Stories from Super Touring. Hello and welcome back to this
week's episode of Stories from Super Touring, the podcast where
we've dived deep into the golden era of touring car racing with
the drivers, engineers, and personalities who lived it.
Today we're joined by a true veteran of the sport, Tim
Suckton. From British touring cars to
international GT racing, Tim's career spans decades and
includes some incredible stories from both sides of the pit wall.
Tim, it's a real pleasure to have you on the show this
evening. How are you doing?
Yeah. I'm good, Thank you.
Yeah, all good. Thank you.
Thank you very much for inviting me on.
Oh, not at all. And as I said at the start of
the show, your career in Motorsports spanned decades from
all sorts of different styles of racing.
Single seaters, touring cars, GTS.
Where did it all start? How did you find yourself in
motorsport at the first place? Wow, you want to go?
You want to go right back to the very, very beginning, do you?
Ah. Yes, yes.
Very good. We're going to be a very good
place to start. So, OK, so I have told this tale
quite a few times over the years.
And so then they, the main thing I suppose was actually started.
We used to go as a family every year.
We used to go stay in Grassington, actually a little
used to go with my mum, my cousin and his mum and we rent a
little cottage in Grassington for the first week of the six
week holidays. And the lady that lived next
door to the cottage that we rented, well actually was the
lady that had the local milk round and she gave me a book.
I was only about, I was about, I was to be in 10.
She gave me a book about Rd traces.
It's just a little kids thin book and it had one page in it.
I remember about go karting and it's and it and it talked about
go karting and it said that you could start when you were 12.
And, and I read this book from cover to cover several times.
And then the year, so she first showed me when I was 9, the year
went back in, the book was still there.
And so I read it again and then the lady said you want to keep
the book. And I remember saying to my dad,
look, I can start go karting when I'm 12.
Dad said, well, that looks expensive.
He said you better start saving up.
So I did without telling my dad. I saved all my birthday money,
all my Christmas money, my bobber job money, because I was
in the scouts and I used to have every year I'd have you had a
card to write all your jobs down and how much you'd earned.
And I stole an extra card. So I had my official card that
had about four jobs on it that handed in.
But then I had at least one other card that had all the jobs
I'd really done. And I kept that money for
myself. And I did that two years
running. And I went to my back to my dad
after Christmas. So my birthday is in April, same
as James doesn't say. So after birthday, Christmas
that year I said right I've got 200 lbs and you know that was
when, bear in mind this was when everything was black and white
and people walked around a lot faster.
It was a long time ago and 200 lbs was a lot of money and my
dad was amazed that saved up £200 and so he said well come on
then. So we went and we found this
place in Hasselford I think we went to buy a go a Kart.
We didn't have a clue looking back, I mean really really did
not have a clue. We bought this go Kart that was
turned out it was 11 years old for £110 and we bought a race
suit for 15 and a crash helmet for 12 and off we went and like
it was like dumb and Dumber bless me.
And my dad went racing to start with God love my dad.
He's gone now unfortunately. But you know, we didn't have a
clue. But we learned, you know, we
went to the first race, we got thrown out because we didn't
have the right engine. But they let me race.
The scrutineer took one look at it and said you can't race that.
So they said well why not? He said well it's 5 parted, what
does that mean? Well it needs to be 3 parted.
We don't have a clue. What a pause.
So we raced and we started to do better and we learnt and karting
was good. You know, it was great as me and
my dad were going racing. It was really, really good fun
looking back. And we did well.
We ended up winning the British National Championship and being
like captain the British team and.
And so that's what started my career basically.
And yeah. And it all went from there.
Yeah, you, you mentioned that you became British champion and
that followed up to a move to Formula Ford 1600 where you won
the Star of Mallory series in 1987.
You've just skipped about six years there because I also, I
don't want to bore you with it all, but when I started in
Formula 4I was 17 and I was ironing, selling cars at the
time, literally when I was 17 to pay for my racing and I bought a
Crashed Royale RP 26 and I basically rebuilt it myself over
six, about six months. Didn't have a clue where all the
bits went. Begged, borrowed and stole the
bits to repair it. Went to race meetings and took
photographs of cars to work out where all the bits went.
And a guy called Colin Bennett helped me a lot.
That Colin from Warrington helped me a lot and I raced that
car for three years and I actually did quite well with it
at local level but in but totally gave up because I
basically decided that I didn't have enough money to go anywhere
and racing. I became really disillusioned
with it. I was buying and selling cars.
I was doing quite well with that.
And I just decided to stop and I just stopped racing completely
for two years and went back to do a bit of karting actually.
And I, my first garage when I was 19 and I was selling cars
full time and I, and I literally stopped.
And it was only one day that a friend of my dad's called in at
the garage just for a chat. And I remember it was saying,
how's the racing going? And I said, I'm not racing
anymore. And he said, well, why?
And I said, I said because it's a waste of time and if you
haven't got any money, you can't get anywhere.
And he said, I said, I'm concentrating on buying and
selling cars. And he said, well, you could do
that anytime. He said, I think you're silly.
He said you should race. You were obviously quite good
and you should have another go. So I kind of thought, you know
what, he's right. I probably can buy and sell cars
at any age, but I won't be able to race at any age.
So it was then that I sort of started again.
And I bought a Reynard from Gimli and I still had my garage
and me and my friend prepared that.
But it was a much newer car. We did Star of Mallory for a
year and that went well. And I finished third of fourth
in the championship, had some good results.
And it was at that point that I thought, right, I'm going to
stop everything. I sold all my cars, closed the
garage, and that's when I got the RF87 Vandeman, which Ralph
Furman lent me. Ralph leased me that car for
about 3 grand and Alan Wardropper gave me an engine
free of charge as long as I bought 1.
And and me and my friend prepared that car from my
friend's garage and we prepared it.
So yeah, that that I very nearly gave up racing when I was 18, I
think because I just thought it was a waste of time.
Skipping a little bit ahead to 1990 now, Tim, you were in the
Formula Renault championship that year and you again.
To. Sort of good success in that
series. In your first year in the
category, you've got a race win and finish third overall in the
championship. Was that an early?
Win what race? I've done better than that.
I mean, it was, it was that did that feel like a very at that
point still thinking that you were maybe trying to get up to
sort of Formula 3, Formula 3000 up to F1 level?
Or was it just a thing of looking to go racing for fun and
and test yourself as much as you could?
No, it was never for fun. It was an obsession.
You know, it was, it was. No, it was never.
It was. It was never for fun.
It was a complete and utter obsession.
And you know, you've got to remember when I did Formula
Renault, I remember a group drove for a guy called Graham GJ
Motorsport and I'd I'd just done two years Formula Ford with
Frank Bradley in doing quite well in Formula Ford with, with
Frank as factory swift driver. And that that really sort of got
me going. And the year that you're talking
about with Formula Renault was the first year that I got the
BMW junior drive as well. So that year was a really,
really massive pivotal moment. It's a big shift.
I'd gone from doing national Formula Ford and Formula Renault
was massive that year and there was 72 competitors or something
in that championship. I mean, it's hard to get your
head round how many people were look at all the national.
You look at all the national championships now and how
they're lucky if they can get 21 or 22 Formula Four cars on the
grid. It was 72 for her and it was a
really, really strong championship.
So I remember it was me. I think the top three in the
championship was, I think Tommy Erdos won the championship and
Chris Goodwin was second and I was third.
I was team mates with Dave Coyne, Coyne and I've been team
mates with Swift in former Ford. And then Graham gave us both the
drive and I, I remember I had to raise some money.
I try and tell the kids that I look after now and I manage that
drive. That year I remember was 20
grand. The going rate was about, I
think people were paying 85 or something like that for a full
season and from the ran out of time.
Sounds cheap, but it was a lot of honey there and Graham
offered me a drive for 20 and I signed the deal in sort of
November. And I remember I didn't have
any. I had about 3 grand and I didn't
know where that we have a clue where the rest was coming from.
So I managed to find the money going through as I went through
the season to do that. And I also got the BMW drive.
But no, I mean that was a real, I mean it seems like yesterday.
It's bizarre thinking about it because I know how long ago it
was, which is genuinely does seem like yesterday.
I was also running a cart track. I started a cart track then in
Bradford. OK.
I was at the time when indoor karting was just happening and a
friend of mine came to me and said we're thinking of starting
a Kart track, but we don't know anything about karting.
I said can you, can you help us? And so I said, well, yeah.
I said I know all about karting, but I'm not sure about.
And I've been to an indoor Kart track a few times.
So I basically went into partnership with two guys, three
guys actually. So there's four of us.
We set up cart track in Bradford but we couldn't find a building
so our indoor cart track was outside.
We, we, we had, we had a cheap bit of land that was landlocked
from British Rail and we, so we built a cart track, a little
cart track. We got, I remember we bought 6
carts between us and, and we started that.
So that year I did former Renault, got the BMW junior team
thing and I ran an indoor car track.
So which was the, some of the, looking back, some of the best
phone I ever had running that car track.
It was, I'd be testing or doing whatever or instructing during
the day and then I'd rush back and get back to the car track,
do the drivers briefing. And then I was the commentator
at the car track. And I've got so many
unbelievably funny stories about being commentator, but some of
them are difficult to tell to anybody.
But nowadays they were difficult to tell 25 years ago.
But now, well, it's probably impossible to tell.
In terms of the Renault, obviously Renault was huge back
then, wasn't it? Like it was bigger than it, like
it was massive? Formula Renault, When I look
back, I see my brother racing Renault after you.
But it was just massive. It was like the Formula Ford
Festival at times. Like there was that many cars
compared to a lot of other say like Formula Ford was huge.
Not he had the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch, but
Renault, I just remember it was like it was the main
championship for any, any single seater.
Yeah. There was, as I say that that
year, 72 registered competitors, you know, 2 grades.
So it was like an A final and AB final base.
Yeah, Yeah, it was, it was fantastic.
And and also you remember you had Clio's as well, you know.
So Reno's Motorsport, but I often look back at that era like
we all do, probably with rose coloured spectacles to an
extent, but my barometer was always the racing car show.
You used to go to the racing car show and the racing car show in
those days was 11 or 12 halls, got up to like 16 halls.
You know, every manufacturer was there with a massive stand.
Pro Drive always had their big stand in the middle.
There would be a karting 2 or 3 halls just for karting, the
massive indoor karting thing for Respect to watch.
There would be every major chassis manufacturer from all
the Formula Ford teams, former Renault teams, former three
teams and all of a stand. The show was enormous.
I absolutely enormous. And you know, I went to it this
year. I go every year because I love
the show. But you know, it's really sad to
see that it's now 2 halls, basically a load of carts.
So I mean, I go going back to what you said.
So I mean, I, if I'm honest, I, I didn't, I never had anybody to
sort of guide me or advise me or I said it was me and my dad
basically and what we could learn.
And, you know, my dad was a member of the local motor club
and Zach, looking back, that was terrible place to learn anything
because that was just full of people that all knew nothing
about racing really, but all well meaning.
But they knew nothing. And they would all just talk
rubbish for a night once a month.
And, and, and it was so like negative in terms of, you know,
there was no, nobody telling somebody like me what to do or
how to try and go forward. All they were telling me was
that it was impossible and it was expensive and you couldn't
do it if you were an arcade and blah, blah, blah.
So whenever you talked about going to a race team, again, one
of the big mistakes was whenever I thought about do I go to a
race team, everybody said, oh, no, don't go to a race team.
They'll just RIP you off. You know, they're just, they're
just there to make money. You know, you should have your
own car and your own trailer and your own, you know, tools and
everything. So my, my sort of aspirations,
if I'm honest, I used to think I never knew if I was good enough
or if I could do it or I didn't have a clue.
But I thought if I could get to Formula Three, that was what, I
don't know why, but that's what I thought when I was a kid.
If I could get to Formula Three, that would be great.
And then I started to think, you know, in that sort of era when I
was starting to learn about stuff in Formula Four.
And I just thought if I could just get, I was trying to be a
single Z to driver. But if I can try, if I can just
be a professional driver, then that would be, I'd be happy with
that if you like. But I was still trying even to
when I was 20/23/24 and I was still doing the Formula Renault
thing because, and I even did one race in Formula 3000 because
I still had that dream that somehow it could, it could maybe
happen. That's it.
Like you said, it's all our dreams to really just become a,
a, a paid professional, isn't it?
In the sport that we love, that's what we.
Yeah. Exactly as yeah, if you, if you
can get paid to drive, then that's that's that's good.
So that year in 1990, obviously, as you say, you were racing
single seaters still, but that was the year that you you landed
the the BMW junior team drive. How did that come about And and
was that a a long and drawn out process and obviously ultimately
successful one, but what what was that journey like?
Well, again, looking back, I mean, that was absolutely, I
mean, it sounds dramatic, but it was life changing for me.
And you know, I can, I will never be able to thank Pro Drive
and BMW enough for for that opportunity.
Because I think honestly, looking back, if that hadn't
have happened, I don't really see, you know, totally
realistically how I would have had a professional career in
racing. And it was something that never
done before. I mean, the junior team was
obviously something that Mark Shearer and people have been
involved with back in the day, but then nobody done a junior
team since and they didn't do it afterwards.
It was actually just that one year.
And I think what BMW did looking back was very good.
I know the way that they shortlisted us was they wrote to
all the people in England that were involved in race.
So they wrote to the likes of Van Diemen, Royal Scholar,
Minister, anybody that was a race team or chassis
manufacturer or an engine builder or anything like that in
Formula 3, Formula Reno, Formula Ford.
And they asked all those people to give them a list of drivers
that they thought were good. From that information, they then
drew up a shortlist. And I think the, the initial
shortlist was, I think it was something like 20 of us every 22
or something like that. We went to Silver Star for two
days of fitness training interviews, obviously driving a
race car, driving a road car. And I can't remember exactly how
it happened, but I know that at the end of that two day period,
they, they hadn't decided yet what to do.
So they, they invited ten of us to come back, right.
And have another girl or a second girl, if you like, If I
remember it rightly, I remember there was, there was, there was,
there was less people certainly the second time.
So now, so we drove then I say we drove the race car, sat next
to Frank Sitner and James Weaver at the time.
And, and we did the interviews and the fitness tests and then
they the results. But I remember it, I don't know
why, but it took a long time for them to decide who to have.
I think we did the tests in October time, September even.
It must have been was after, it was after the former Ford
Festival. I know that.
So probably it was probably October, let's say.
But they didn't actually, I don't think they give us the
results until. Just before Christmas.
Now it might have been after Christmas.
Actually it took a long time for.
What a horrible wait. I know I kept ringing up every
now and again a. Horrible thing I.
Shouldn't I kept ringing to blow up and saying have you, have you
made decisions yet? And I realised every time I rang
up that I probably did myself no favours.
It turned out later that they were just, they couldn't decide.
You know, I, I, I think I was one of the first of the three
that they put down on the list, and I think they couldn't decide
who else to have. So in the end, it was, yeah, it
was fantastic to get that. Amazing, actually.
In the end it was you, Kelvin Burke and Kurt Luby all got the
chance to race alongside Frank Sittner that year.
I've got to ask, what was that like?
That must have been quite intimidating to go into the into
the lions den with Frank Sittner.
So Frank. So let me say, Frank's one of
the most, again, pivotal people in my career.
Frank was incredibly supportive and is still somebody I talked
to now, not very often, but I talked to Frank a few months
ago. No, Frank.
Frank was amazing and really, really couldn't, couldn't have
wished for anything. The whole pro drive experience
for me was amazing. Frank was great.
I mean, he was super competitive, super serious,
really that that was the first time, that era was the first
time I really started to meet what I would call proper people.
And when I say that, I mean people that are intelligent,
successful, motivated, charismatic, whatever you want
to call it, you know, and I've not really met many people like
that when I was younger and I started to meet people like Dave
Richards, who is one of the most incredible people you could ever
wish to meet. I mean, David is such a clever,
clever man and and still amazes me how much he achieved and
still achieves, you know, he's just that guy is such an
inspiration for anybody, I think.
But there was people there at Pro Drive like David Lapworth,
who was, I used to love sitting down and talking to David
Lapworth. And my engineer Mark Ellis at
the time was amazing as well. So it was such a, a phenomenal
group of people. But yeah, Frank was Frank was
great. He was quick, he was educated,
he was serious, and it was good. It was really good fun.
But yeah, taught me a lot. Heading into 1991 then and you
had a part season in the Prodrive BMW again, the main
stand out of that year must have been your win at Brands Hatch.
How was that? How was that as a day, as a as a
race to get? Did it feel like you'd arrived
in the BTCC at that point? Yeah, I mean, so first of all, I
was delighted to keep the drive. Obviously the first year I had
Kelvin and Curt as teammates and the plan was always to keep one
of us as a full time driver if you like, or to give us another
contract. And both Kelvin and Kerr are
both exceptionally talented guys, no doubt.
I mean, Kelvin is probably one of the most lost sort of talents
that there's ever been in England.
I think really, I mean, Kelvin was, everybody knows he was
British former 3 champion, super, super, super talented
kid. But Kurt always also was really
good, really, really good. So I was, I was delighted that
they kept me. And I honestly think that it was
just that I was probably the most all round person, if you
like, you know, Calvin was always late for everything.
And I used to, I mean, he was great when he was late because I
thought, well, you're not doing yourself any good, but you know,
I'd encourage him to be late. But I mean, Kelvin was fantastic
guy and and Kurt was super talented as well.
But Kurt couldn't, you know, wouldn't really have been too
bothered for all the PR and marketing stuff.
I mean, he would do it. Of course, I'm not saying he
wouldn't do it at all do it, but I, I, I would go to the opening
of an envelope and I just made sure that I tried to do
absolutely everything to, to give myself the best chance of
getting the drive because I knew that was my only hope.
So yeah, the year after I was delighted to keep my contract
and yeah, I wasn't sure if I was going to get 4 races or five
standing in. Basically when Steve couldn't do
the DTM stuff. I thought I was tied up with DTM
rather, but yeah, the the day at Brands was amazing.
But it came off Silverstone the week before or two weeks before,
because two weeks before I'd been on pole at Silverstone as
well, and I'd nest the style basically completely.
I can't remember what I did, but I had too many reps or something
and I spun the wheels and made a terrible start and didn't turn
it into a win. So when I got it on pole again
two or three weeks later at France, I really, really thought
don't fuck it up this time, you know?
And just I, I managed to get a decent star sat behind Wilhoit
for 20 laps and sort of kind of pushing away past a little bit
of Druid all clean ways or where everyone managed to win.
Yeah, I mean that was, and it was my only BTC win, which I
look back now at people that are doing BTCC now and now they're
having sixty wins or whatever they've got and I just think
it's amazing. But you know, they have three
races a day now or three races a weekend have won and and we only
so, so I think we had 10 races a year they had, they've got 30 if
you like, but still I only won once.
So even this year, and I've only have 3, I mean, I mean,
obviously, I mean I'm still involved in the sport day in,
day out, every hour of every day.
I'm probably involved in Modesport more now than I've
ever been. And I do quite a lot of driver
coaching still and a lot of managing of drivers and things.
So I, I understand a lot more about driving now than I
probably did that back then. I just sort of did it really.
You've got to remember that in that era there was no data.
We were just the beginnings of data, and I think the first data
logger I had on a car was probably 91 in that BMW.
There's certainly nothing in Formula Ford or in Formula
Renault. And you just drove and I think
it was, you know, I hate the word natural driver because in
the evolution of man, we've only had cars for the last 30
seconds. So there's no such thing as a
natural driver, but there's people that have a natural
aptitude for it. And, and I, I never found it
difficult really to jump from one car to the other.
To me, you know, I always think of cars as being animate
objects. That's how I always try and
think of it, that a car's alive and, and, and it has feelings
and, and I try and teach the kids I coach to think like that.
And you know, you've got to feel what the car needs and you do
that quite quickly. You very quickly feel what a
certain car needs and what it can do and what it can't do and
you drive to the car's strength and you just don't try and force
it to do anything it doesn't want to do and feel and listen
to it. And it's amazing how cars are
all the same in the end. You know, the, the people over
complicate the driving thing massively.
You know the the principle of driving properly is the same no
matter what it is. Even front wheel drive and rear
wheel drive. There's, I mean, clearly there's
differences, but far less than you'd think.
It's all down to fail, is it? Yeah, it's all about getting the
most out of the grip you've got. Ultimately that's what it boils
down to. It's about maximising the grips
that you've got over the lap. Whatever that grip is, whether
it's brand new set of tyres or whether it's slakes in the wet,
you've still got to maximise whatever grip you've got and.
Then becoming the pits size engineers.
We want more, we never have enough.
Do you? No, no, you can never have
enough grip. Clearly.
No. What was?
It like making that jump to Formula 3000, actually going
formative for the Renaults and and and then look obviously the
F3000 then with bigger cars, power, big tyres.
I mean, I just wanted to do that.
I mean it was an amazing opportunity.
I remember it was with Colin Bennett who helped me a lot.
Many times Colin sadly passed away last year, but Colin and my
best friend at the time always Richard Dean always got helped a
lot. Hi Colin.
And he offered me the chance to do a British.
I mean, I wanted to do more. I didn't just want to do one
race. I'd actually I'd won a chance to
test the 3000 car by the prize for former Renault.
One of the prizes was the top three in the championship all
got to test the former 3000 car. At the time it even gave the
Clio winners that same price. So we had a day at Donington and
it and it where we got to drive a magic 403,000 and it was wet
that day I remember, which was frightened me to death but I
loved it, it was incredible and I thought I've got to try and
race one of these. So I did a deal with Colin.
I remember it cost me £8000 and I didn't have £8000.
I had £4000 that scraped together somehow and I gave him
four and said can I pay the rest lit and and did that one race at
Donnington. But that, yeah, I mean those
cars were unbelievable. I was talking without sounding
like a name dropper. The team that I now run is GMW.
It's a Ferrari team that does the LMS and and we've got Jimmy
Bruni driving for us again. Yeah, he's one of the most
talented guys I've ever had anything to do with.
And Jimmy and I were talking about Formula 3000 because he
did season the Formula 3000. Obviously I had it one race, but
those cars were unbelievable. There were loads of downforce,
loads of power, H fan, gearbox, just a real raw racing car.
I remember the first time I tested it, I only tested it
once. I did a day at Silverstone Grand
Prix circuit to get ready for Donington.
That was like on the Tuesday and I was going out and I was doing
a few laps and I was, I thought I was doing all right.
I'd done about 10 laps and I was going through Mackie, Maggie's,
Beckett's and I thought I was doing well and it was all on the
limit. And then somebody went around
the outside of the end. I was going 30 miles an hour
faster than me. And I thought, Jesus, I'm not
anywhere near the limit. You know, I'm just driving to
the mechanical grip, not aerial grip.
And I had to really have a word with myself.
And, and it was surreal because you could just go from somebody
like me that had only ever driven mechanical cars to
suddenly go to going into a corner 20% faster than it felt
like was even remotely feasible. So obviously the race that I did
at Donington, you've got the crane of curves and the old
hairpin, but the crane of curves is flat easily actually, but it
doesn't feel like it should be flat to start with.
And the first couple of times I did it flat, it literally you,
you come out of the corner before your brain comes out of
the corner your. Head sort of falling off your
shoulders for. The first time, I don't mean
from that point of view, your brain just takes a while to
catch up with what you've done. So that, but it's only I got my
head rounded quite well and I had a decent race.
I think I finished 6th or 7th, but I remember my fastest lap
was was quite good actually. I think I was like third fastest
or fourth fastest in the race. It wasn't bad at all.
So that was it. There was no way of doing
anymore and so I didn't do anymore.
And then coming into 1992, you get your first full year pro
drive with the with the brand new 318 IS must have been quite
an exciting time. New car, full season working
alongside our menu. That must have been quite an
exciting time. Yeah, I mean, again, it was, I
mean that really was for me. It was like wow, this is it now,
you know, first time I've got a full time programme.
I was getting paid what for me was a fortune.
I mean, looking back, it was it wasn't a fortune, but honestly I
couldn't believe somebody was going to pay me all that money
to drive a racing car and to give me a brand new BMW Rd car.
I mean, I've had one of those for two years already that I've
got a company car. But yeah, I really thought,
right, OK, now I've got a chance to to make something of this.
And I started to believe in it. But yeah, Menu was a great
teammate. He was, he was obviously very,
very good. But I often tell, I use these
stories. There's, there's quite a few
stories, but I use some of the stories of the things I learned
that year from Alan to try and teach some of the younger
drivers that I look after now because Alan had come through a
completely different route. He'd obviously done Formula
Ford, he'd be very good in Formula Ford, he'd done Formula
Three, he'd been very, very good in Formula Three and he had
somehow got a BMWAG contract. So his contract was with
Germany, right? He was a ABMW junior of some
sort, but contracted to Germany and I was contracted to BMW
Great Britain. Peter Walker.
That was obviously brilliant at the time that ran.
It would be great. Great.
So I had a Pro Drive contract and he had an AG contract and
there's a lot of things, but I remember very well, the first,
the first race of the year, I out qualified Alan and then
maybe the second race I out qualified Alan.
And then I got a phone call from Dave Richards.
I really, really remember this and it's a Tim, Tim.
Yeah, hi, Dave Richards. I said, oh, David, he said I've
got a bit of a problem there, Tim.
He said Alan, Venue's been on the phone and he's complained to
BMW that that we're favouriting you and because you're English
you've got a better engine than he has and that's why you've out
qualified. And he said, I've got a lot of
grief from BMW and they're asking, you know, do you mind,
Tim, if, if we give Alan your edge?
And of course, I said no, no, of course.
I mean, at the time I was still unbelievably grateful that I'd
got an engine at all, you know? What I mean, yeah.
So I wasn't going to admit and I said no of course not David.
I said darling David, they're all, all the engines are the
same aren't they? There's no, there's no
difference, exactly the same. There's no difference at all.
All the engines are the same. I said well I'll just give him
my engine David, I don't mind, he'll be fine.
And he fucking out qualified me for the next 4 races now with my
engine. So, you know, and then and then
he became sort of the superstar and I was the idiot that was
2/10 slow. How long did it take to demand
your engine back? Well, I did and.
That's the other lesson. I mean, I should have learned
that from Dave Coyne years ago and for years earlier in Formula
Ford. When Dave Coyne complained to
Frank Bradley that my engine was better than Dave's at Brands
Hatch and he complained on the Friday, he said, Frank, my
engine's terrible, mate. He said he's like towing a
fucking caravan. He said, oh, what?
Tim's engine? So they gave him my engine and I
put it on pole with his engine and he said, what more fucking
engine back, Frank? We gave him a Swapton yesterday
or one more fucking engine back. So I won the race the day after
with his engine again. So, so I should have learned,
but no. So that that really taught me
that that Alan was, he'd arrived there and he was confident and
he was full of himself and he was totally at ease with
everything. If you like, he had the
confidence or arrogance or whatever you want to call it.
So demand that engine. And I was still so much on the
back foot mentally because I was just grateful to be there at
all. I didn't make a fuss and I just
let him do that. And then I've often said to my
drivers, you know, if you've got there and you've got there on
merit, then then you have to say right here I am.
And you can be a nice person 'cause you.
There's lots of examples I know now of drivers who are super
nice in and out of the car. Everything they do is great, but
they have an inch to them when it comes.
They'll demand something, they'll ring up, they'll be
happy to say no, I want that new tyre run or I want that engine
or I want that engineer. And they just have a way of just
getting serious when it really matters.
And you know, so that definitely taught me.
Being Alan's teammate definitely taught me a lot.
In that year as well, in 1992, Tim, a big sort of story that a
lot of people remember is that not Kill You had Colin McRae
join you for the weekend. Yeah.
There's been a lot of stories in the past that he maybe didn't
take that weekend quite as seriously as perhaps yourself
and Alan were. What, what was he like to drive
with that weekend? Well, that.
Was the week that Alan broke his leg on the quad?
That was the first that Alan, I remember our French engineer at
the time coming running into the Lotto.
Alan, let's crash the quad. Come quick.
Alan, let's crash the quad. No, I mean, I remember that.
Really. We, I've told this story many,
many times, but Colin was unbelievable that weekend and I
don't remember him not taking it seriously.
I don't remember anything like that.
I remember him turning up on his motorbike, but no, he took, he
took it seriously, as serious as Colin probably ever took
anything I suppose. But he wanted to do really well.
But the, the most amazing thing I remember about that was the
first free practise on the Friday.
It was wet and we came out of the pits and I was behind Colin
and we sort of went around the first lap and I was still behind
Colin came up the hill at Knock Hill.
I was behind Colin and I thought I need to pass Colin soon.
I don't want to be sat behind him obviously because Colin's
having his first ever go. He shouldn't be on me.
Well, it's turn one at not Hill. And Colin went in first lap
stupidly quick, like way, way too quick.
And as soon as he turned in, the thing snapped sideways and he he
had it like completely sideways to the track the first lap.
And I backed right off of it's like because he's about to crash
and I don't want to crash into it.
He somehow sorted it out and carried on and he dapped me by
about 6 cars lengths because of that.
So the rest of the lap caught him up again and then we went
into that first corner again and I'm thinking I'm still behind
Colin and they're all been watching going why is Tim still
be at Colin? We went into the third corner
again and he went in this time even faster, and this time he
was. Clearly going to barrel roll so
I backed right off again as a what a fucking idiot.
And so now we sorted it out again.
I didn't lose any time. The unit passed sideways and it
carried on and then again it dropped me.
I can never believe how much car control he had.
I remember 1 sitting because it was a fantastic time for me
because obviously Colin was driving World Rally at the time.
I was driving touring cars. There was all the I can't
remember. I went through the area of
people like Ari Vatanen and all that not driving for the rally
team and Prodrive would often call me to shake a rally car
down because Colin and Ola were living in Monaco and places and
they wanted the car shaking down and they used to shake
everything down at Myra. So they would always shake a car
down for every rally at Myra and they would often ring me up
because I was only two hours away in Bradford and say can you
come and shake a car down. So I used to get probably once
every two or three weeks the chance to go to Myra and drive a
full on WRC car, which was amazing.
Yeah. That's cool.
So I once sat next to Colin. I remember at Myra there's a
ride and handling track and Colin was there doing some sort
of demonstrations or something and somebody said oh you should
have a go with Colin next to Colin and I sat next to him
going round. I don't know if you've ever been
there, but the ride and handling course is all like moguls and
then an off Cam, off camber corners.
And then there's like a bridge thing that goes around and
through and narrow. The bridge is only as wide as
one car. It goes over the angst track and
then background. And I sat next to Colin.
I've just got jeans and AT shirt on a low face helmet and I strap
myself in and he set off and honestly, I was stunned by how
his car control was and how much it was bizarre how much car
control they are. And he chunked it into this
right-hander that goes all over the bridge.
And I remember the front wheels grabbing on the curb that side
and the rear wheels grabbing on the curb the other side.
And somehow we didn't crash. And we got to the point where he
could go back to the truck or carry around for another lap.
And I really wanted him to go back to the truck.
He did another lap and yeah, he was.
Colin was incredible and so I can't remember what results he
had that week. I think he had it off with
Matthew Neal in the end. Yes, yeah.
You know, to say that he'd never driven it before.
He was, he was impressive that really good.
Yeah, I think he finished 6th or 7th on the road, but then got
dequeued after, after the incident with Matt and went and
hid from Steve Neal basically I think who was not very happy at
all. Your time with Prodrive,
obviously there's a there's a hint of Mercedes, wasn't there?
Yeah, it was what? How did that come about and
disappear and what was the story?
That was that was, that was a real shame.
I mean, that was yeah. I mean, I remember it obviously
very, very, very well because we don't think the the Pro drive,
sorry, the BMW period. And then David said to me that
there was talk of Mercedes and that went on for a while and
then that gathered momentum and then it was done.
The deal, the deal was done. So it was going to be, it was
going to be a 2 litre Mercedes. It was going to be built in
Germany by AMG. No, but how at the time was the
boss of AMG? It was going to be built there,
Texaco, we're going to sponsor it.
That deal was all done and basically the money was going to
be sort of 1/3 from Mercedes Great Britain, 1/3 from Mercedes
Germany and a third from Texaco basically.
And David wanted me to be one of the drivers.
That was all done. And then we would have had
whoever, I mean looking back, it would have been a Mercedes
factory driver at the time of sub saw.
And so literally that was the end of what year was that?
That was the end of 92 and and David kept me on.
They kept me on for a year and they basically paid me a year
and I did nothing. The idea was always that we were
going to start, we were going to build the cars, we were going to
start testing halfway through the year, we were going to do
the last two races of 93 with a view to do in the full year in
94. And the programme just got put
back and put back. But it was still definitely
happening because I remember being at the artist, sorry, the
Touring Car awards dinner at the end of 93 sat on a table with
David Richards and his wife and me and my girlfriend at the time
and somebody from Mercedes, Great Britain.
And, you know, it was, it was still happening at that point.
But then shortly after that it started to go a bit sort of
wrong. And I don't know, I'll never
know exactly the details. It was not, it was not something
I was involved with at all. But there was a disagreement
between Norbert Howe sort of his objectives and about the way
that touring car racing was going.
And I think that he was arguing that touring car racing was
going to go 2 1/2 litre all around the world.
And so Haug was telling Mercedes and anybody else that would
listen that that the rest of Europe would adopt the 2 1/2
litre DTM regulations and he didn't want.
I'm looking back, I understand quite clearly why he didn't want
Pro Drive to get A2 litre touring car deal, because two
litre touring cars was clearly the way it was all going.
And if Mercedes had started to get in bed with Pro Drive, they
would have done a fantastic job I'm sure.
And the two litre Mercedes touring car would have become
the car to have and all the private teams would have wanted
to buy them etcetera. And and how we wanted to control
it all. That's the only thing I can
possibly think because there was certainly no way that the rest
of Europe was going to adopt 2 1/2 litre rules.
It was way too expensive. Sadly that Mercedes deal didn't
happen and I'm guessing you were looking to get back on the grid
for 94 and you did with Toyota. Was that your only option?
Did you have any other options to get back on the grid with
anyone else at the time? Yeah.
I mean, that was a real difficult area because I'd gone
through that whole year thinking that I was going to not only OK,
I was having a year off which I didn't particularly enjoy not
racing, but I was still doing bits just for fun.
I was doing bits of front wheel drive sort of one make stuff
just for a bit of fun, just to keep my hand in racing.
But basically I thought I was coming back with Mercedes.
So suddenly when I learned that it wasn't happening, I think it
was probably about November time when I got told it wasn't
happening and that David would so obviously released me from my
contract and stuff, which was, which was a shame.
I mean, fair play to David. He paid me for a year basically
to do nothing. So but then I had to try and
rescue my career. And I remember I talked to
everybody and all the deals had been done by that.
Everybody, everybody got their deals done.
So I spoke to all the manufacturers and at the time I
remember Ford and Toyota and somebody else, can't remember
who else, maybe Peugeot or somebody were looking at running
a third car. But none of them could run a
third car without some funding. So suddenly I was back to where
I've been years before where I was having to find money, which
and you know, I hadn't had to find any money for four years,
been getting paid. And suddenly the only way that I
could keep my career in touring cars going was to find some
money to help. I mean, it's only help fund it.
There was still going to be money from Toyota.
And I quickly got to the point where the phone deal was so
likely to work because that was going to be too much money.
But Toyota were prepared to do something.
But I remember I had to find 300 grand.
I had to find 300,000 lbs and I had three months to do it.
Literally I had from November till February, let's say maybe
the beginning of March. But let's say February, I had to
find 300 granting sponsors and I don't know how I did it looking
back, but I did a genuine found 300,000 lbs of sponsorship,
which was amazing. And, and I managed to get the
last, you know, I've got, let's say I've got 200 grand.
I managed to get the last 100 grand from a local company at
the end of must be the end of February, beginning of March
because I remember we had a week to get everything organised to
be at the press launch. So that that, you know, bear in
mind that was when 1990, beginning of 1990, also 30 years
ago. Yeah, to find 3300 grand was a
lot of money. Yeah.
That, that basically kept me, that kept my career alive.
Without that, then it wouldn't be the touring car.
That thing would have been over. So that, that that was great
that I managed to do the year with, with Will and Juliet's
third car. Yes, yes, yeah, that that that
car was stunningly beautiful in that Castro livery.
It's one of my favourite touring cars to look at, but not quite
on the performance level. It probably not one of your
favourite cars ever. No, it's a shame, isn't it,
Because I mean, it was the same in 95, which I'm sure we'll come
on to, but the, the the car itself was probably very good.
It just, it was usually, if I remember, it was just the
aerodynamics that we're not good then.
So I don't know why quite, but Toyota were never able to
homologate a front splitter of any sort.
And and I don't think it was much more complicated than that.
So we, we, we never, we never had enough front end basically
all the way through that period. As she mentioned, in 1995, he
stayed at Toyota and ran a full season for the team alongside
Julian Bailey. Was that again, was that similar
to 94 where you needed to bring funding or was that a situation
where because it was in one of the the main two cars that it
was a fully professional drive that year?
Yeah. That was back to sort of, if you
like how it should be. So yeah, no, it's very good.
So Paul Risbridger at the time was great and he was happy with
what I'd done as the team mate with the three.
So when Will moved on to Renault, Paul gave me a a
professional drive again alongside Julian, so I was back
to not having to bring any money and getting a salary.
So it was it. It was a big relief for me to be
back in that situation. You were team mates with Julian
that year and he's quite, he's quite a character, isn't he?
Oh. Yeah, I mean, but again, you
know, let's not let's, let's be fair, Julian, it was bloody
good. Like, and I mean, you know, he
obviously, you know, he taught me a lot of things, like told me
all about Jack Daniels and he taught me all about all the
lights and he told all sorts of stories.
But he can't take anything away from Julian.
He was super talent, really good.
And, and again, somebody who taught me a lot about how to
manipulate a situation to me, Julian was great, fantastic in
every respect, Good fun. I got hungry with him.
But again, he had that edge to him where when he needed to be
hard and he needed to ask for what he wanted and he needed to
put his foot down, if you like. He had that.
He had that edge to him, enabled him to get a team around him and
and be there. You know, he was a star.
It was Formula One. I mean, Julie and I remember had
got himself into Formula One and I said by yeah, by crook and
finding money and being super talented as well, you know, get
Julie and won the festival and, you know, he he was good.
But yeah, great character, great fun.
Everything about that year was very, very enjoyable.
Other than the best result either of us had all year was a
fourth place. You.
Know really bad, but again, I remember at the end of that year
we did a test just out of interest.
Then the literally the team made a front splitter that was like
another two inches deeper. It was just a little simple
addition at the end of the year and we just did a day at
Silverstone just to try it and we immediately unlocked so much
speed in the car. You know, it didn't.
There really wasn't much wrong with the car at all other than
it didn't have a front split. So at the end of that season
then obviously that left you pretty much without a drive,
didn't it? So did you then become a test
drive for Voxel at that point? Yeah, so that's that was my
probably the only the only thing that I ever, you know, people
say, what do you regret? The only thing I ever regret was
over that winter was the year when Audi were coming into
British touring cars. And that was the big story.
The Audi were going to come to do British touring cars and they
were going to have Frank Beeler and they wanted a British driver
to drive alongside Frank. And various people were
mentioned. But I was, if you like, in a way
and all an obvious choice. You know, I was the only person
that was not contracted, somebody that had a chance of
doing a good job. And I really wanted that drive,
you know, to, I was very, very, very aware that getting the Audi
drive would be a dream come true, you know, and I push to
try and get it again, looking back, I probably didn't my, my
version of pushing was probably not pushy enough, but I tried.
And when I got to the point where I had an interview and I,
I went for the job interview with people from Audi.
And that again, is one of the things that I use as an example
of what to say to young drivers that I look after now.
I handled that situation terribly looking back, because
I, I was very conscious that the people out here were probably
thinking, why is this guy just had a year in a Toyota where his
best result was fourth place? So I thought, they're probably
thinking, I'd be thinking, well, you're obviously not that good
if you've only finished fourth. And so I wrote a report.
I remember spent ages writing a detailed report of the whole
season about each race and what happened and what I thought
almost gone wrong, if you like, and why we are in an off place.
And I remember that day I was also really I had.
I had the man flew of some sort, but I was properly that.
I mean, if it had been anything else you wouldn't have got, he'd
have rung up and made apologies. But there was no way I was going
to miss that. But I was drugged up.
I was on paracetamols and LEM sips and God knows what else and
went for the meeting. But I took this with part that I
had written and I went and I sat in front of them people and I
did said what I thought was the right thing to say and
everything. And somebody must have asked me
about my season and I said, well, actually I've written a
report and I went into my little briefcase or whatever and I had
this report and I, I sort of gave them some information from
that report. And then they also interviewed
John Bincliffe at the time. So when I left there, I saw John
in the waiting room and I said, hello, what are you doing here?
He said, well, same as you come to try and get a job.
Well, then told me that they were going to interview somebody
from Fiestas, but they'd said they were seriously looking at
that. They were seriously looking at
me sort of thing. So I didn't really worry too
much about it. But Long story short, John got
the drive and I didn't. And, and I later asked John
Wickham, who was the team manager at the time, God love
him. John's not with us anymore.
But I asked John, because I've gone well with John all the way
through the process of getting the interview and getting to
that stage. I've got on really well with
him. And I asked him just be honest
with me. Why didn't I get it?
And he said, to be honest, you know, nothing much.
But one of the things was that that report you wrote, they just
saw as a list of excuses. And he said you didn't need to
do that at all. You know, you were there on
merit. They wouldn't have even been
talking to you if they didn't think you were good enough.
And all you had to do really was go in and just be nice and tell
him you were going to finish sending to Frank and you'd have
probably got the drive or you'd have had a better chance of
getting it. So that again, taught me that's,
that's the only thing that I think, shit, I could have done
that better. I could have handled that
better. Rolling back just into 95 again,
Tim, one of the probably biggest moments of that year in terms of
talking points was that horrendous weather tie at Brands
Hatch in the rain where you ended up having quite a
spectacular incident barrel roll in the car.
What were those conditions like? Because it looked terrible.
It looked like your windscreen was Mr Dart.
Was it just a situation of the of the thing I?
Do remember, I mean that was my problem.
That race definitely, I mean the race actually, I think we were
reasonably quick that day. I don't, I think the pace was
actually not bad at all in the wet.
But yeah, it was one of those where the windscreen would just
mist up and it would just get start off at the top and just
get lower and lower and lower. And I got to the point where I
was literally just looking through sort of an inch at the
bottom of the windscreen and I literally couldn't see anything.
And. And yeah, I just missed the
breaking point coming into clearways and just went straight
in and landed up on the roof. But I think this the Rydell, I
think Ricard crashed. Yeah, yeah, he did the same,
yeah. Same reason.
And I just couldn't see anything nowadays, you know, cars have
heated screens and all sorts of things, you know, and it's, it
just doesn't happen now like it used to happen.
People would put rain X on and fairy liquid and God knows what
else but it still used to mist up.
Given how terrible those conditions were that day, do you
think the decision by Pierre Armonier to cost the drivers in
front of the main grandson was perhaps a bit harsh?
Because it did seem really difficult for you guys that day
and here perhaps seemed a bit upset at the fact there were
lots of incidents. Yeah, I mean, it was funny
because if you look back, I mean you look back at who that group
of drivers were, you know, there was some of the best drivers in
the world on on that grid. And, you know, people, you think
back to that era, people like Ricard, for instance, Ricard
Rydell, those, I mean, so many incredibly good drivers.
And so, yeah, the fact that we were all basically out of
control. But yeah, the conditions were
bad. They wouldn't, they would
probably not have run the race. No, you know, now there's so
much more risk averse than they were then.
I mean, it was, it was bad, but I mean, nobody thought at the
time it was bad. I don't remember anybody saying
it's too bad to race or anything.
I've often wondered about that 95 season is obviously it was as
you've said about the, the, the struggles with the, the front
splitter of the car. And towards the end of the year
at Snetterton, the team debuted a a brand new right hand drive
car, which you drove at Snetterton and then Julian got
for the rest of the year. And the car did seem to take a
significant step forward. It seemed to be a bit too late
for Toyota to sort of make change their mind and commit to
96. Is that, is that car maybe a bit
of a missed opportunity that had Toyota gone into 96 with the the
new car, with the front splitter and all that, it could have been
a much better year, yeah. I mean, I raced that car.
I remember that was a car that Tom.
There was a fundamental difference because our cars
before then were built by TTE in Germany, and that car was a
Tom's car that was built in the Snetterton, but not Snetterton,
but just down the road from Snetterton.
And it was designed and built by the Tom, by the people at Tom's.
That car was immediately better. I remember driving it at
Snetterton for the first time and saying this is a lot better.
And then we tested it somewhere and then I raced it once and we
had a really good weekend. I can't remember exactly where
we finished or whatever, but I remember as being very
competitive, definitely a lot better.
And unfortunately then, and this is another good example of what
I mean about being forthright and strong and all of the words
you want to use. Julian basically pulled rank and
insisted on having that car. So, but yeah, that, that, that
was a there was still talk at the end of that year of Toyota
continue it and obviously everybody wants it, but you've
got to remember touring cars. I know you guys know it.
You, you, you've obviously studied touring cars all the
time, but it was just starting to get ridiculously expensive.
Yeah, I remember when I never saw exactly the invoices, but
I've got the figures and I'm sure I'm not far around.
I remember in 95 we had 3.3 million and we spent the year
complaining that we didn't have enough money because Vauxhall
and Renault and people were spending five.
So you know, people say now touring cars is expensive, but I
think a season with W Surrey is probably 650 or 700.
And I think 30 years ago we were spending 1.7 on one car, 3.32.
It was completely out of control.
And I mean, obviously it got to the point, didn't it, where I
think Ford spent nine and a half million or something in 99.
It's quite hard to get your head round that people would have
spent that much money. You can easily see why it's
never going to be repeated. And we always say this time and
time again, you know, it was such a good era.
From. To from a fan perspective, the
race and everything about it, the manufacturing involvement
and you're just never going to. I just can't ever see it being
repeated in any way. It's never going to be like that
again, is it? And then we just don't.
People ask me all the time, why is it like it?
But we just don't, you know, Again, using the racing car.
Show us the barometer, you know, every manufacturer.
And a big stand there, didn't they?
Every manufacturer was up. If a manufacturer couldn't
afford to do British touring cars, they were still doing
something else in British motorsport.
There was rally programmes. The manufacturers are people at
Vauxhall and Peugeot and Renault and rally programmes as well.
You know you've got a rally programme.
Nowadays you never see any of it.
Yeah, and like going back to the Renault thing we said earlier
on, you look at how big it was in terms of the the number of
former Renault single seaters, but look how like the Renault
Clio championship was as well. Like, you know, the Renault's
presence around a BTCC weekend was just astronomical, wasn't
it? Yeah.
Fantastic. They were everywhere.
Tim Jackson did such a good job, didn't he, back in the day.
And it's, it's, I mean, everybody looks at things with
rose coloured spectacles like I say.
But you look back then how much money there was in mod sport in
England, it was it was so much more than there is now.
Your last drive in a super tour, unless I'm wrong, was at the end
of season 1997 Tourist Trophy at Donnington where you race the
Mint Motorsport Cavalier. Yeah.
That that was obviously the championship winning car in 95.
Could you see why a car like that had won the championship
the year you were in that Toyota where it was, you know, a bit
hit and miss at the start of the year?
Well, you've, you've got so I had a much better insight than
that. So when I went, the whole 95
thing finished and and there wasn't a 96.
You asked earlier on what happened after that and I was
trying to get the Audi drive. What I did managed to get was
the Vauxhall development deal basically, which was actually, I
was actually contracted to all. So Ray Malik at the time were
building all the touring cars for all the Vectra touring cars
for the whole of Europe. And I think at the time there
was something like 11 or 12 Vectors racing in British,
sorry, in various European Championships.
And I did all the development of that car.
So I thought there was a drive going which, you know, OK, I
wasn't going to get a race seat, but I was really hoping that I
would get something to try and stay in Super Touring and
Vauxhall. I had this drive going through
Ray Malik. So I did a test and I remember
did initial initially a test against Alan Mcnish for this
drive. And Long story short, we tested
once or twice. I've managed to get the drive
and I did all, I used to be testing literally two or three
days a week every week in 96 town at Pembrey and all over the
place. And then you know, and we used
to in the, if you look back at the results, I don't know if you
can ever find the book, we also used to do the official tests.
So when there was an official Turka test on the Thursday or
the Friday or whenever they were, we would often do the
official test as well. And we were often really quick.
So I would be running a third Vectra and throughout that, so
throughout that season, I remember the first time I drove
the Cavalier to do some comparative tests with the new
Vectra. And as soon as I drove that
Cavalier, I just couldn't believe how good it was.
That car was so well sorted. It was, it was an absolute
pleasure to drive. It was.
So I remember it just being so smooth.
That was one of the things I couldn't believe.
There was no vibrations in it. There was no real noise.
There was no way. It was obviously so well
engineered that it was beautifully smooth and it just
did everything so well. The gear change was lovely up
and down the gears was so nice. It it just breaks how you want
it. The most amazing thing about it
was it just didn't really have understeer.
I mean clearly in the end, all front wheel drive cars are going
to have some understeer, but it was so neutral without having
scary oversteer. That was amazing because you can
make, really you can make any car front wheel drive, you can
make it oversteer, but it's really hard to make it oversteer
nicely and predictably and controllably, especially on cold
tyres. But somehow they'd got it so
that you had a car that for all intents and purposes felt like
it was rear wheel drive. I remember it was so well
balanced, that car. It was a real credit to Mary
Malik and all the people there at the time that built that car.
It was incredible. And I don't think the Vectra was
actually ever quite as good. I mean, the Vectra was very
good, but I don't think it was ever as good as the Cavalier to
somebody. I think there was a, a
difference somewhere in a wheelbase or something that I've
had it explained to me and I can't remember the detail, but
there was something that stopped it being possible to get it
quite as good as, so that was, that was an era also to sort of
finish the Super Touring star story where I really thought I
was going to get the Vauxhall Drive then, you know, so I knew
that at the end of 96 that either Cleland or Thompson were
going to move on and I, I was very much in the running to get
the drive for whichever 1 left because those two have fallen
out in lumps. One of them was going to have to
leave and. And I thought I was going to get
the drive. I really thought I was going to
get the drive. But that was the time that AAA
got the Vauxhall deal. Yeah.
And Derek Warrick owned AAA and Derek gave himself a drive
instead of giving me one. He did, but.
We did have a test. I remember as having a test with
me and Tom Christensen and Derek and various people tested for
that. Derek was the slowest, but he
still got the drive and I got to know Derek a lot actually as
well later. And again, what a fantastic
bloke he is. You know Derek.
Yes, very, very nice. Such a good bloke.
He he, he helped me massively in many ways, but one of the ways I
had a driver that I managed later called James Walker from
Jersey. And Derek helped me massively
with raising money for James. And he actually put some money
in a lot of money himself into James.
So yeah, really, really good. Look, I like Derek a lot.
Yeah, yeah, no, Derek's the top man.
Yeah, absolutely. So there you go.
That's a little bit of my Super Touring car.
Talking sort of post your Super Touring career, you carved a
very, very successful career in GT and endurance racing as well
that started in 97 in the British GT Championship in the
GT2 category with Steve O'Rourke and a Porsche.
You ended up winning the GT2 title that year.
Was that did you find that quite an easy adaptation in to GT
racing from the Super Tours or was it just something that came
naturally to you? Were instantly on the pace by
the looks of it. I mean, to be honest, yes, that
sounds nobody's ever asked me that question as such.
But yes, I think, you know, British GT at the time was not
the same level as British tour cars.
No British touring car. British touring cars in 949596
was serious, won't it? I mean that was.
Proper. Proper motor racing.
It was an incredible level, driving wise, engineering wise,
budget wise. I mean the whole thing was full
on, you know, every last 10th was you know, then I went into
GT racing and, and actually, yes, you know, to be honest,
British GT at the time was not a particularly mega level at all.
And I remember I didn't know, I mean Steve was amazing guy.
So obviously you know who Steve was.
Steve was manager of Pink Floyd, you know, and he'd, he'd, you
know, Steve had managed think Floyd since they were all at
universities together when they were all in their teens and they
were all mates and they didn't have a manager.
And Steve worked washing pots at their local working men's club.
And Steve got them, managed to get them a couple of gigs
playing in the pub and where he worked.
And so they said, well, do you want to be our manager?
And so Steve was Pink Floyd's manager from that day all the
way through everything that Pink Floyd did, all the way through
the Brick in the Wall tour and all well to write the day they
stopped. So I mean, Steve was an amazing
bloke, fascinating bloke that taught me again so lot, so, so
much. He was one of the people that I
always think of as being really influential in my life.
He was like a second dad to me, really.
I learned so much from Steve and some of the stories.
Steve, I mean, Can you imagine what it was like in the 70s and
80s being Pink Floyd, you know, going around doing tours in
America? He says.
What, you were like fucking Vikings.
We used to go into the people, he says.
We used to go into the towns and say, give us all your money,
give us all your women, he says. We'd take all the money and all
the women and then we'd fuck off to the next town.
I mean, I it was long before there was any political
correctness going on and, and it was just debauchery.
I remember saying to Steve, he said something about not being
healthy. And I said, Steve, I've never
met anybody as healthy as you because he was the first person
I knew that ate organic food. And I remember Steve, you know,
I've been always having organic this, that and the other.
And I said, Steve, you're so healthy.
You eat organic tomatoes, he said.
Tim, he's got to eat a lot of fucking organic tomatoes to undo
all the shit I put my nose. Because you stayed with him
obviously through a lot of your career in GT.
So you then ended up stepping up to the McLaren F1 GTR as well.
I mean, what was that like? I mean, that's such an iconic
car, isn't it? I mean, that must have been, I
mean, I know you've driven the GT2, which was fast.
And I think my experience when I went from 2 later touring cars
into GT race and I just couldn't get get over the speed
difference, the break in the grip, the talk, everything about
it. So for you to go into an even
bigger step, you know, into to those that must have been like
the. McLaren was was bizarre.
It's funny because that's become such an iconic car.
And actually that's the car that everybody remembers me for as
much as anything. And we finished fourth at Le
Mans overall in that car, which was bizarre.
I mean, so Steve, myself and Bill Ormolan went to Le Mans and
we were the only private car in the top 20, and somehow we
finished fourth overall in among factory Porsches, factory
Nissans, factory panels, factory everything.
But yeah, that was that car was just such a pleasure to drive.
It was so much power, so much traction, handled incredibly
well, super reliable, bulletproof everything.
I never remember ever having any problems at all.
And you know, I remember racing that car around Brands Grand
Prix round, Alton Park, long circuit Alton in the McLaren,
the one that the old Cup there, I remember we had so many good
battles. But it racing with Steve was
incredible because Steve, God love him.
And again, I really do love Steve.
He was amazing and he gave me so many opportunities.
But he was 4 seconds a lap off the pace, but somehow you could
still manage because there's always be a safety car or
something. So we start Steve and he would
drop back and then there'd be a safety car if we were lucky.
And then I could get in and I could come through and be a
hero. But you look back at British GT
in those days, there was like 3 McLaren.
There was one point when there was 3 Mclarens, two or three GT1
Porsches and a couple of Listers and some real serious cars.
It was, it was a real again, it was a really, really good area
of British GT. But yeah, to drive that car, to
do Le Monde, to finish 4th in that car, you know, the most
amazing story about that car though, and this really is
something that I do think about pretty much every day.
Steve died, God love him, in whatever year it was 2003, the
end of 2003 I think. And Steve's still owned the
McLaren. And it had been for sale every
week or every month in Motorsport magazine and he
wasn't selling and it hadn't sold.
It had been advertised for six months and nobody bought it.
And I remember Steve's wife rang me one day and I remember to
this like it's yesterday, I was sat on an aeroplane.
I was just about to take off to go somewhere to a race and she
rang me and she said, Tim, would you like to buy the McLaren?
So I said, well I said I would Angie, I said no, I can't, I
don't think I can afford it. And it was it was for sale at
the time for £400,000. Oh, look at the value of it now.
And she said, she said I sent Angie I don't have 4000 lbs.
She said well she said Steve would have really liked you to
have it and do it for 375 to you if you want to have it.
And I said Angie, I don't have 375.
She said well you could give me some now and some later.
I said no, honestly, Angie, I don't. 12 million.
That car sold for about five years ago.
It sold for 12 I think it was. A good one last year when I was
there. I'm sure that was the car.
Yeah, it's owned by me. It's owned by a guy called Paul.
That field. Paul's got it still in exactly
the livery. Put it totally back to the
livery that we finished fourth at the morning it and it's
probably worth 20 million now. I would say if you can put rice
on it and I could have bought it for 375 grand.
Wow. Yeah, to.
To bring us sort of full circle then, Tim, you mentioned earlier
that you sort of run a team and manage drivers now and a lot of
what you do is that kind of your day-to-day these days within
motorsport. Yeah, basically.
So I started, I used to drive, started driving for a guy called
Jim Mcquirter, great guy that he was starting a race team in the
2006 doing. He wanted to do Elms and I was
introduced to him at the racing car show actually by Micky
Butler at Dunlop. And he said have a chat with
this guy from Northern Ireland. He's apparently he's bought a
Ferrari and he wants to start racing.
So I had a meeting with Jim. Jim said talk to me for half an
hour and said you've got to drive.
And so I drove for Jim for a year and then he wanted me to
stay and drive for him again. I couldn't because I had some
drives in America and things so I couldn't.
I couldn't do it. And but we stayed friends and
then a few years later Jim asked me to do Le Mans for him.
So I did Le Mans 3 or 4 times with Jim in various Ferraris and
then I started working for him as a part time consultant
running the team and I've done that now for about 16 years.
So I'm still running that team. It's not a full time job, it
feels like it sometimes, but we do Elms every year.
We we're the only team actually that's done every single Elms
race since it started in 2006. Oh.
Wow, starting when I drove it used to be called the Go.
Then it became JMW. We've done Le Mans 16 times.
We won our class at Le Mans in 17, we finished second in 19 and
we've not got a Le Man entry this year for the first year in
15 years. So that's a shame.
But yeah, that's that keeps me busy.
And then I have a couple of consultancies.
I've got a consultancy actually with the one group I'm helping
them. So that's a team, an engineering
group of people and a team based at Siwell at the airfield there.
And it's Ron that used to be years ago at Prodrive and then
he was at Rim Alex and then he was at Chevrolet.
So Ron runs that and I work with them, helping them with the
programme that they're doing in GT Masters.
And then I've got sort of about 8:00, I've got 8 drivers that I
look after that I manage young drivers that are doing various
things. Some are doing Formula 4, some
are doing GT4, some are doing GT3, so I look after every
aspect of their career and guiding them and advising them
and helping them generally. Busier now than ever then, Tim.
And I run a car dealership, so I've got you can't see it, but
I'm set at work now. I've got a small car dealership
come full circle. Got a small showroom in Leeds.
I've got 35 cars and we're called Purple Dot Performance
and we sell everything from a Fiat 500 to a well, we haven't
got anything really super at the moment.
We just sold this GTR that was quite special.
That's that's gone now. We've got a couple of nice BMWs,
M4 and what have you. Yeah, so I love cars, but I love
racing and everything I do is cars.
We'll wrap up there, Tim and, and I would just like to say
thank you so much for spending so much time with us this
evening to talk about your career in motorsport and in
particular, obviously the the, the stuff you got up to in Super
Touring. So, Tim, thanks very much for
your time. No, no problem.
Lovely. Nice to reminisce.
Yeah, absolutely. Meanwhile, that wraps up another
episode of Stories from Super Touring.
A massive thank you again to our guest, Tim Sugden, for sharing
some truly unforgettable memories and insights from the
golden era of touring car racing.
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more stories from the heart of Super Touring.