ut’s nice to finally speak to you.”

Baxter picked up an eye infection while serving as a staff sergeant in Bosnia in 1997. “I’m no war hero, I just had an infection that hit both of my optic nerves and left me as a blind man with a wife and three kids,” he says. Far from sitting back and lamenting his bad luck, Baxter decided that being blind wouldn’t stop him from enjoying himself. “I’d just returned from skiing in Italy when I realised that if I could ski, I could ride a motorbike again.”

He contact the Royal Artillery Motorcycle Display Team who supplied two outriders and developed a three-way communication system to keep the Whizz in a straight line. They even devised a way of controlling his trajectory should the radios that directed him fail: while Baxter would throttle back, the outriders would pull alongside and lean on his shoulders until they came to a stop. “We practiced it at over 100mph,” he explains nonchalantly, “ It was like a comfort blanket.”

The previous motorbike record of 89mph that Baxter broke had been set in 2001 by Newman. But unlike Baxter, Newman had never ridden a motorbike before he had set the record, nor had he driven a car before strapping himself into the XJR and reaching a peak speed of 155mph.

“It was my dream to drive a car on my own,” he says, “I also wanted to show that blind people have ambitions too, and to raise money for buying guide dogs.”

Newman claims he was happy to relinquish the motorbike record, but he will fight vigorously to defend the car record. His success may well depend on the efforts of another group of challengers who are pushing the boundaries of blind driving even further.

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