Stories from Super Touring. Hello and welcome to this week's
episode of Stories from Super Touring.
I'm your host Levi Riley and this week we're rewinding to a
landmark moment in British Touring Car Championship
history. The first ever live TV coverage
of the championship at Brands Hatch.
In 1997 Super Touring was at its peak and for the first time fans
across the country could experience all the drama, action
and intensity of the BTCC live as it happened.
From packed grandstands to high stakes racing on the iconic
indie circuit, this was a game changing moment for the
championship. In this episode we'll read if
the build up, the behind the scenes stories and of course the
on track battles that made that day so unforgettable.
Expect insights from those who were there, drivers, teams and
broadcasters as we dive into the story of how live BTCC coverage
became a reality. To help us read of that moment,
we're joined by podcast regular motorsport broadcaster Greg
Haynes. Greg knows all about the power
of live TV and motorsport and today we'll be talking about
what made that first broadcast so special, the impact it had on
the BTCC and of course the unforgettable on Track action
that day. Greg, how are you this evening?
I'm fine, thanks Ava. I was just laughing at the fact
you said Greg knows all about the power of live TVI wouldn't
go that far, but dish yourself Greg.
More than the rest of us, mate. No.
One, no one stuck up for me then said no, you do Greg.
So thanks for that. No, but I'm excited about this
one. It's a big one.
This isn't it? Because I think more than the
actual race weekend itself, which let's be honest, was
slightly processional, this is very important for the British
Touring Car Championships, television prospects and the way
things were going forward. And we'll stick with you, Greg,
for our usual opening question and what first comes to mind
outside of, as you mentioned, the processional racing that
we'll get onto. What first comes to your mind
when you think about this first live TV meeting for the BTCC?
No doubt about it at all. It's the there's two things.
It's the reader menu collision towards the end of race 2, but
just prior to that, it's the Murray ISM.
Of course, that was Anthony Nissan, which is probably the
second best Murray ISM after only the car upside down is a
Toyota in 1993. So that was a classic Anthony
Nissan, Anthony Nissan, Steady chap, steady Walker.
So that's definitely the highlight for me.
And Charlie Cox laughing in the background.
Adam coming to you next. What jumps into your mind when
you think about this race? I, I just think when you, when
you say the, The Word Alive, you naturally think that something
could potentially happen that hasn't already happened that we
already see within the BTCC. So you naturally think that, but
in reality it was just, it was a little bit processional in terms
of the racing and and there than the the amount of action you
normally see. But there's still, there's still
things going on, like you said with Anthony Reed and and menu.
But I think the first 3 rows was 2 Renaults, 2 unders, 2 Nissans.
It was like, it's almost like you could just see the
performance of the manufacturers all in those first 3 rows in
terms of who was who was on top there.
Yeah. And and finally coming to you,
Alex, what were your memories of this race meeting that?
Means the guy is crazy, he should think a bit more.
Been practising that one for a while that you'll.
Have, yes, yeah. And not only that, it's really
just stood in the background looking like a naughty
schoolboy. And Alan not realising that he
said he's saying it, that really stood right behind him.
And Steve Riley going, well, Anthony Reed's just coming
behind you, Alan. And Alan suddenly looks goes
white and then just walks off. Yeah.
It just walks off embarrassed. But yeah, it's to go is crazy.
You should think a bit more. So yeah, but he wasn't the only
one to call Anthony Reed something a bit a bit naughty.
So sure, we get on to that later.
But yeah, that's my overriding memory of of this meeting.
Let's be fair. The on track action wasn't
great. It's typical, isn't it?
The one first time they go live and it wasn't the best, but
we'll get we'll get into it later.
As always, we've also asked our faithful listeners what they
thought of this race meeting and they've come up with some of the
following. Dennis Knight said it was dull
but the reeds menu coming together.
We've already touched on that theme.
The Honda dominance. Reed looking sheepish in the pit
lane interviews after menu slagged them off.
Rodan G Hill got in touch so it was a shame that it was a quiet
race. Introduced the BTCC to the
matters of the live audience, which I think probably got on to
more as well. Daryl Howar says it was the
first race he ever saw and he's been hooked ever since, which I
guess shows the power of of live TV there as well.
Daniel Bond got in touch so he remembers Menu and Reid coming
together behind Tarquini, which is a memory for others.
John Corley, Red Cheshire and Phil Downs also got in touch.
Say that and Ian Wells, we've already mentioned it with Greg
so far, but Ian Wells simply said Anthony Nissan.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that shows, isn't it, that
the on track offer was not great?
Great. Yeah, that's something we can
talk about a bit later as well, because that's not a
coincidence. I don't think that so many
people remember it being a little bit processional,
including us bearing in mind this first ever Life race
package and not the BHP highlights.
Yeah, we've dressed it up a bit. Well, maybe we'll come to that
in a minute. Yeah.
The credibility of the British Touring Car Championship as a
mainstream TV sport was about to face its biggest test yet as
these two races at Bransac would be screened live on BBC Sunday
Grandstand for the first time. Fronted by veteran presenter
Steve Ryder, the 238 lap races would be the centrepiece of the
afternoon's action, which was to be presented live from the Kent
racetrack. It was a big show of confidence
in the BTCC and its rise in the public prominence at the BBC,
which was looking to replace their loss of Formula One
coverage to ITV ahead of the weekend.
Dave Gordon, editor of Grandstand, was upbeat.
This is one of the most exciting moves Grandstand has made for
years. He told Autosport.
The series has gone from strength to strength over the
past few years and is now getting the recognition it
deserves. Adam Big move for the
Championship to start broadcasting races live on Grand
Sandwich at the time was the premier live TV show for sports
at the time. Yeah, I think it's a huge move
and I I think it already happened, but I think this was
probably one of the really significant points for BTCC in
terms of where drivers would become household names.
Like you've just mentioned that one of the listeners has said
that that's the race that got him hooked.
But if that's the race that got him hooked, what we class as a
bit of a processional boring race in comparison to others,
then it just shows you that impact that he had.
And I think it was just great. I think Formula One lose or
losing the Formula One on BBC was probably a good thing in
reality because it's then opened the doors for BTCC.
And obviously Gow and Co would have obviously pounced on that
opportunity. But yeah, household names for
drivers. This was that whole, you know,
win on a Sunday, sell on a Monday.
And and, you know, I just think it was just a really big,
there's so much more that probably come from it than what
we naturally think was just the racing.
But I'd certainly think that this was a very much like drive
to survivors for Formula One through Netflix.
I think this was probably, you know that.
Version. Of that, the door opening,
you've got people that you know. I remember it as a kid when
Grandstand was on. I'll be around my grandparents
house and and like grandstand be on in the background.
They're all sorts touring cars around and I'm like, yes,
because I was into obviously racing at that point anyway,
because I was, I was karting. But Steve Ryder, all of a
sudden, just no matter what you you were doing or where you was
and you heard he, he had me in front of the TV.
And I just think you, you see that with a lot of like that
drive to survive. Now there's, there's, there's
women and kids that come up to me that, that talk about it and
about drives that are that they're into it and all the
people that you would not expect to be into it.
And I think that was probably very much the same when when
that happened, I think because grandstand was like lunchtime
Saturday, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah.
And what was so great about Grandstand as well as you'd get
people watching. You wouldn't necessarily watch,
wouldn't you? That's the that's what I mean,
yeah. You've got that whole audience
like George survivors, all these people that are telling you
they're watching the Hooked on Formula One, that the last piece
but on this Earth that I'd ever think would be into it.
You know, there's so many people that are.
And I think this was the same then.
Yeah. One, we need to do hard art of
football and exactly toy cars coming on it's.
Just beyond the corner, wouldn't it?
You know, it wasn't like nowadays when you're on your
devices and you watch what you want to watch, when you want to
watch it. It's on.
And I'm funnily enough getting hooked on a live race as well
because I started with the games.
But then I remember the first race I actually watched when I
was 10 was Brands Hatch 2000 live rounds.
Rounds one or two. So like that listener we heard
from before, I think the fact is, well, you know, it's
happening as you're watching. It does give you something
extra, doesn't it? Yeah, completely, completely.
And I think with all the other sports they show you think on
grandstand, yes, this might have been a bowling race from our
standards, but why more exciting than a lot of the other sports
highlights that they were showing at the time.
So all of a sudden these are all driving into each other.
Everyone's thinking this is ice, you know, that's something
they've never seen before. I think it was big that the
whole thing was from brands as well, the whole programme.
Yeah, you know, they were, they were live at brands all
afternoon. Yeah, they were showing other
sports. Yeah, we're going to go live now
and watch some of the highlights of Whatnot and horse racing,
whatever, but they were based brands.
Right. I think that's quite a big, you
know, tick in the box for the BTCC as well, you know, because
the whole environment, the atmosphere is, you know, is you
just soak it all up, don't you? You know, even silly things like
here in the the pit horn going, you know, stuff like that before
the race. It's, it's just, I love it.
I, I, yeah, it's, that's what I used to like about the live
rounds when when they were actually at the track all
afternoon. Yeah, you just get all that
build up, all the atmosphere and something like the reader menu,
you know, you think he's crazy, you should think a bit more.
That's exactly the sort of thing, yes, Steve Ryder would
have absolutely revelled in. They needed and wanted something
like that. So that was perfect actually.
Yeah. And obviously from commentators
point of view, Greg, it must make your job easier when those
moments happen because you've got something to talk about that
was never in your script or in your thoughts at any point where
all of a sudden you you can naturally talk about it because
it's something's just happened. Yeah, true.
And I remember reading an interview with Charlie Cox, I
think it was in one of the race programmes actually, from either
Donnington, the first or second, the first Donnington round or
the first Silverstone round in in 2000.
I can't quite remember where the interview was, but I remember he
always said he preferred commentating live because when
you were doing the studio stuff, if you did cock something out
you might be tempted to go back and do it again.
Whereas live, you're live. So mistakes, everything,
whatever you're thinking at the time, it's gone out, it's too
late, you can't do it again. So it adds that edge to the
broadcast as well. Knowing there's one shot here,
you can't repeat it. Prior to the meeting, Steve
Ryder wrote a column in Autosport where he said that it
was the right time for the BTCC to go live.
He believed the notion of delayed highlights was on
borrowed time and that the package produced by BHP was a
misrepresentation of the narrative and pace of the actual
race, even if it was terrific television.
Alex also spoke with Steve about this at Brands Hatch last year
when Steve sat down to talk to the pod.
You know, I've, I've, I've worked a lot, of course, with
dear old Murray Walker. Who put?
The commentary on and we will get back to we had a, we had an
edit suite in in Goth Square in central London and we probably
have a, you know, meeting like this, especially if you're
around the Grand Prix circuit, probably 1314 cameras.
So we'd sit there on a Monday morning, knee deep in tapes and
trying to work out the best way to put it together.
We had a wonderful editing team. It would take them about 2 1/2
days to put the edit together and then Murray will come in on
a Wednesday afternoon and he would sit there and it would
take him probably a day and 1/2. Really.
To work out the commentary we had to put him up in the very
nice hotel in the West End and then around about Thursday
afternoon he'd be ready. We'd sit there and listen to
Murray's wonderful dub and everything.
But it was the interesting thing with Murray, he said in those
first three or four years, he said of course, you know, this
will never work live. You know, you put every incident
from, you know, all the races all sort of slam bang together
and it's wonderful entertainment in that respect.
But if you go live, people will realise that actually the
British Steering Car Championship isn't quite like
that. And.
He, he, he was quite. Forthright about it in his book
and he was quite you know this will never work live and thank
goodness it has done largely because the technology has
involved yeah so much and the on board cameras are wonderful and
you've got the commitment from ITV but but no he was he was Oh
no it's. Alex, would you agree with
Steve's take on it there? I mean, I agree personally.
It was getting so big and and grandstand we're, you know, BBC,
we're looking for motorsport after losing F1.
And it just came along at the right time.
They already covered world rallying, but that hadn't quite
experienced the same sort of boom level as touring cars.
And yeah, it just seemed the right time.
It just seemed the right thing to do.
It was making superstars of these people.
You know, the game was coming out, the bigger names were
coming to the championship. It just seemed.
It just seemed the right time in the Championships growth to do
it and give it that bit of BBC shine.
Because I don't know about anyone else but I've always
thought nobody does sports quite like BBC.
They just they just seem to nail it.
You know, you look at F1 BBC compared to ITVII.
Always thought the the BBC coverage was was just
spectacular. And to be fair, they didn't go
in half hearted. And Steve Ryder wrote a column
just before and they said, and he said sorry, that the brand's
indie circuit, which was obviously where this live first
live race was going to be, could have been quite covered, quite
successfully covered with just a handful of cameras.
But the BBC don't just do things by halves.
The commitment they have means they're not short of anything.
And they had 10 trackside cameras, mixture of high and low
to convey both the speed and the shape of the race, 2 pit lane
cameras and also an airborne helicopter camera.
And so 13 cameras covering brands indie in 1997.
That's, that's quite a commitment from the BBC.
So they were putting a lot of effort into this and, and I
think it was totally deserved. The championship deserved it.
It was the right time to go live.
As Steve, a leader to in that chat with Alex, not everyone was
in agreement. Surprisingly, lead commentator
Murray Walker was very much against the Championship going
live In his autobiography. Unless I'm very much mistaken,
Walker said Steve Ryder had been pushing for live coverage of the
BTCC for some time and this was the only thing he and I ever
disagreed on. I thought he was wrong then, and
I still do. Of course, I know all the
arguments about the immediacy and prestige of live
broadcasting, but I don't think the 1997 BTCC live coverage was
nearly as exciting and impactful as the recorded and edited
output. I was particularly disappointed
with the inability to access the in car footage, a feature that
was much loved in the edited packages.
Greg Murray was very adamant, even after the fact, that the
live coverage is the wrong move for the championship at the
time. Some pretty strong words from
there on on how he felt, wasn't it?
Yeah, I, I don't think you can disagree with Murray when you
actually look at the quality of the in car cameras, if you
compare the BHP produced stuff. And just to let people know, for
those of you who don't know, BHP was Barry Hinchcliffe
Productions. They were based in Goth Square
in London and Murray would go in there on a Wednesday and they
would take all the tapes from the cars.
So each car had its individual camera with its own tapes in.
Each track camera had its individual tapes in it, which
the cameraman would change through the day.
They'd get all the tapes, so much of the amount of tapes,
they'd have to back to London on a Sunday night, edit the whole
lot together for highlights package and Murray would go in
on the Wednesday, go through it all and then go back to a nice
hotel. As Steve Wright has always said,
they put him up in a nice hotel. And I know Alan Gow, the BTCC
series boss, would have to pay Murray three or four days to do
a half hour highlights edit, but he'd go through it frame by
frame and then come back in on the Thursday afternoon, I think
it was and voice it as though it was live.
And it was brilliant, wasn't it? And that's what made the BTCC so
big to get to the point where right now with Brands 97.
So that was the recorded highlights.
And I understand why Murray would say that because if you
watch the On Car cameras, particularly those early
broadcasts in 97, they were not as good.
They were they were near as good.
You get break up. There was an on car moment with
John Cleland at Knock Hill later that year which was live and
they tried to speak to John on under a safety car and they're
trying to do it with people on warm up laps and it didn't quite
work as they wanted it to. So I could understand exactly
why Murray would say that because traditionally Formula
One had been, and I don't think this, but people would say
Formula One's the boring one when nothing happens.
Touring Cars is the crash bang wallet brigade.
There's always action and obviously they put it together
in a very clever way to make it look like there was even more
better races than there were. So Murray thought it's lost,
Touring Cars has lost its USP in a way, those special moments.
So I can see exactly what it means because, you know, the
races are long, especially at Brands 97.
There was some action, but it wasn't as much action as
normally through the year. It was that we know 97 was one
of the very most dominated years anyway in the whole that period.
So I can see why Murray would say that because he wanted
instant action. But obviously another problem
was I had a lot more time to fill because as we said before,
they'd lost the F1 coverage to the beat.
Even the recorded highlights in 97 were more padded out.
Remember the Bin Cliff and Leslie collision at Silverstone
97? That was covered in a lot more
depth than it normally would be. They got all the posts incident
walking back to the driver and behind the barrier.
It would have been much punchy, wouldn't it?
In previous years, they had more time to fill.
So I can see what merry men there and I can understand why
he'd think that. And if you think about it, drive
to survive. Adam, you mentioned this before.
That's not live, is it? That's all put together, taking
all the best bits. So I still think there is a
market for this in this day and age.
You can go watch when you won on one of these and then on a phone
that is for those of you who can't see me, you know, or a
tablet or whatever. People don't want to necessarily
sit through a 90 minute F1 race or you know, so it depends.
It's something for everyone, isn't it?
I think it's important, even if you do have a live event, to
still have a good highlights package because a lot of people
don't have the time or don't want to spend the time going
through, you know, the whole thing when it's live.
Yeah, I'll watch a BTCC highlights package now.
One watch of race of no interest, just no interest in it
at all. It's it's the commitment of time
as well, like it's. Yeah, that too, you know.
Yeah, the, the, the builder, you know, to get there and then
there's the grid and all that. And I love all that.
If you've got the time to watch it and Greg knows this from the,
from the Super bikes that I love it if I've got time to sit there
and do it. But obviously with three kids,
it's rare that you do it. So now I'm I'm into like
watching some highlights now, which is rammed in a real short
programme. So you could then I want it to
be longer because I want to see more of it.
But like, you know, it's one of them.
If you've got time to watch the live ones, you can.
But like you said that I think there's definitely a benefit
without like a highlight package.
We can just take all the best bits.
Yeah, not to not to blasphemy against Murray, but I bet he
liked, I bet he liked the highlights package.
Staying in a hotel for three nights in a luxury, I think, I
think I'd do that as well. No, in fact you were saying
about how they padded out the even the highlight rounds
because F1 had gone to ITV, the grandstand had put the BTCC from
30 minutes highlight packages up to an hour.
And Murray said in his book as well, that was another reason
why he left the championship at the end of 97 and said, look,
I'd love to stay but I can't commit to to doing as much as
you're wanting. And he felt even the hour
packages were probably pushing it a little bit.
But yeah, obviously they padded that out with, you know, post
race stuff, pre race stuff that Charlie and what he did there
because they were at the races and of course Murray wasn't
that. He was probably at Thruxton
every year or maybe somewhere else, but that was it.
He very apart from the live ones.
Obviously he very rarely actually attended the most
meetings because of his other commitments.
Yeah, and I mean that's obviously another reason why
Charlie Cox became so popular as well because like you say Alex,
he was going to the races to do these pre race features, the
interviews. I think yeah, we should shout
out to to Steve Ryder though, because you compared before the
BBC F1 coverage and ITV. But let's forget, let's not
forget the BBC F1 coverage pre ITV was not the same.
ITV took it on to another level altogether and Steve was very
much involved in the consortium that put together the ITV F1
coverage, even though he didn't present it.
That was Chrysalis and Meridian and there was all the people
involved there, including Martin Brundle when they used to have
meetings in in pubs all across 1996.
And in his words, to my shock and horror, we won the bid.
And then Steve have dilemma at the end of 96 because was he
going to leave the BBC after all those years to go and present F1
for ITV? Of course he did and that's why
Jim Rosenthal was brought in and did a great job.
I like Jim. Yeah.
And Steve, obviously. Stayed with the B, but it's,
yeah, a lot. I think you hit the hit the nail
on the head, Adam. You know, if you've got kids, a
wife, a life, jobs, can you really dedicate all day Friday
or Thursday as well now with warm up shows and all the rest
of it Friday, Saturday, Sunday, notebooks and all the rest of it
at the end of the weekend some. People can some.
People can't and I know I wouldn't be able to.
In other news, there was talk of another independent entry
joining the grid. Former F Free racer Wayne
Earnshaw was rumoured to be trying to lease the Yap
Motorsport Honda Accord in the Total Cup for the remainder of
the season. Alex It never happened, but it
could have been an interesting addition to the grid.
Yeah, it's a bit of a. Strange 1 Wayne and Shaw was a
sometime F3. Sort of middle.
Of the road race from the 80s. If I would try and describe it,
it probably would be a bit like Russell Spence in 99, who made a
racing comeback in a in an independent car.
That Yap Honda hadn't been raced since the end of 96 in the TT
Donnington, where it was raced, raced by former Peugeot crash
test dummy Eugene O'Brien. And and yeah, so it never
happened, but there was also another little nugget of
information. Do you know who else was
sniffing around that car? Matt Neil and Steve Neil.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because they wanted to dump that Mondeo.
And at first they were looking at that Honda.
And eventually I went for the the Nissan.
But, yeah, so it could have all been very different.
We could have seen in a Honda Accord and he might not have
ever won that first. Yeah, isn't it funny how you can
sort of go down, rewrite history in certain ways, but yeah, it
never happened. But Wayne and Shaw?
You know not to. Be unkind.
He probably wouldn't have done that much, but it would have
been another car on the width that that total cup year or
total sorry, that total cup year was really one of the strongest
actually, because you had Rob Gravity in it.
Jamie Wall was decent in it. You had Colin Galley in the BMW.
You had Matt Lee Brooks was the reigning champion.
It was a really strong year for that, that category.
Probably the, dare I say, the strongest.
Not sure, but yeah. So it would have been an
interesting time, but I'm not sure Wayne and Shaw would have
done much several high. Profile celebrities were lined
up to attend the first ever live BTCC race broadcast, adding
extra excitement to the event. Football stars David Jinila and
Trevor Sinclair are attending with Renault and Peugeot
respectively, whilst Duran Duran Simon Le Bond was also going to
be attending with Honda. Got a slightly different
question than the usual here? Who would have been your 90s
celebrity that you'd have invited to that race at Brands
in 97? Whose question?
Was this, is this an Alex Clark question?
It sounds it is, yeah. Definitely.
It's definitely Alex's. I know who mine is, but I'm
going to let you all answer. Oh, tough one, I.
Mean I could easily go in there with Mansell.
How good has Mansell have been just strutting his stuff down
there, down there there. But you know, but it's looking.
I just kind of try and catch your mind about that far only.
And it was not big, but from like a from a music point of
view. What about the Gallagher
brothers strutting the stuff? Oh yeah.
Down there. Down the down the grid there,
you can just imagine, can't you just imagine Liam, yeah, like
alive swearing just like when he goes up to the, you know, to get
his, his awards of the Brits and stuff.
But they're like, no, not again, He's swearing again.
So yeah, I think it'll be the last person on the list.
I don't think Gow would have wanted him on there, but I think
that's a tough one there's. Yeah, I think that'd have been a
good one from ATV perspective, but it's whether it'd done the
BTCC any favours or not be another thing.
For me, there's no. Doubt whatsoever who this needs
to be because this particular person had connections with
racing, had done a bit of racing himself, was even involved with
a potential linker with the BTCC if you remember earlier in the
90's. The I feel like this is a nice
question. Mr 90s TV celebrity himself, the
one and only Noel Edmonds is here.
Oh, yes, yes. Because I think it would have.
All just gone together. In fact, around that same sort
of time, he was trying to put a bid together to race a car at
Lamont, if you remember, and actually did with the panels, if
I'm not mistaken, and I think that was 97 as well.
Actually, I think it was just imagine Mr. Lobby, Mr They
should have got Mr Lobby on the grid.
Imagine a car. He was.
He was.
In a Peugeot. So yeah, I think it.
Would have been absolutely brilliant to have Edmunds there.
Mr Blobby came up at the back of the interview.
Brilliant. Brilliant.
When that though he'd like he'd have ended up like knocking a
mirror off a car or something. Always like Mayhem with
mechanics like Quick. Amazing.
For a podcast based on Super Touring races, it's amazing how
many times Noel Edmonds and Mr Blobby keep cropping up, isn't
it Levi and Matt, have you got any potential celebrity guests?
I can't wait to hear this. Can't beat Mr. Blobby, they can.
No, I was actually going to say one that Adam mentioned.
I was, I was actually going to say Nigel, because I'd love to
have asked him in 97 if he had any interest in racing in the
championships. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because with a with an empty wallet in my pocket, I don't
think he'd have been that interested.
For me, I don't know. I mean, I'd probably pick a
footballer just to be every camp there's an hour.
I thought it'd be a good. That'd be good.
Ali. McCoy.
'S Gaza that that would. Have been Jesus.
Christ, Gaza thing. Outrageous Gaza.
And the Gallagher brothers in the hospitality swing, I
suppose. Other ones as well.
There's obvious connections because we had Williams there
and because we had TWR there, you know, to get Damon Hillen
would have been good with Volvo. Yeah, yeah.
And obviously. Villeneuve and Frenson, although
I doubt they would have wanted to, you know, spend their
weekend. What they might have done, who
knows? But maybe Damon Hill would have
been good. Damon would have been good.
Yeah, Damon had, obviously, and was.
Racing for TWR at the time. Pedro.
You guys probably. Oh, Damon, not so much.
Pedro, I don't think. No.
Didn't spring to mind, Levi. Yeah, Damon would have.
Been really good, actually. That would have been.
Yeah. That would have been a nice.
I can't imagine many of the celebrities were that excite.
Although, in fairness, David Ginola did.
He was a big fan, wasn't he? He also tested a Laguna at the
end of 96. Really.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, David Ginola was raced or driven a super tour.
Let's think about it as well, Damon.
Hill did race in the BTCC didn't he did in 1990.
Yeah, in 90 as well, he did the, he did the Donnington, you know,
at least to do those double headers.
Yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, Damon would have been cool.
But I'm still going with Noel Edmonds.
Yeah, Noel would have been. Cool as well.
I'll go in now if. He brought along Mr Blobber.
Yeah, yeah. I can go with that too.
Yeah, I'm. Just yeah, Who else was?
Sort of half of them. Now you can't really mention
anymore, can you? The spice.
Girls were big at that point. I've wrote the Spice Girls down,
actually. The sport.
I thought I was a mad fan myself but love Chris Evans.
Chris. Chris was huge at that point.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Tear fired and he
and well. I'll be surprised if he wasn't
there already, but Tiffany Dell would have been a good one if he
wasn't already there. Any of the Top Gear presented,
actually, Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Meanwhile, back on track, Honda's Gabrielli Tarquini had
been testing in three different countries prior to the Brandsach
meeting. He drove for three days at
Manicor with Prodrive before flying back to Brandsach to
testing the official Toke test. He then headed to Zandvoort to
test with the VZM Belgian Honda Team Adam.
Quite a testing programme for Gabrielli though.
Yeah, awesome. I think from a driver's
perspective, that's like an absolute ideal scenario just to
have a full time contract with one team doing plenty of
testing. But to go and do that three
times and potentially be getting 3 paychecks, that's like even
better, isn't it? But yeah, I never had the budget
to to go testing. I was literally scraping the
budget together to go from one race to another.
So I was never fortunate enough to go and do a lot of testing.
So I was missed out in whatever category I did really, even when
I went into GT racing. So great position.
What a life, you know, being paid to fly around, you know,
driving cars and testing various bits and pieces and, you know,
endless amounts of tyres and budgets.
Not really an issue. And yeah, absolute ideal from a
driver perspective. Yeah, good, busy, busy time.
But you know, if he, if he had the cheek to say that he was
tired at any point, you'd, you'd have to have a word, wouldn't
you? Because what a what a shock.
Tired. What do you mean?
Tired. Yeah, it's it's mad to think of
the programmes they had back then, isn't it madness?
Madness, you know, and the the, the money that manufacturers are
spending, you know, obviously, you know, we, we, we know how
that that turned out in terms of manufacturer support.
You know, this era which is constantly talking about this
part was what it was all about. The manufacturers were heavily.
It's never been the same since and it will never be repeated.
So. But the budgets were were
astronomical. And you know, he just, he was
mad, really. But yeah, what a great time.
Yeah. And as Tim.
Harvey and Anthony Reed have said a few times over the years
this was a point in history when there were more professional
paid drivers on the BTCC grid and National Touring Car
Championship essentially, although he had so much
international flavour than yeah, Formula One, which is mad to
think about it, isn't it now? Yeah, it's just mad and the.
Wages like, you know, you couldn't, I mean, I don't know
what Tim would have got paid for being with Peugeot, but yeah, it
wasn't the ideal scenario. But still the salary would like
you can't like it's it's difficult.
I suppose it's similar to like footballers really.
If you offered a deal to go with a particular team, it might not
be your ideal choice, but the salary is good.
Like, and this is, yeah, it's it's life changing decisions
that you're making for the benefit of yourself and your
family going forward. Where, you know, if they didn't
do this, then they might have to go and get a proper job, which
no one, no one would have wanted to have done.
Go and get a nine to five. But you know, and that's, you
know, it's easy for us on the outside.
Oh, why would you get there? Why would you get there?
But might have been the only deal at the time.
You know, we don't know. But even if you did add two or
three deals on the table, you know, could have been the
slowest car on their grid. But if they're paying the best,
what'd you do? Reed?
Reed. He said that to us, didn't he,
when he was talking about his Ford deal?
Yeah, he said. Everyone said to him.
What are you leaving that and this sounds the quickest car on
the grid blah blah blah blah. He's I'll never Yeah, because.
I'll never have to work another day.
I'm alive. He said that Ford contract
changed my life, Yeah. It did it.
Paid off everything. It meant that he can now live a
fair, you know, a fairly comfortable life.
And, you know, he said that. He said, I don't, you know, I
don't regret a second of it. Yes, I could have won a title or
two, but would that change my life?
No. Yeah.
It's an. Interesting many things.
It is regarding, we probably haven't spoken enough about it
really in terms of that aspect of it, in terms of a driver's
life and the, the financial benefits of it and the back
then. Because like I said, it's never
going to be repeated. And, you know, if you could pay
your mortgage off and have a few quid in the bank, then like
that's like box ticking exercise, isn't it?
That's not what we all want to do.
None of us want a mortgage. And, you know, one contract can,
can sort that right out. And that's pretty much like you
said. How about Anthony Reed?
You know, it's, it changed his life like he did with many
others. Yeah.
Absolutely. And JP.
Jason Plato said before when he used to go testing with Williams
Renault, they would just bring truckloads of tyres and into the
next day Michelin turns up with another load of tyres that have
been developed overnight back in France.
It's unbelievable when you think about it, isn't it?
This was basically a world championship taking place with
international drivers, cars and teams all on British circuits.
Such a special time. Yeah.
And that's. The thing like the salaries they
were taking, they probably thought, oh this is madness,
what they're paying, but in reality they've spent more on
tyres that season than what they're paying the driver.
They've spent more on hospitality, entertaining
guests, customers, dealer franchises than they have on the
drivers. So it's, it's a chunk of the the
budget. But in reality they spent a
whole lot more on a lot of other things.
And the drivers is quite, quite a minimal thing really.
Plus you've got all the staff wages for the people that are
running the team in the mechanics, the engineers, the
full time, you know, full time guys.
And you know, the money was absurd really that was involved.
But you could only do that with manufacture money.
You have to say. That's precisely why they had to
go live, you know, it was, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Need exposure? It wouldn't be just.
Tarquini that would be testing abroad with James Thompson
heading to Hockenheim to tested the German Honda Team Linda
alongside their driver Alfred Hager.
Greg Honda put a lot of effort in at the moment to overhauling
a run a team that had dominated the start of the 97 season.
Yeah. Because at this point, of
course, let's just recap what had happened.
We'd had Donnington and we'd had Silverstone and we'd had
Thruxton and Menu had run away with pretty much everything.
Even though Plato had a few pole positions, didn't he?
On his debut, which he was and still is very proud of, quite
rightly. But Menu had been the bridesmaid
for the previous three years, 94.5 and six.
He was the runner up to Tarquini, Cleland and Feeler.
And it was his turn, wasn't it? Let's be honest, he deserved it.
And Williams were putting in huge investment as we just said,
but Menu had won. He'd done the double at
Donnington, the double at Silverstone and then we'd have
Thruxton. There was a bit of hope for
everybody else because it was a rain affected race events.
Obviously we had didn't we recently, Barry Notley on the
podcast last series I think it was, wasn't it?
Or the one before time flies. And we had rain there and we'd
had Beela winning with his four wheel drive in Race 1 and
Tarquini in a Honda won Race 2. So they were obviously very
optimistic coming into Brands Hatch and throwing everything at
it. I'm sure they're all a bit
dejected when menu pretty much ran away again with race one.
But as we'll come to in a minute, Honda came good again in
Race 2, didn't they? And critically, for the first
time that season, for race 2 qualifying, there wasn't a
single Renault Laguna on the front row of the grid.
And it just went to show how important qualifying was.
And it also underlined again how important, how difficult it was
to overtake on the Brands Hatch indie circuit.
But yeah, isn't it incredible to think these British touring car
drivers were going off to places like Manicor and Hockenheim to
do Grand Prix? Circuits Grand Prix.
Circuits with these international teams, again, it
just underlined, you know, everything was world
championship status about the BTCC, apart from its name.
It was to every, you know, to all intents and purposes, this
was a world championship. Yeah.
Rounding up the. Paddock News before the event
John Binkliff was given a warning by his Alder UK bosses
in the wake of the collision at the previous meeting at Froxton,
where he was judged to have punted team mate Frank Beeler
into the barriers which led to the German missing the Brown
Satch Toca test due to the damage to the A four and the
damage to Beeler's ribs. We've had some.
Serious discussions of John about it and he now understands
our point of view. We are now expecting less
problems from John ALDI, boss John Wickham told Autosport.
Guys, we. Discussed this in our Franks in
1997 episode of Barry Nutley, which is quite a harsh treatment
from ALDI in the wake of the collision are.
We. Still, are we still convinced it
was his fault? Yeah, because you're.
You're adamant. You.
You were pretty sure it wasn't.
Yeah. I'm not.
Yeah, I'm not fully, like we said before on a previous
episode that I'm not. It was, it was unlucky.
He was, it was an unlucky situation, but I felt like he
was like. Not wrong place, wrong.
Time. I think Beaver was in the wrong
place, wrong time. But I thought, yeah, I'm not
fully. I'm not now I'm not.
I think it was a bit harsh treatment if he said those
words, but I don't think he sort of deserved it.
But I think he was just letting him know that you are clearly a
number 2 and you need to behave. Yeah, just about.
To say that, yeah, I think you know.
Frank was clearly. The Schumacher of Audi if you
get. No matter what.
We no matter what he did, we were to protect Frank and think
Cliff would always be the like you say, the second driver.
Yeah, and I understand. That completely understand it
like you know your place you're in as a number 2 and and you
take it. Wouldn't you have had you're
offering you a job when you've come out of a, you know, fiestas
or whatever he was in? What was he in before?
Did he come out of fiestas into trying to eat?
So but like, you know, absolutely you've you've you've
hit the jackpot. But no, I still to this day, I
don't think it was Binkley's fault.
I just think it was a racing incident.
That throat met in the middle didn't they?
It was between Cobb and Seagrove.
Binkliffs out a bit wide. Came back across from what I
remember and just clipped the front of Frank's card and then
it sent him off. It was a big impact.
Actually the the punishment there was crime.
Really, in terms of the incident, it's a big impact.
Purely because the nature of the barrier and the way.
The way, yeah. But yeah, it was just.
It was a very sudden stop, wasn't it?
And it sort of pirouetted 180° like a turntable, really like a
talking top. But I don't.
I mean, you could have stopped beater in the car for the Browns
test I guess, and taken Binkliff out.
But I guess if he's in pain with his ribs it wasn't.
That's obviously why they didn't, but it must have put a
lot of pressure on Bincliff as well because we've seen drivers
before, haven't we, trying to be too careful and causing even
more incidents as a result. But clearly within Audi, as
we've already said, the politics there, the German, he was the
reigning champion, let's not forget, and he was the stronger
of the two drivers. So he wasn't fortunate.
I mean, you don't want team mates climbing anyway, do you?
Let's be honest, they obviously argued Bincliff should have
known he was there and not come back in front of him.
Did Beeler? Have a serious chat with Andy.
When when Croft when when he punted Binkliff off at Croft.
I was just about cynical. I think that probably didn't
happen, did it? No.
And very similar incidents, first lap and the the latest of
touches. The only difference is, as Adam
said, it was a it was an Armco barrier at Thruxton where it was
a big field at Croft. Yeah.
I don't. Know maybe that's, that's just
me being I felt a bit after after reading that I really felt
sorry for Bincliffe because it's it's really making a mountain
out of a molehill, if you ask me, but but also publicly.
Saying those words as yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, which that'd be normally.
An internal thing. So I'm surprised that was that
was like that, but. Yeah, I suppose I.
Suppose in Audi's defence at least, Bincliffe was, let's say,
used the word allowed a win. He led Bila home in a 12, then
he later in this year and not kill Frank Muck.
Bila, wasn't it a not kill that year?
They had it on the window of the car, so I suppose they could
have instructed him to move out of the way if they really wanted
to. So I suppose they valued
Bincliffe. But it probably shows there was
quite a lot of tension behind the scenes as well because
they've had the weight penalty, hadn't they earlier in 97?
The pressure was on, Beta could probably feel the title defence
slipping away and there was quite a lot of there.
Wasn't in the team, yeah. You know, with the white.
And everything can slowing them down, you see.
You can imagine the tensions that they have because they've
gone for me so dominant to now. Well, actually you're going to
get paid in life. So you can imagine what it was
like behind the scenes because it was so public, wasn't it?
And I remember. To use Charlie Cox's words from
the 99 season review, I believe is that history has not been
kind to the Champions. And if you look, we didn't get a
single repeat champion all through the 90s.
Didn't often because rule changes were put in place or
penalties or pit stops or something was brought in to
penalise whoever had got the jump on the field that you had
before. So howdy were the victims of
that in 97? The streak of.
Williams and Rene dominance in qualifying ended at Brands Hatch
after Jason Plato and Alan Menu claimed all 7 pole positions of
the season so far. Hondas Gabrieli Tanquini finally
disrupted the trend by securing pole for the second race of the
day. With the Renaults.
Of Menu and Jason Plato getting down into the mid 40 fours
bracket in testing along with the Hondas of Tanquini and James
Thompson. Menu's qualifying best of 44.86
seconds was a little disappointing for the
championship leader, but was explained by overnight rain
washing the track and making the tracks appear as a result.
The Honda. Drivers seemed initially to cope
best of the mild changing conditions, but then the Renault
steamroller was pressed into action, turning the front row
from all only in red to all yellow and blue in the last five
minutes of the session. It's close, what can I say?
Said menu about the top 4 being covered by 1/10 of a second,
Alex. Certainly a lot closer than most
of the season had been so far in 19.
Yeah, yeah, it. Had been and it had.
It had been worse than that. And four races in and the field
was closing up. Honda.
We just discussed the amount of development work they were
doing. It was obvious that they were
moving towards the front of the field.
They did. They did well at at Thruxton and
had taken another step further here again, however, I would
like to sort of. Pour water on.
That in the fact that it was also Brands indie, it's the
shortest track of the year. So you know you're looking at
one second covering most of the grid.
That's how how tight it was at Brands and it always is.
I'd assume it probably still is something similar.
Now in the BTCC again, I don't know, but I'm sure it's
something very similar. Whenever you race at Brands
Hatch, the. The the.
The qualifying times will condense just because of the
nature of the circuit. Although it was lovely to see
the old Graham Hill there. I do miss old Graham Hill.
So yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, as we've.
Already said Tanquini took the pole for the second race.
Menu always stole it right at the last second, but the Swiss
driver failed by just 0.05 seconds to match the Italians
time. At the death, Thompson booted
Menu off the front row entirely to give Honda their first ever
front row lockout in the series. I dug deep in the last few
minutes and managed to scramble one out when the Yorkshire went
after the session. Nissan's Anthony Reed had his
strongest showing yet, pushing Plato onto the 3rd row of the
grid by taking forth at the death.
There was more. Sorry for Ricard Riedel however,
Menu's closest rival going into the meeting only 10th on the
race one grid. He at least improved his sixth
later on after drastic set up changes to his TWR Volvo.
Forward improved. With seventh for Hoy and 8th for
Adesich, with the new one day looking far more competitive at
the start of the season. Adam.
Despite the dominance of Renault at the front, it was quite a mix
up order behind them, wasn't it? Yeah, it was.
I mean, again, that that's what makes the BTCC what it is.
That's what we want. That's why we watch it, because
it is so varied at times. But anything can happen.
Probably will. Yeah, that's pretty much like
one of the the same. Take that one, Greg, I'll let
you have that one. But but it's it is it's like
anything can happen. It probably will because you you
just don't know what's next. You know, you look at that first
race where they qualified with the the two Renaults and two
hundreds or two Nissans. But the races didn't go that
way, did they? Completely.
It's it's completely mixed bag. And that's what that's what we
love and that's why we watched it because it was so varied.
But like, you know, I've already made this note here about what
you've just said. How good was it to see Granville
Bend? You know, I was so disappointed
when they changed it because it was a ballsy corner.
It was a corner he had to be committed to because he on new
tyres on, you know, it was flat, but then, you know, full tanks
and worn tyres. It wasn't, it was a little bit
of a lift on the way in and wasn't always flat, you know,
and and obviously made it interesting in the rain.
So it was such a good corner. So it was good to watch that
back and and see that because that's one of those corners
where they've changed it. I don't know why they've changed
it because they want another break in area for for potential
overtakes because brands Indies so difficult.
And I think that's why it's a little bit processional because
brands can be like that, either full carnage or it's
processional. It's like one or the other.
And again, if yes, just one of the corners like Dingle dolls
changed and they're like all those and Nets and obviously
then massively changed and you know, the bum hole and Oh yeah,
just get me, get me into those, those corners that were so
great. But I'm so pleased that I got to
drive on them ready before they but they changed them and then I
got to use them on both. But yeah, it's good.
It's good to see. Race they dawned at Brands Hatch
mark in a historic moment for British motorsport as the first
ever BTCC races to be broadcast live on the BBC.
We're about to begin. It was a bright and sunny day,
and despite the fact that it was on the television, the
grandstands were as pact as ever.
Thompson thrust through to 2nd place at the start, blasting
ahead of the second runner with Jason Plato and trying to brave
it out around the outside of Paddock Kilbend with Menu.
He initially held off Plato and David Leslie's Nissan, allowing
Menu to make his Escape and build a 1.242 second margin by
the end of the third lap, which saw him set a new lap record in
the process. My start was.
Very good, although James, this was obviously better.
Al answered afterwards. But I got a very good gap in the
first couple of laps. I was pulling away a little bit
every lap and just making sure I didn't make a mistake.
Greg, a very, very tight start. And Thompson nearly got menu as
well as Plato, didn't he? He did.
Didn't he? I mean Thompson really was an up
and coming talent at this point in time wasn't?
He'd switched to Honda from Vauxhall.
He'd won with Vauxhall twice in the previous two years.
I mean it was it race 4 of 1995 I think when Charlie Cox had his
massive accidents at Thruxton and Thompson won and really
showed up. Third meeting race. 3 was even
earlier. Than I thought so he he really
showed up Cleddon and then of course he pushed him off at
Snetterton and took the first vector win and the only win for
Vauxhall in 19 six. So here we have Thompson now
putting Gabrielli Tarquini in the shade a bit as well.
Former champion, former F1 driver and he did need to get
menu and it was a sort of aggression we got used to
seeing. Wasn't it the fearless James
Thompson as he was known over the next few years?
He was right up there as Thompson.
Headed played to win Leslie in a group which seemed to
Constantine a both ways for out most of the race.
Menu soon raced into a three second lead.
Behind. Wilhoy's excellent race in 6th
place was ruined with a loose window, the stewards calling the
Ford in for repairs. He ignored the calls until he
had to pit on laptop with a misfire.
The race was. Processional from then on, 4
laps from the end, Menu made a mistake which saw the Renault's
advantage momentarily plummet to 1.7 seconds 4 laps from home.
I got onto the. Marbles at Paddock and I was
sliding a bit and then the car slid for a lap whilst the tyres
cleared, Menu recounted. Maybe I had lost concentration
for a bit but it woke me up. Adam.
Is that easy to do when you're protecting the lead or or sort
of a few seconds clear of the rest?
It is because. They're sort of the harder the
some of the easiest races to win if you've got a comfortable
lead, but they're also just a split second of lapse in
concentration. We've seen this in, in
motorsport where somebody that's clearly in the lead has, has
gone off or crashed and it's easily done.
And you've got to think about all the marbles, all the debris,
all the bits of rubber that when we did the the circuit walk at
Super Tour in power the weekend last last year, you could just
see, and that's just on a, on a, on a meeting that's not got
hundreds of cars going around it.
But you know, back then there'd been a lot and lot of marbles on
the outside and you could see how off camber paddock is.
It's a fast entry to it. It's off camber, it's downhill.
You know, it's all it couldn't have happened at a worst corner.
So, you know, taking all that into consideration, he he, he
got away with it. But yeah, that could have ended
up easily in the gravel. But it yeah, when you when
you're leading like that, you haven't.
You you're thinking. Differently with yes, you're
focused, but then you're you're thinking in a different way when
you're in the middle of a pack and you're chasing someone and
you know you're so much more focused and you've probably seen
this a bit in bikes, Greg where someone's got an absolute
stonking lead and then all of a sudden something could go wrong
but yeah they can race wheel to wheel and not actually nothing
go wrong at all you know in cars and bikes you know it's it's
easily done I was going to say as.
Well, AD as a racer, I mean, the facts, the window was loose in
the Mondeo and they were going to call him in for that.
Is that really posing much of A danger incident?
I remember, wasn't it Radissitz, you had a loose Mondeo window as
well earlier with the year? He did.
Yeah. And that was very mentioning
that. So there was obviously a
weakness there, but does that really warrant being called in?
Is that really that dangerous to anybody?
If I know it's in case it flies off, but you know, is it and it
and it and it? And it's, it's not glass anyway,
It's it's perspex put on. So we so it's, it's, you know,
they design a case that come out and they're not going to shatter
like glass wood. But again, it's, it's down to
it's down to the the person in charge of making that call,
whether that's a dangerous manoeuvre.
And that's why I think the whole driver steward thing is, you
know, when it comes down to Formula One and there's
obviously this uproar of, you know, driver steward and
inconsistency and FAA consistency and all this that
and the other, I just think it just needs a level head.
But some decisions need to come from a driver's perspective and
some like that. Would that need to come from a
driver's perspective? Probably none.
But you don't want to you also don't want to ruin someone's
weekend. And like you said, what what's
the worst that could happen if that if that came out, it's
going to slide to the side of the circuit and it's going to
end up on the grass or in the gravel.
It's not going to impact anyone or cause any danger to anybody.
Could it cause a puncture? Maybe if somebody if it did end
up on the track or it's unlikely, isn't it?
Yeah, it's it's. Probably unlikely, but it's the
unknown isn't. You don't want the unknown, you
don't want the what ifs. And, ah, we should have done
this. We should have done that.
If there's ever any doubt, you've got to make the safety
call, haven't you? Yeah, and I suppose.
Also, let's not forget we're only three years on from the
death of Ayrton Senna at this point.
Yeah. And there was a lot of changes
being made to circus all around the world.
And also Derek Warwick following the loss of his brother Paul at
Alton Park. Yeah, 1991 had walked every
single British circuit and found things on pretty much all of
them that they could change. And that also LED, didn't it, to
what we were saying before changes to the tracks such as
slowing down Graham Hill Bend to, you know, decrease from
because if you went off there in the old configuration, there
wouldn't have been much run off. If you'd had a high speed off on
the exit, you'd be in big trouble, wouldn't you?
Yeah. Yeah, especially in a single.
Theatre, yeah. Absolutely.
You've got to think of all formulas.
You know, you're obviously more safer in a, in a touring car
than you are in a Formula three car or even a Formula Ford car.
But then you know, for how many years was the Formula Ford
Festival going on there where there's like 50-60 Formula fours
going around the indie circuit open while you know, it's it's
it's only, it only takes 1 shunt doesn't it only takes one, one
thing after 6. BTCC races which have provided a
fair amount of excitement. The series was due the first
processional one of the season right on cue for the live TV
coverage. Alex.
Unfortunate that the first ever live race was a bit of a drab
affair, wasn't it? Yeah.
It was unlucky the opener at Donnington, it wasn't the best
but it was OK BHP probably made that one look pretty decent,
probably be better than it actually was.
Silverstone was exciting and would have been a great live
race. Thruxton would have been an
incredible live race, the one that the one that Tim Harvey
nearly won. If you remember the wet and dry
races with the tyres, that would have been an incredible live
race to have as the first race wasn't it?
So it's a bit of a shame, but I think on balance the BBC and
Grandstand got quite lucky with the the live races they did show
I'm looking at in 97. The next live one would have
been Donington and that was a wet and dry race that was
exciting. Thruxton.
They did Nokia in 97, then to
98. They had obviously the huge one,
Donnington. Everyone remembers Donnington.
I mean could there not have been a better race to showcase the
BTCC than that? The other live races we had were
at Thruxton in 98. That was a that was a good one.
And then you moved to 99 and then you had that Matt Neal race
and again another brilliant live race that.
So overall, the BTCC got fairly lucky with their their live
races. But yeah, the first one was
just, oh, it was awful. It's up there with I think the
season opener at Donnington in 95 as just one of the most sort
of boring race. And you know, listen, it
happens, You know, I mean, I'm a big football fan.
You can get really boring nil nil draws.
I'm a Cardiff fan. You get lots of those, but do
you do you know what I mean? It it happens it it not every
race, not every race is going to be exciting.
Not every sports match is going to be the best.
Sometimes you get a stinker, and I'm afraid this one was a
stinker. To be to be fair, as.
Well, though, I mean, I mean Brands 98 wasn't much better.
Was it the same race meeting in 98?
In 10, yes, correct. It was Rydell.
Dominated at least this 97. We got different winners, didn't
we? The mid, The midfield.
Was a bit more exciting in 98 and obviously you had, you know,
Derek Warwick. Yeah, it's a yeah.
Well, because you had pit stops and he took out the tie wall,
didn't he come in? But you're right, the Sprint
race in 98 had Matt Neil holding up.
A few people didn't end up drama with Plato as Adam said.
You either get brilliant races of Brands Hatch or it can throw
an odd stinker in there now and again.
But coming back to. Donnington 95, Alex, that's a
good example. What's the thing we most
remember about Donnington 95? Yeah, in my opinion that would
be 5. Grand please, Derek.
Exactly now. That Derek Warwick alpha moment
that wouldn't have been captured in the same way if it was lives
this no what Murray said before we wouldn't have had he's broken
our camera lens and you wouldn't on boards into the barrier.
So again, This is why Murray had the opinion he did at the time.
Now the live coverage is far better if you look at what ITV
puts out today. But the on board signals weren't
as strong in 97. You know you had to have a
helicopter up didn't you? For a start, That's right.
Yeah, yeah, a signal. No, because what would have
happened is they'd have been following the leaders and then
suddenly they'd have cut to Derek Warwick already in the
wall. Exactly.
And they? Wouldn't have shown.
They wouldn't have shown the camera because it was already
broken. Precisely.
And you? Might not have got an onboard
replay. You know, if you look at the
replay of a bit of a spoiler alert here, but the menu read
collision that's coming up later in race 20.
What happens? You'd have to go back and.
Watch on the season review Al OK, but but what are the replays
back then? If you look it actually used to
replay the live coverage of the time.
So if you watch the replay, it cuts from the helicopter to the
on board on the replay at exactly the same moment because
they're just replaying the live coverage.
Yes, so much more basic compared to what it is now.
Well, I. Remember Matt and Neil telling
me that they literally had the camera in the car and it led to
where the passenger seat would be in your car?
A VCR? Yeah.
And that, yeah.
Obviously the you know, think of the you know when we've been
doing stuff at Browns House and you're just sticking go pros
here and there now. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a
different world now, isn't it? As you say, technology has come
on so much that they can do the things they wanted to do at the
time. Can you imagine the?
Job the editors had back at BHP to put all that together because
there was also tapes on all the individual track cameras.
There were no time codes like sticking it all together.
That's why every now and again, if you watch about some of the
BHP stuff, it's not quite in line.
They'll cut away from 1:00 or to another and you'll actually be a
second behind or you've jumped a second or you've gone back a
second. And that's why Steve Ryder
obviously said, look, it's not a proper portrayal of what's
actually going on here. Murray's argument was that just
doesn't matter, does it? As long as it entertains people.
So different ways of looking at it.
I don't think either Steve or Murray was wrong or right.
There were just different opinions.
And I can understand both of them, to be honest with you.
It's an. Often people who want to throw
water on the Super Touring era, which disgusts me, to be quite
honest with you. But it's it's an argument that's
often used. So it was just all edited
highlights and never really said the stuff had to happen for them
to be in the highlights. Yeah.
It wasn't as if they were like, right, OK, let's let's get on a
PlayStation. Let's get on a PlayStation and
just make stuff up. It had to happen for it to be
exciting. Yes, They made the slightly less
exciting races a little bit more exciting, but the good races
were good races because they were good races anyway.
Yeah, my 2 pence. Worth anyway.
Yeah, and the. Same way another thing that came
in in 1997 was the team radio communications.
That's something we've ever seen before.
Love it. That actually was recorded
highlights, but that really was ahead of its time.
I mean, yes, it was. 2000. And four, I believe it was
Formula One started broadcasting into the world feed, not digital
feed, but the terrestrial. It was 2004, but it's.
Only become a. It's only become like an
integral part of the footage in F1.
Only recently, yeah. In terms of picking.
It all up and putting, yeah, like they do online and
everything, yes, you could argue sometimes now it ends up
dominating a bit too much actually.
They have attention away from the race.
A lot of that's to survive. To survive as well, I think.
Yeah, adds to the spice and the everything else that goes with
it, really. And nowadays and nowadays.
And now the drivers know they're going to be broadcaster.
They use it as a way to get what they want as well, don't they?
Toca would have been. Hopeful that Race 2 would be a
lively affair than the opening race of the weekend and it was
well after 25 laps. Thompson's second.
Good start of the day saw him leapfrog teammate Tarquini into
the lead at paddock. I'm happy, said a magnanimous
Tanquini after the success of a teammate he likes well and gets
on with like a house on fire. The 1st place is important not
only for him but also for the team because it shows our car
can be competitive on the slower tracks too.
Thompson LED Tarquini a menu and that's how it stayed for the
next 28 laps. After that, Tanquini appeared to
struggle and started locking up and holding back menu.
He was then falling into the clutches of Anthony Reed with
menu being held up. Reed made his move coming into
clearways on Lat 30 and you can see.
Now that this look, look at the white Nissan.
The Nissan Reed is right. Yes, Anthony Nissan.
Anthony Nissan. Steady jump.
Steady Walker. Antony Reid in the Nissan is now
right up with Alan Menu going for 3rd.
But whoa and bang that was too much.
And into the wall. So that's 15 points.
That's points lost. 4 Alan Menu rejoins.
Alan Menu. Rejoins Now that is a surprise.
Reid made contact with the rear of Menu's car, with both ending
up in the tyre wall. Menu spun installed but rejoined
behind Leslie in Plato, whilst Reed struggled to get into
reverse and eventually rejoined the field.
Always slapped down, Essentially my fault.
Summarised Reed after the race. In my defence I wasn't looking
to go through but just let him know that I was there.
He anchored up and came across my bow so I locked up, slid and
nudged his car and round he went.
Menu was not feeling charitable towards his assailant.
I'd looked in my mirror and thought, OK, he cannot try.
And then he hit me. Guys, I.
Think this might be quite a straightforward this guy on this
one, but the blame goes to Anthony Reed on this one
probably, doesn't it? This is the can.
Opener gone wrong. Yeah, hold on.
I was just going to say this is far from the can opener, this
one. This wasn't the inside can open
the moment. This was just a blade to when
you look back at the footage, I think it was the might be the
helicops for the higher it looked.
When you go through the left into the right, you've already
made your decision through the left if you're going to lunge at
the inside or not. And obviously you carry more
momentum. You break later and you've got
to commit yourself. To me, it looks like it
committed initially, but then a big second thought.
Actually, no, I'm not. I'm not close enough and start
and then move to the middle of the circuit.
And by that point, because it it broke later and and it wasn't
going in there quicker, obviously he's just completely
ploughed into the back of him. He'd have been better off
committing to the inside where at worst did have knocked him
wide or sideways and the both could have carried on.
But, and that's what happens, that literal split decision
where he. Could just see backed out of it
he. Changed his mind and that's
where it all went wrong. Yeah, horrible panic.
Moment, wasn't it a frantic, like you said, cars?
I was like. What have I done?
Yeah. And you can see him locking up,
can't you? There's smoke pouring off the
tyres. The.
The rays all the which is which is natural because the the
weight of the back, but the the front also momentarily lot what
he's he's tried to brake harder to avoid him, but he should have
just done the can opener. That's what he should have done.
He should have done the can opener because at least he'd
have, you know, potentially got away with it.
But thankfully. For the sake of BBC television
and grandstand, it was a brilliant TV moment which they
needed after. Had a rather.
Calm day relatively speaking. I have to say there was a great
move from Reed in race one on Rydell into paddock.
That was a really good move though.
It was this race, it was earlier in this race.
He passed Rydell and then proceeded to hunt down menu and
that was a four taste of what was to come.
Later in the year with Reed and Rydell fighting had the second
brands round and obviously the the next year when they fought
and memorably collided at Druids and that resulted in another
Mark Fomay altercation for Reedy at Brands Hatch.
But yeah, this one he he said himself didn't he locked it, got
it wrong, hit menu. It opened up the championship a
bit though, because menu was so far ahead anyway.
So it was probably good from a neutral point of view to take a
a few points off it. It's also we've.
Not mentioned it here, but it it also is all stems from Murray's
wonderful Anthony Nissan. The Nissan.
Yes, steady chap, steady Walker, the Nissan magnet.
As cock said and then. Yes, yeah.
And then the just the Anthony Reed and the Nissan Ant.
I remember I'm. Just saying add bag.
That was too much, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Brilliant. I love the way that.
What was great action and kudos to the director and the producer
on this one, they cut to the on board just as it went into the
tar barrier. Yes, that was.
Great. Yeah.
And you could see the camera obviously positioned to drop.
Does it hit the barrier? Because it.
Yeah, it sort of went to the. It dropped to an angle, didn't
it? Yeah, I mean.
And you just think how quickly you'll have a director there
saying go to on board just as in the middle of all that panic and
he still had the presence of mind to switch.
That's good stuff from. Yeah, from the very good and.
The to do that always not. Lost though as Menu rejoined the
track with Leslie and Plato passing through the 2nd Renault
Man had felt a problem with his death and mindful that he would
not overtake the Nissan, Plato backed off on the run to the
line to allow Menu into fourth and two extra vital points.
Greg, is this all a bit unnecessary considering early on
in the season in the and championship position for Menu?
Well, Alex is laughing because he probably thinks it was, but I
can understand why they would do that.
You know, Williams, think back to Adelaide 86 and what happened
with Nigel Mansell. And then PK was called in,
wasn't it? And they lost the temperature to
Prost and think back to 87 when Mansell aggravated his back
injury and lost it to PK in Japan.
Williams have been in this position before.
So you're not a man to fan out Williams?
Come on, you know. Come on, Greg, can't be as I
say. Menu was running out for the
previous two years. He was the title challenger.
Honda were getting stronger. There was a long way still to
go. I can understand it.
To be fair from from Williams, they're not going to lose any
points in the in the manufacturers Championship, are
they? And it was always going to be
many challenging and not places to be fair.
Yeah, I think it was the right call.
Why would you not do that? If only.
Alan remembered this favour at Silverstone finale, yes.
Yeah, true, true. Renault would.
Have had a one too. Yeah, that's annoying.
In a way, isn't it that that symmetry was wrecked?
Yeah, yeah. Because it was so.
Unnecessary. That Silverstone incident.
Yeah, it was. It was.
I'm sure we'll discuss it at one point, yeah.
On the pod but. Yeah, it was crazy.
Regardless. Of the rights or wrongs of team
orders, it gave the Swiss driver extra leeway in the
championship, leeway for which the foundations were laid by a
terrible weekend for Ricard Riedel.
Lacking in gripping qualifying, particularly out of the crucial
slow bends at Druids and Clearways, the Swede at least
managed to hold off Volvo teammate Kelvin Burt and Frank
Bieders ALDI for 7th in race one.
In the second race he made a great start from the 3rd Rd to
life 4th and was beginning to start a defence from Leslie in
Plato when his front left tyre punctured.
I felt it happen exiting clear ways but I was just past the pit
entry Rd so I was having to steer with half lock going down
the straight. Subsequent pit.
Stop dropped him to the back of the field.
Beer, running strongly in the late stages thanks to
improvements made to the Audi between races, was therefore
able to take sixth position, fettering the encouragingly
performing fault on days of Will Hoy and Paul Randasich.
Adam. Overall, not the greatest race
meeting to show off the championship for its first live
broadcast, was it? No, but I think.
We've we've all touched on that, haven't we?
You know, we've alluded to this where brands is is all or
nothing. I think you're going to get a
lot of action accidents or it can be processional.
And we you know, we did mention that from the very often it's
just, it's just one of the things I don't think it would
have where we think it was because we're fans and and
petroleds and and we know that what the standard of touring car
racing was. But you imagine people that,
like we said before, that have grandstand are in the
background. They're drawn to it.
They've seen enough action to go, wow, this is amazing to us,
not so much, but to them it was all it needed them to do was
just TuneIn for the next race and then that was it.
Then then that that get, Oh my God, this is getting even
better. The excitement's getting Oh my
God, what is happening here? You can just imagine it, can't
you? And that it just drew so many
people into it. And yeah, it wasn't probably the
the best one to to to launch the live, you know, the action from
but. That's from our.
Perspective. I think from a from a general
public perspective, to try and bring in new fans, it was more
than enough. Despite the.
Processional nature of the racing The BBC was very happy
with the figures from this race meeting with over 2,000,000
viewers tuning in to watch. We are very happy with the
coverage our first live BTCC meeting produced, said Jim
Reside of the BBC, whilst Alan Gow was pleased too.
The teams worked really well with the BBC as it was the first
time and it can be expanded for our next live event at
Donington. Alex, would you say it was a
success overall? Yeah.
I mean, I would. It brought the BTCC into the
mainstream that 50 minutes or 30 minutes prior to 97 wouldn't do.
Yeah. It's just, it's just one of
those really annoying things, isn't it?
That it just wasn't perfect. It wasn't a great race.
It wasn't not, I'm not to say it wasn't like a crash fest or it
wasn't like, but it wasn't side to side action aplenty.
Like I think 99 Brands Hatch, you know, Can you imagine that
was a live race, the three three going into paddock alongside
each other for for for Mueller's first win, you know, and that's
just the luck of the draw, sadly.
Racing fans were probably going to tune in anyway, whether it
was whether it was exciting or not.
Yeah, it's just a shame that it wasn't as exciting as it could
have been, but everyone seemed happy with it. 2.1 million
viewers is pretty, pretty decent considering at the time, I think
ITV would get about 3 1/2 four million.
So, you know, there's your there's, there's your sort of
comparison. Yeah, it worked and obviously
led the way to the BTCC now being live every race.
It's just a shame that. Yeah, it's just a shame that it
really bugs me. It's bizarre because I was at
the race, so I didn't see the live coverage until I got back.
And you know what it's like, I mean, with the VCR players at
the time, you, you had to set it and you have to hit and hope and
you might have missed a bit of the start or a bit of the end or
whatnot. But yeah, it was a real shame
that it wasn't a real thriller. But you know, it wasn't a done
into 98, but it was, it was, it was a start.
It was a start. As I said earlier, they got
lucky with the majority of their live coverage anyway.
So yeah. In terms of the races
themselves, Alex, had you also been at earlier meetings in 97?
Thruxton and Donnington. I didn't go to Silverstone, so
we know. Thruxton was very dramatic, but
did you enjoy brands any less? Did can you remember?
No. No because less.
No, because a. Trackside is different, isn't
it? You, yeah, you're taking it
especially brands, like you say, it's like a it's like a Super
Bowl almost, isn't it? But you're taking in the
atmosphere and the, the ambience as well, aren't you?
It's the. Smell the noise.
That's the buzz. Yeah, that's that's the buzz for
me. All of that.
Yeah, exactly. It was so disappointing.
Oh my God, There's John. Cleland, that sort of thing,
that sort of thing. That's that's how it was for me
anyway, you know, as a 13 year old boy, 14 year old boy at the
time. Yeah, so and also as.
As you read out before Levi, the Alan Gao quotes, you know the
teams have all worked hard with the BBC.
That's something else to take into account too, because that
would have required drivers or team principals or whoever was
being interviewed to be in a certain place at a certain time
to see Steve Ryder. That was all different too.
So as time went on, of course they would start thinking of
more novel things to do. Remember Donnington 98, when
they got Mansell and Anna Warwick all together at the end
of the race? All that sort of thing that's
different when it's life. You're going to start thinking
more about that sort of thing. Meanwhile.
Back at Nissan, Reed was handed a penalty for his incident with
Menu. He claimed that the endorsement
and £1000 fine he received was very harsh for a racing incident
but. Sorry.
Was it not very. Harsh.
Then yeah, it was not a racing. Incident I.
Think the racing, the racing incident.
I think that's just made me laugh.
That's true. Bloody hell.
Harpooning someone? Yeah, yeah.
Racing incident. Bloody hell, actually, sorry.
To butt it as well, you know, in the middle of your little
statement there, but it was kind of the 1st of.
Many. Anthony Reed incidents we would
see over the next seven or eight years, yeah.
If he clashes that as a racing incident, what the hell is a
bloody blatant 1 going to look like?
That's a good. Panel puller.
Yeah. Oh Jesus God, half but they the
canover is a racing incident like this was.
This was just slam the can into the wall and this this was.
Just like absolutely blindly just didn't break and just oh
God it. Was his first.
Attempt at the Cano, but he did perfect it over the next few.
He did. He did.
He practised, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Men knew. Meanwhile said it was the right
call and said he was an idiot all.
Right. Great.
Williams touring car boss Didier de Bay, who like Reed was
involved in the German series in 1996, remarked.
That's the problem with Reed. He races the same way
everywhere. He's like a headless chicken,
Greg. It.
In amongst all of the fantastic set of quotes from the people
involved here, I think we've already kind of touched on from
Anthony's description of it as a racing incident.
Do you think that was a fair penalty that Reed got?
I like. The fact that Didier de Bay, who
obviously is French, was using the term headless chicken, I
don't know how you say that in French.
The something or other. It was chicken.
It was. Definitely fair.
What's I mean, and he's right because Reed had raced in Japan
and South Africa and got involved in a few scrapes.
Fantastic racing driver by the way, and an absolute gentleman
who we've taken a real liking to meeting him in person at Super
Touring power. So taking nothing away from
Anthony Reed and what an ambassador he is still to this
day to British motor racing. But if you just think of the the
seasons to come, there was going to be the incident with with
Rydell at Brands the next year. There was, I mean, there were,
there would be many. I remember, remember 2004 in in
the later era of the BTCC at Silverstone when he hit James
Thompson of the scrape with Matt Neil.
There's been many, haven't there?
So yes, to answer your question, bloody Regis.
Well, you did there. Yeah, that was a classic.
Wasn't it? But we must thank.
Anthony again, because it was a great conclusion to the BB CS
first ever live coverage. I bet Steve Ryder was rubbing
his hands together with Glee knowing they're about to come in
after that. It's exactly what you need for
some good TV. Absolutely, absolutely.
And like I say, it's the one thing I remembered exactly when
we think about this meeting. Yeah, it's Alan calling.
You know, the guy is crazy. You should think a bit more.
And there's just really just looking.
Yeah, very, very sort of innocent and nervous.
Don't get. He hadn't been in the series for
long. He probably knew it was on live
television as well. Oh, for sure.
And and. Steve just going well, Anthony's
standing right behind you, Alan. And I was like.
Here you can hear the smile in Steve's voice.
He's thinking. He's thinking this.
Is bloody brilliant, this is. Exactly, exactly.
It's so funny. But yeah, it, it definitely
made. And as you've already just
touched on, Greg really was. I love the man.
He brought so many brilliant moments to the championship.
And as you say, he's grown very close to us on the pod as well
and, and and become a real friend of the pod.
But he, he was always the centre of drama.
Rydell, if you remember at Brands, he had a run in with
Ivan Muller as well. And Muller?
Muller strangled him at one point at Brands as well, didn't
he? Oh, in 2003. 2003.
Yeah, yeah. That meant I didn't want to
nearly lose his licence for that and nearly lost the
championship. Yeah, I think he had the
championship. Points maybe taken off, yeah.
So Reedy's always been in the centre of attention and I just
love it. It's brilliant.
And knowing the man as they do, I can see he he he would have
loved it as well. Yeah, as a driver.
You're going to, if you saw him or the, you know, come over the
radio, OK, Reedy's behind you. You're just going to think.
Oh yeah. Like.
Because you're like, I'm gonna have to just defend the whole
way now because if he's nowhere near like he wasn't in
particularly anywhere near menu, but still playing into the back
of him. Yes, It wasn't even it wasn't
even the overtake at the inside. So I think there's a job
actually one of those. No, he'd have been one of those
guys thinking, Oh no, do you know, do.
You know what this is most similar to with Reedy and a bit
of panic there? Silverstone 98 when he hit
Thompson, yes. Abby Hairpin.
Yes, he was almost. An identical.
Moment, actually, yeah, it was. Actually, yeah, you're right.
With very similar. Effect.
Yes, there. Was nothing subtle about his
manoeuvres, wasn't it? Absolutely not.
What a man. Yeah, once again.
This is the part of the show where we go to produce the map
and ask for Matt's facts. How are you, producer Matt, and
what facts have you got for us in relation to this Brands 97
meeting? Yeah, I'm good.
Thanks guys. Yeah, if you think it's a
difficult meeting to watch, then try writing some facts So and.
That's all folks, see you next time.
So Honda. 'S one to finish in the second
race was not only the first one to finish in BTCC Super Touring,
it was also their last. They didn't get another one to
finish in the BTCC until Rockingham in 2000 and three 147
races later. Wow.
That's crazy. They did with. 26.
Races in O1. So this was James.
Thompson's first win for Honda in the BTCC.
Over the next three years he'd gone to win a further 9 races, 4
in 98, four in 99 and one in 2000.
It was a good day all round for Honda as Rob Gravitt won both
Independence races this weekend in his Honda Accord.
Including this round, all of the first four meetings had the same
driver win both Independence races.
This would occur 9 times over the 12 meetings of 1997, with
Colin Galley, Matt Neil and Lee Brooks joining Gravitt in the
achievement. Alamenu's fourth place in Race 2
was the only time all season that you finished in the points,
but off of the podium. He had one retirement at Knock
Hill and the rogue 17th place finish at Thruxton after a loose
wheel. Wow, that's that's.
That's was Menu's consistency combined with a good debut year
for Jason Plato. Renault scored 30 podiums in
1997. To put that in perspective,
despite having two races more in 1999, Nissan only managed 28
podiums that year. Even more impressively,
Renault's tally was only four, podium shy of Ford's 2000 tally,
with their three drivers for half that's.
Interesting as well. Yeah, and some.
Amazing. I think when?
People sort of think about dominant years in the BTCC.
You think about Nissan in 99 and Ford in 2000.
You do kind of forget about Renault, and that just shows
incredible consistency and that that was just real domination,
yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah. Hats off to Williams as well
because you could argue this was the absolute height of Williams
wasn't it? Because they were winning in
Formula One that had so many titles the years before with
Mansell and Prost and Neely with Damon.
And then they did get it with Damon and in 97 they won with
Villeneuve and with Menu. So a real high for for William.
That just about wraps up our deep dive into the 1997 BTCC
races at Brands Hatch, the first to be broadcast live on BBC
Grandstand. It was a landmark moment for
touring Cars, bringing the drama, intensity and door to
door action of the BTCC to a nationwide audience like never
before. Just a shame it was one of the
worst races of the season. Our thanks.
Go, of course, to our guest this evening, Greg Haynes.
Thank you for joining us, Greg, and we hope you'll be on Stories
from Super Touring again very soon.
Me too. Thank you very much.
You will be joining us again this season and at some point,
Greg, I know. So we look forward to having you
on again. Yeah, thanks.
Everyone, it's been a pleasure as always and just reminds us
how old we all are. But thank you.
Yeah, very true. Very, very true.
Our thanks as. Ever go to you guys for
listening to the show and if you enjoyed today's episode, please
make sure to give us some review five star rating and subscribe
to podcast feed on your podcast at the choice.
In the meantime, we will see you next week.
Goodbye.