To me, one of the great disappointments in life is to discover that the people you look up to, the people you admire, are not worthy. Yes, we're all human and it's wrong to expect your heroes to be perfect 100% of the time, but we do.

Then again, there is nothing better than discovering that your heroes really are nice guys, on and off duty.

I recently met a guy who had worked in one of London's best restaurants serving the sort of actors that truly deserved to be called 'movie stars', we're talking Lancaster! Mitchum. I am delighted to say that according to my friend both men were as nice off-screen as on, I went home a happy man.

In late November I received a phone call, there were a lot of things going on in my life at that point, not least the fact that I was about to be made redundant. "Would you like to interview Mario Andretti?" said the voice at the other end of the line. "Pardon?" I said, "I didn't hear you."

"Would you like to interview Mario Andretti?" said the voice again.

A tingle went down my spine, the noise in the office became a distant hum.

"Would I like to interview Mario Andretti?" I said aloud to nobody in particular. "I'd be happy to come along and lick his boots for half an hour."

All manner of images flashed through my mind. 'Superwop' I was going to interview 'Superwop'. I remember Mario winning Indianapolis, I remember all the STP decals, the March 701, the Ferrari 312P, the John Player Special, Mario getting pole at Monza in '82, the year we lost Gilles. I was going to interview Mario Andretti.

In the days leading up to the interview I was a little concerned. Mario was due to attend a book signing in central London however the lack of publicity meant that there was good chance nobody would turn up. As if this wasn't bad enough we were in the run-up to Christmas with wives demanding that husbands accompany them to department stores rather than swanning off to see former race drivers. Finally, as if to guarantee that nobody would turn up, the heavens opened bringing London to a virtual standstill.

Imagine my delight therefore when I arrived to find several hundred people queuing. In spite of the weather, despite the lack of publicity, despite Christmas, they'd come to pay homage to one of the true greats.

I went for a coffee while Mario signed their books, posed for pictures and reminisced with fans, many of who were far too young to have seen the great man in action. Afterwards I accompanied him to the basement and waited while he signed several hundred more books that had been ordered in advance.

Not once, not for a single second did the smile drop from his face. Upstairs in front of the fans he smiled and chatted away but downstairs away from the public he was perfectly free to switch off and get on with the chore of signing. Thing is, this wasn't an act, the man was genuinely enjoying what he was doing, loving every second of it.

Finally, when the last book had been signed he looked across at me, winked and thanked me for my patience. What a man. I began by asking him about the book (Mario Andretti, A Driving Passion by Gordon Kirby), what made this book different from the many others that had been written.

"Well," he began. "This really has detailed accounts of my career in as much as we look at the numbers and go from the very beginning. This is chronological, and covers the important events in my life, timing, turning points, success and not so much success.

"It is my only chance to really go back and dig," he adds. "Before, if someone would have asked me 'how many races have you been in, in your career?' I couldn't have told them. I never counted. Sure I counted wins but along the way we found a couple of wins that I didn't know about. Those kind of things, pole positions so forth. All of a sudden the numbers became important to me because otherwise it would never have been told. This was the opportunity and that's why I seized it with Gordon. He's very knowledgeable and did a lot of the research himself, I didn't have to get in to a lot of the details. It was a chance to tell it all."