One particular night, when most of the things had been going wrong, I thought, “This is it.” You know, as a young person, you think you’ve made it. And then, equally fortuitously, someone who had worked for me in a marketing capacity, who had done a presentation with me to Philip Morris —they didn’t buy the presentation, but they actually took my marketing guy and he had risen in stature through Philip Morris. He reached out and said, “I’ve got a bit of a challenge. I think you can help.” So I said, “What is it?” He said, “We have two drivers, and we’re trying to ingratiate ourselves to the country from where they originate.” So this is sounding a little strange, and he said, “Yes, and they’re not bad drivers. They came fourth in Le Mans in a Porsche…” And I thought fourth in Le Mans in a Porsche is like a “so what” sort of thing.
I said, “Where are they from?” He said, “Ecuador.” I thought, here I am — world champions — and then these two individuals come out of the woodwork. And I said, “No, I’m not interested.” He said, “Think about it.” I said, “No, no, no, no. No, I can’t go backwards.” “You’re not going backwards. You do everything and we’ll just pay.” So I said, “No, I’m not going to do it.” “Well, think about it.” So two days went past, he phoned up and he’s like, “Look, Ron. I really have to find a solution.” So I just thought of a number and multiplied it by six, which was just an inconceivable amount of money, and I just sort of said, “Okay, I’ll do it for this.” He didn’t even phone me back; he immediately said yes. Oh, goodness. But of course, it then gave me a significant amount of money to start again. So I said, “One year of pain to put myself in a position to grow a business again.” And really, that’s how it unfolded.