FASTEN your seat-belts. York City's new owner, motor sport boss John Batchelor, has driving ambition. He finally sealed the deal today to buy the ailing Minstermen and plans to crash through the gears and take City fans on a joyride up the Football League ladder.

They may not get there but he promises they will have plenty of fun as he attempts to steer the club through financial minefields and get back on track.

Racing driver, toilet roll salesman, stand-up comedian and Parliamentary candidate are just some of the sub-headings tucked away in Batchelor's bulging CV.

His driving skills have certainly come in handy because he has clocked up the miles on his bright red turbo Subaru Impreza between his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, and York, where he has been locked in regular meetings with former chairman Douglas Craig and separate discussions with City of York Council's planners during the pastfew weeks.

Top of the agenda with the latter has been the siting of a new 15,000 capacity stadium to replace Bootham Crescent, City's home since August 1932.

The site he has in mind is being kept secret for now, but Batchelor is itching to go public as soon as possible.

The colourful Batchelor has promised supporters "cultural change" at the club which has been a relatively quiet backwater lapping at the distant shores of the Football League for many, many years.

Fans can expect not so much of a sea change, more of a parting of the ocean waves.

Sheffield-born Batchelor, who turned 43 in January, is not afraid to take risks and lives life in the fast lane.

Fittingly, he zipped up to York from touring car testing at Silverstone to announce today's news.

City, a club which has been publicity shy in the past, can now expect to be thrust into the media spotlight more times than disgraced MP Neil Hamilton and his wife, Christine.

Indeed, Batchelor once fancied his chances of stepping into Hamilton's seat to represent the good people of Tatton in Parliament.

Hamilton was toppled by independent Martin Bell, the BBC television journalist, in May 1997. But Bell hung up his famous white suit and didn't contest the General Election last year.

Enter William John Batchelor, parliamentary candidate. "I'm interested in politics but I'm fed up with politicians who never tell the truth," he says. He sought Bell's advice and whizzed around the constituency using his Mazda sports car as his campaign battle bus.

He declared at one point that he "knew virtually nothing" about the towns he would represent if elected, but said: "When I get there, I will ask the people what they want."

The 30-year-old George Osborne regained the seat for the Conservatives with a majority of 8,611 after polling 19,860 votes. Batchelor, one of four independents contesting the seat, came seventh out of field of eight runners with 388 votes.

Poking fun at politics could have become a full-time job for Batchelor in his younger days.

He had a spell as a stand-up comic at a Blackburn comedy club, Laughing Gas, in the mid-1980s and wrote satirical scripts which found their way to the likes of Paul Merton and Chris Barrie who were then regulars at the Comedy Store in London.

"I was better at the writing," says Batchelor. "Timing for comedy has got to be perfect and I didn't have it. However, some people think as a racing driver I'm a bit of a comedian."

He juggled comedy with his business - flogging toilet rolls - before opting to build up the business, something which runs in the family.

His father, also William John, was a sales director with the family firm, Batchelor's Foods, which has since been eaten up by Unilever.

Young John only lived in Sheffield a short while before his father's work saw the family home move to Surrey, Kent and Portugal.

After leaving school with four O-levels, Batchelor had a year out in the United States and when he returned started selling insurance door-to-door in East Lancashire.

He then sold cleaning products for a few years, thought he could do a better job so, re-mortgaging his house in 1984, he set up System Hygiene, based in Accrington.

He sold things such as paper towels and cleaning materials to companies but it hardly got his creative juices flowing. Comedy took care of his muse.

"It was good business but it didn't particularly interest me," he says.

He sold the company for a pretty packet in the 1990s and dipped a toe into the world of sport. He went into sports sponsorship full time, setting up deals in football and motor sport, sometimes linking the pair together.

Although he arrives in York with a background in motorsport, he has more than a passing interest in football.

As a youth, he was a season ticket holder at Burnley for many years and played amateur football until he broke his jaw at 27. That ended Batchelor's days as a goalkeeper.

In 1999 he achieved one of his great ambitions - to become a racing driver.

Having got some backing from Blackburn Rovers and their sponsors he put together enough money to build a 220bhp Ford Fiesta and enter the Super Road Saloons Championship.

The team stalled before it had started with three disastrous opening outings, but Batchelor dominated the remainder of the season and won the title in his maiden season of racing.

The following year he moved up to the more competitive Ford Fiesta Zetec Championship. The hunt for sponsorship took him to BBC's Top Gear programme and an eye-catching deal was struck.

He changed his name to John Top-Gear by deed poll but the results didn't come so he moved onward and upward again.

This time he entered the British Touring Car Championship of which fans of York driver James Thompson will be well acquainted.

Once again, Batchelor showed his gambler's instincts. His house was re-mortgaged as he contacted more than 800 companies for financial support and persuaded mega DIY retailer B&Q to come on board just before the start of the 2001 season.

No doubt he, his wife of 21 years, Gillian, the Bursar at Manchester Grammar School, and their four children, heaved a sigh of relief.

A change is as good as a rest so he adopted a new name, John B&Q, but showed that the publicity was no laughing matter as he took his ageing Honda Integra to a podium position in only the second event of the season.

He almost retired from driving after injuring his back and a shoulder after a big shunt at Donington, but will be lowering himself back into the racing cockpit of a Honda Accord this season to drive in the production class.

Batchelor has had his critics in the paddock that disapprove of his tactics and schemes to get media coverage for his sponsors.

He has contacts within the flashy high-speed world of Formula One and some of the men involved in his financial swoop for City are believed to be from the Grand Prix circuit.

When City's new stadium is built it is likely to become the base for Batchelor's Touring Car Racing set-up.

Hopefully, he'll also put City on the fast-track to long overdue success. One thing's a racing certainty - it'll be one hell of a ride.

Updated: 11:59 Friday, March 15, 2002