Driving and diving are the chief passions of a Mobberley man who just won't be pigeon-holed
WORDS BY STUART ROBERTSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN COCKS

Marcus Carniel is a 42-year-old who lives with his dog, Beau in Mobberley. He is a self-employed entrepreneur and is doing pretty well for himself.However, Marcus has another side to him, one that enjoys a little danger and requires the utmost skill and precision. In his spare time, Marcus drives racing cars.

He has a relaxed demeanour, dressed in a Porsche Club fleece and jeans. As he drinks his cup of tea, his appearance belies a man who is going places, driven by personal progression.

For here is a man who relishes the unexpected and motorsport provides an outlet for that.

‘I love the challenge of motorsport and the competition. It’s not just against the clock, but it is also against other people.’

He is the son of an Italian father and a mother from Cheadle Hulme. He drives in the Porsche Club Championship.

Originally, Marcus paid for his place to drive in the Championship. However, an opportunity arose, presented to him by Hartech, a company specialising in Porsches. They wanted to enter two cars into the championship and they wanted Marcus to drive for them.

‘It is great to be asked and it is a testament to what I do,’ he says. But it is clear that Marcus is relishing the challenge of racing for the company. A new proposition is what drives Marcus the most.

He tells me that what makes driving for Hartech so exciting is that they are developing and entering a Porsche Boxster S racing car, something that has not been done before. His enthusiasm for the project is clear.

As well as the challenge, there is an added bonus. Marcus explains: ‘I’ve not had to buy a car and I still get to go racing for a year!’

Marcus, who grew up in Handforth, got involved in motorsport in 1993. He joined Knutsford and District Motor Club and they helped him enter road rallies, sprints and hill climbs. He got his track racing licence in July 2004.

He started racing in the Porsche Club Championship in 2005 after buying an established Porsche race car designed for track use. Almost immediate success followed, he secured a podium finish after his second race and won his following race.

He was a Class one champion in 2010 and he won a race at the famous Spar Formula One circuit in Belgium in 2008.

Strangely, Marcus admits he wasn’t particularly interested in motorsport when he was younger.

‘I would come to Oulton Park every so often but I would not describe myself as an avid follower of motorsport. If a Grand Prix was on television I would watch it but I would not go out of my way,’ he says.

But Marcus has always had a passion for cars. He says it is nice to have a car you enjoy and when he was younger the desire for freedom that you get from a car was what made him want to learn to drive. As well as cars, he also rides motorbikes.

His passion for cars crosses over into his professional life. Marcus runs a company called www.autoperform.com from his home.He describes himself as a second hand car dealer but his business card amusingly states that he is ‘Chairman and tea maker’.

Away from cars, Marcus’s hobbies vary but excitement is never far away. He is a qualified diver and is enthusiastic about scuba diving. He learnt how to scuba dive in Turkey and has taken the plunge in exotic places such as Cape Verde, the Maldives and Mauritius.

He loves to travel and he describes his favourite holiday as: ‘Somewhere I’ve not been yet’.

His business also takes him travelling and he attends the Geneva Motor Show every year. It was first held in 1905 and is considered by many auto experts to be one of the most prestigious car shows in the world.

So what next for a man who does not stand still for long? Marcus hopes to gain a helicopter licence soon.

‘I just think it would be amazing to one day be able to fly to my races,’ he jokes. It is a quirky ambition but it says a lot about the man.

And still he can avoid that commute to work for a nine-to-five job that he knew would frustrate him so much.

Providing the total experience

With 13,000 enthusiastic members, Porsche Club Great Britain provides members with a wide mix of activities from regional gatherings to national events. The Club also organises a full motorsport programme, allowing both the enthusiastic amateur and the dedicated competitor to test their cars to the limits. It is the only British club recognised by Porsche and is open to all enthusiasts whether or not they own a Porsche.

www.porscheclubgb.com 01608652911

The print version of this article appeared in the June 2012 issue of Cheshire Life

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