Stories from Super Touring. Hello and welcome to this week's
episode of Stories From Super Touring.
This week we're joined by former Peugeot BTCC boss Mick Linford,
who oversaw Peugeot 7 year stay in the Championship.
From 1992, right up until the French marks departure at the
end of the 1998 season, it proved to be one of the toughest
jobs in the BTCC paddock and today Mick is going to join us
and tell us all about just how tough it was.
And so, without further ado, Mick, thanks for joining us
today. How are you doing?
Yeah, I'm very good. Thank you.
And thanks for asking me to come on your programme.
Oh, no problem. Thanks for coming onto the show
you were. Through the throughout the 90s
you were in the the mainstay of the Peugeot team as the as the
Peugeot team manager. How did you find yourself in
such a role within motorsport? Is was that something you always
aim to be involved in? No, no.
I was manager of the I've always been involved in motorsport in
one way or another. I used to have a shop in
Brackley called European Motorsport, selling motorsport
parts mainly for car rally cars, and that I was there for 9 years
and then I went to Silverstone as manager of the racing school
when it was the John Watson Performance Driving Centre.
I was there for four years I think it was and I I sort of
changed the racing school and moved the moved the guys over to
Peugeot. There was in MG Maestros and
Montego's then and the and the fast car was an MG Montego Turbo
it. Was really exciting but it was
when Tom Welkenshaw was involved with Silverstone and they always
said you'll never be able to change.
But I approached Des O'dell and Brian Luellen, who was Desi's
boss, to try and get some Peugeots in there and I was
successful in getting some three O 9 Gtis on the circuit.
So I was there and then later I got the rally school going.
I sorted out the tracks and that and got additional vehicles so
we could run the Persians and the rally cars.
And then one day Brian Llewellyn, who as I say was
Desi's boss, spoke to me down at Silverson and said he said oh
does his retiring soon. He says we're looking for a good
guy to to replace him. He said that'd be up your street
and I said no, Silverstone through and through.
Brian I, you know, I was like a stick of rock Silverstone right
through. Never thought anymore about it
and two or three days later Keith board who used to
coordinate the Peugeot rally challenge and used to be my Co
driver in rally and he rang me up and said I can't believe you
turned down Desi's job, what you're talking about, he said.
Brian told me that he spoke to you about you've taken over,
potentially taken over from DES and I said no, no, I said he
joked, He said no mate, he was deadly serious.
I said look, you better, you better say to Brian, I'm really
sorry, but I didn't take him seriously and obviously I'd love
to talk to him. And about an hour later Brian
rang me and said, oh, I understand that might be
worthless, having a chat and I said, yeah, I'm sorry Brian.
Anyway, the next day he come round to Silverstone.
We had lunch in the Pitts Cafe and a week later I went up there
for an interview and another one a week later and they offered me
the job basically said I I I wasn't sort of a real expert at
any specific particular area, but I was well qualified in all
sorts of areas. Special tuning was selling all
the parts and I'd had the shop, European motor sort for nine
years, the racing, I'd raced myself for a couple of years,
the rallying, I'd rallied and built my own car.
So I've got a good grasp of right across the board, which
was actually better than Des had and and they gave me the job and
so it was a bit out of the blue and I wasn't expecting it and I
didn't go after it. It was they sort of headhunted
me, which is the dice sounding thing really.
I then moved well. In fact the day I was starting
was the week after the very first BTCC race at Alton Park
where Rob Gravitt was driving the the four O 5 GDI and that
was their very first race in the championship.
So I went to along to see it and as I say I was starting just
over a week later in in Desi's position.
I went to Thruxton to see it and it it was, it was a bit of an
eye opener for everybody. And I'm sure all of you will say
there were some obvious flaws there because in the first
practice, Rob didn't engine in. In the second practice, Rob
didn't engine in. In qualifying, don't.
Tell me I didn't engine in in the race.
Rob didn't engine in. You know what you know.
What? How many you take?
I thought it whether I was expecting it or not, but you
know what Thruxen is like. It's a very, very long long
bends ran a wet. Some ideas are the same in the
rally cars and thought because they've done tarmac rally and
overrepent and things like that it'll be okay.
But of course it ran the mains every time.
And of course the other thing, and I'm not really mocking it,
but I turned up with it in the rally car trailer behind the the
service van, whereas everybody else has got a got a big Arctic.
So it was a bit look at the newcomers in their rally outfit.
So when I joined, the very first thing I did a week later was
well, they'd already started looking at wet, some dry sump
systems and I went out and bought a transport.
So at least we looked at the party, if nothing.
Else, as you say there, Peugeot were known really throughout the
80s for rallying. So why do you think they entered
the BTCC in 92? What do you think they were
looking to get out of it? I think.
I think it was exposure at a different level.
I think the rallying, I think they accepted they was getting
massive exposure through the Peugeot Cup and there are other
entries and that Peugeot Rally challenge I should say.
I think they were getting good exposure there.
But the people who are rallying is a different breed to the
people that go to race tracks. And I think in the, in the
board's mind, the people who go to race tracks are more likely
to buy new cars than the people who go to rallies.
I mean, when the guys ran a rally car in the Peugeot
challenge, they probably bought a road car, Peugeot, and then
the service crew, they'd have two or three service crew and
they'd probably buy Peugeot. That'll be second hand.
Whereas in the racing side, it tends to be a wealthier type of
person that goes spectating on those events and they're more
likely to appeal for new cars and things like that.
And I think that was a general thing.
So they had a discussion with Des, and Des said Yep, we can do
that. So that's where it started.
You mentioned obviously you came in sort of as the program.
It just started in 1992. After that weekend, especially
with the the issues that that had with the engine and so on,
did it feel like quite a dumb thing to come in and sort of
challenge to take on or was it sort of one that you felt you
could ease into? First of all, it may have only
been 3 engines and not four. I might be exaggerating.
So you ran out of engines? Well, I don't think so.
I mean, I was coming in a bit blind because I didn't know a
great deal about touring cars. I mean, I've been raising myself
so I knew what the general things about it, but when it
gets to the finer detail, it was a big learning curve.
But at least the faults they got early on were were very obvious
ones and an easy fix were easy in principle.
Obviously the mechanics of it had to design the dry sump and
and get it installed in the cars, but it was an obvious
fault. So once I knew that that could
be fixed then you was almost starting with a clean sheet of
paper and the car itself was was it performed well.
But there was a lot of learning to do for sure and of course we
run it in house. The in house side of it, we the
guys had only run rally cars really and tarmac rally cars and
you know they're very quick at times.
So it was a new thing for them as well.
So it was a bit of an eye opener all around but but now we we
could see, you know, we could see we've got hope for the
future for sure once we've dealt with the initial things that
were obviously false. I suppose it was like a bit of a
shopping list for you, wasn't it?
In terms of sort of privatising one of the bigger issues,
obviously being one of them. You know, without that your
car's not going to go anywhere, but what you're saying about you
going into in house there and obviously having predominantly
rally guys. Which are phenomenal mechanics
and what they do. Obviously this is like you said,
this is a completely different arena for them to be in
something different. So did you have to get, did you
have to get external like other mechanics that have been used to
touring cars and sort of integrate them in with your
rally mechanics or is your solely rally guys?
I'm trying to think this is where getting old or forgetting
things comes into it. I'm trying to think of the guy
we did get in, who I should probably think of his name in
about 5 minutes and suddenly shout out.
But we had a guy who oversaw the workshop as it were on the
technical side, who'd been involved for years, and
hopefully I'll think of his name in a minute.
So he came in and had an office there to advise us on the
various things and different ways that we should be doing
things. So.
So we have some technical assistance and I obviously knew
a lot of people, but he was the main one that came in and and
gave us a bit more of a pointer. The workshop themselves, as I
say, they'd only really done rally cars and tarmac rally
cars, but they were switched on guys, you know they they'd in
the same way and I'd like to adapt my thinking to the racing.
They'd done that and they'd worked hard on it, so they'd all
got their ideas of which way to go, and it just needed a little
bit of control in then to make sure we weren't going off on a
silly tangent just because somebody's got some bright idea
that wouldn't actually work for whatever reason.
As as you say, you sort of came in at the the start of 92
towards the end of that 92 season, the Peugeot was really
starting to get competitive. And and in the TOCA shootout you
do, you did finish third and 4th with with Robin and Ian Flux,
with Ian even getting the fastest lap in that race
funnily, funnily enough. Sorry to interrupt 2 nights ago.
Was it two nights ago? What's today?
Friday night I went to an open evening with Ian Flux.
Oh, I yes, yes, he told me about that.
And yeah, it was very entertaining, as you'd expect.
And all credit to Ian, he he did a very big thank you to me for
allowing him to have that car for that race and it's just
unfortunate I couldn't get him on board as a solemn driver for
various political reasons. We had Ian on a few weeks ago
and and he he sort of went into that a bit, which was quite,
quite an eye opener. He's still proud of the fastest
lap though, isn't he? Yeah, he's still very proud of
his. Yeah, there's this politeest way
of putting two fingers up to Rob Rabbit, I think.
Is that Shine coming forward? Is he?
No, no. But that that car was getting
competitive towards the end of the year.
Things were then started to look promising for 1993.
Yeah, it it did look, it looked good.
It looked like we was getting somewhere.
But then, of course, other teams in the winter, our only testing
was two days at Snetterton. Yeah, whereas other teams were
going abroad to the sunny climates and spending a week
testing and of course you just couldn't compete with that.
And then when we started the year straight away, it was
obvious that others had moved forward at a faster pace than
we'd been able to. And of course, the French at
that time was starting to sort of annihilate everybody else in
their championship. Yeah, so.
So we, you know, there was a lot of questions about why didn't we
do well over that year and the following couple of years, a lot
of questions as to why we weren't doing as well as them.
But we'll probably move on to that end of it.
So was it a money factor, Mick, or is it just the end?
I just was he just. It's been a bit slow after the
out of the blocks or the stupid thing is we were competing in a
championship which was virtually identical regulations to the
French. They were winning races almost
every time out. We weren't.
It was absolutely stupid, and I still maintain how stupid it
was, that we was having to pay for our own development and they
got a winning car and they was paying for development.
Why on earth wouldn't they give us information?
Well it seems daft that you own to build your car when why can't
you just purchase like 3 cars from over from the people that
build them over there and then obviously just get them to spec
for the UK like that. Not make sense from a economical
point of view. From Persia we didn't ever, ever
have a penny with financial assistance from them.
We didn't ever have any technical data to assist us.
There was a question mark over engines once and I organised for
Richard Jones, our engine guy in house, engine guy to take an
engine over to valise to put on their engine.
Diner was a back-to-back with one of their engines.
Richard came back and ours didn't perform as well as
theirs. They ran their engine.
Richard went in the next day and they was just taking their
engine off. Richard put our engine on the
following morning and it's just strange that when their engine
went on they were ducting air in from outside the the engine Dino
cell. When we run our engine, that
ducting had gone, so we just had to use air from in the Dino
cell. So instead of running on cooler
air, it was running on very hot air, which I'm not saying and
ours would have been as powerful as theirs, I'm sure it wouldn't,
but it it just made us look like we haven't got the same kit sort
of thing. The other thing was their the
characteristics of theirs engines was was definitely
different, different. Their peak power was quite a lot
higher than ours, which suited their circuits.
I think having our peak peak power a bit lower was probably
better the way driving over here, but it still wasn't that
ultimate power, you know. So that lack of collaboration
between France and the UK, what, why do you think that was like
from did Persia UK push to try and get it or were they just
leaving it to you to just sort out and not have any
involvement? Because surely Power Persia, UK
had some power. Jean Pierre Nicola I think was
there there then because I used to go over there every couple of
months to sort of for general meetings that people like me
from all over the world used to go over there and and have
meetings. So we discuss all these things,
but it just wasn't even entertained.
There was no pressure put. It was no good hour sort of
board members or whoever you would expect to do it to go and
talk to them. They, you know, they didn't know
with the greatest respect. They wouldn't know what they
were talking about. I tried hard and it was only by
trying hard that I managed to get the engine back-to-back.
They did offer to sell us engines, but Can you believe
they told us they would be customer spec engines, They
would not be full works engines. Wait, does it again?
It doesn't make any sense because it's not like you're
going to compete against each other.
Was it? Absolutely, Absolutely.
Ludicrous. Did they ever give a reason
though? No, no.
No, just just flat out no and no explanation but.
Who who was running The Who was building the French cars?
Was that built out of the factory like the equipment, like
you were over here or was it a separate station?
No, no, in Valesi. I mean, Valesi is an amazing
place. That's incredible what they've
got there. And as far as I know they still
where they build cars, I don't know, but but yeah, no in house
and they've got two or three Dino cells there.
Oh yeah, they're they're well geared up there, because you
can't believe that much. Money.
You're obviously clearly throwing some some money at that
operation, but it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever,
doesn't it? To Not when you think about all
the hard work and development that's already been spent.
It's almost like you have to spend twice as much for you to
do your bit like you're a stand alone.
Exactly, we're doing. It and then private tier team,
it's just does matter. It just it just didn't make
sense. And of course, you're always in
the press and everywhere people have been writing letters in.
Why aren't they as good as the French, you know?
And I couldn't go to them and say no, because those friendly
people wouldn't give us any equipment.
But you can say it now, Mick bastards.
There you go. That's it.
Get it out of your system, Mick. This is like a counselling
session. Now you can get it all out.
Yeah. So we had to live with it and it
got to the point, especially after the engine thing and then
then offered to sell us just customer engines.
I mean, it was a case where I had to give up then there was no
point in going down that route because I was going to get
nowhere. And that proved it.
Yeah. Are you surprised that they
never appeared to value the British Championship that much
as well? Because when you look at the
other major manufacturers of the time.
You know your your Audis, your BMWs, your Alfa Romeos, they all
pulled sort of quite significant support from their their own
home championships in order to sort of win the British
Championship as as the big one. So you mean?
Exactly. They they've used what they've
already done out there to to come and do it you.
Know they, you know, even even if it was a case of, you know,
bringing their own team to do it.
Like were you surprised that that Peugeot never really seemed
to to value winning in Britain that much?
I suppose it it wasn't a sudden surprise or anything.
It it, it built up over months and months and even a couple of
years sort of thing. You you grew to accept it.
It wasn't suddenly, well, why aren't we doing this?
I mean, that was being asked every week, every day, almost by
ourselves, and you just sort of drifted into this situation
where we're going to get nothing off them.
So there's no point in asking anymore.
There's no point in trying to get any off because they were
they were adamant about it, you know, it was they looked after
their own interests and that was it.
But it's almost like no one was looking at the brand like this
is all about in my eyes, this is all about making the brand
bigger, more popular household, you know, get it within these
households because we want to sell cars.
This just sounded like a completely selfish act.
Yeah, well, I think it is because.
You know, they weren't thinking about selling cars, were they?
In the UK? Clearly, no.
The people that were were thinking about selling cars in
the UK were were the board, and it was them.
If anybody was going to worry about selling cars from Peugeot
Sport in Valise's concern as far as they're concerned, didn't
matter to them. You know, they've got the parent
company selling plenty of cars. We were just on the end of a
stick, you know, we we were of little importance to them, said
in the nicest possible way. But it was a fact, you know?
They treated you to completely like a privateer team, didn't
they? Yeah, absolutely.
Literally a customer team. Yeah, that's exactly what they
did, Yeah. And as far as I'm aware, they
treated nearly everybody else like that.
I think they got a a better relationship with the Italians,
but that's about all. But whether they actually got
any engines, I don't know. Whilst you were going on your
own in your own path with the lack of collaboration with
Peugeot France in 93 you did move to A2 Car Team and you
brought in Eugene O'Brien alongside Rob Gravitz.
Were there any other drivers in contention for that seat?
I mean like we've already sort of touched on flux.
He was hoping to be in that car for 93 but ended up in a in a in
a Silco Lean Peugeot with a Leeds, a Leeds taxi driver
engine. That was his description, was
it? Yes.
No, it the bottom line is Eugene came in and brought him a lump
of money from auto glass or to auto wind screens or to auto
wind screens. Yeah, he he bought a big bundle
of money and that's what got his seat.
We wanted to or I wanted to run a second car, but there was no
budget to run it in house. You know, money coming from in
house. So the only way we could do it
was find somebody who got a big enough lump of money to bring
with them and and that's how Eugene got his seat.
He was. He's quite an unfortunate chap,
wasn't he, in the sense that he always seemed to be having on
the the the back end of accidents or or caught up in
someone else's problems? Yeah, Eugene I knew from years
ago when I was manager at the racing school at Silverstone,
Eugene was one of the regular Silverstone instructors, right?
So I knew him, knew him well. But yeah, there was one or two
situations. I think.
I forget which how early on in the season it was.
But at Silverstone, on the club circuit, he drove up the inside
of everybody else at Beckett's maggots.
Whichever the one is that comes back on himself, outbreaked
himself, and then ploughed straight into the Nissan and
somebody. Else and that that wasn't a good
start. So yeah, we had one or two
issues with Eugene and and when Eugene was with Patrick Watts,
Patrick was always pretty quick and Eugene quite often was not
on the pace. And I can remember once, I mean
he won't appreciate me telling this but I can remember once at
Alton Park on the Tessdale the prior to the race meeting he
came in and he was slower, marked amount slower than than
Patrick in the car. So he said he sum it up with the
car. You know, you haven't got the
same spec on mine as you've got on Rob's, on Patrick's.
So when they came in, I said to Eugene, I said, do you mind if
Patrick is out in your car? He may be able to identify
something where the difference is, where it's wrong.
No, no, he said good, put him in it, put him in it.
So Patrick got in it. Well, Patrick is about a foot
taller than Eugene, so seat was in the same place, so Patrick's
knee. Knees were up either side of the
steering wheel. On his second lap he was two,
just under 2 seconds quicker than Eugene's fastest lap.
So he came in. Patrick threw his helmet down on
the ground in the corner, went to his car and drove off back to
the hotel. He was all right the next day,
but he was he was not happy about that situation.
I can imagine. So I mean, like you say, Patrick
joined you in 94. What does a driver like Patrick
bring to a team like Peugeot? Obviously a vastly experienced
racer. Well, he's obviously a character
as you well know, enthusiasm. I mean he's had lots of drives
but never had been able to sort of just break into the the upper
level such as the British Tory guy Championship.
I can remember phoning him to tell him he'd got the drive and
he was, if I remember rightly and sorry, Patrick if I've got
it wrong, but if I remember rightly, I found him and he was
on his way back from the hospital to say that his wife
was pregnant or something. So it like it was like one of
the best days of his life sort of thing.
So to know enthusiasm, determination, Always.
Flat out. Always.
Yeah, he wasn't always the best guy on gearboxes, but but other
than than that he was. He was a great guy to have on
the team. At one point in that season 94,
it looked like Peuge sort of you know behind the the all dominant
Alphas early on that sort of best of the rest you know
second, third, fastest Karl Patrick sort of finished right
behind the Alphas at Brands Hatch.
Into the second-half of the season that that kind of fell
away with Brusselt BMW on coming a bit did the team just sort of
all the way with development, especially as sort of the aero
rules were changed and so on. For our season, we we continued
as best we could to develop the cars, but it was a different
world for us compared to the likes of the alphas and all
that. Yeah, we just couldn't commit
the time, the money, and I suppose we have to admit we just
hadn't got the knowledge they were paying staff to come in who
was incredibly knowledgeable about these things.
We just couldn't do that sort of thing.
We had some great people working for us but with all due respect
to them, they hadn't got the experience or the know how or as
I say the the finances available to develop the car in any way in
comparison with with the alphas and such like.
And this is where the collaboration with France would
have come into it, because that's exactly what they did.
All the other manufacturers did it from where it all began.
And then the, you know, the touring car wasn't the first
season of racing they've come into.
They've just used out all the knowledge and all the experience
they have there and they've just entered another championship in
the UK and and hit the ground running.
France, France could quite simply have built, I don't know
how many cars they built. Let's say they built three
around cars. They could have built 5 cars and
sold them two cars. There you go.
They're set up for this circuit. You know, develop it around your
own circuits. But now it was just a big shut
the door. Just going back to the aero side
of it, Nick, what do you, you know around the aero additions
that all the teams were bringing in?
What did you make of the Alpha wings at the time?
Wow. They 'd obviously done a lot of
work in a in a wind tunnel and that.
And again, our cars never been in a wind tunnel.
The ones in France probably have the ones in France, that's for
sure. So all you could do is stand
back and watch them develop their car or watch the
development of the cars and the pace of the cars and we could
only do you know what we were able to do.
I know it sounds like poor man, poor team sort of thing, but but
to a certain extent it was a poor team.
You know, we were quicker than the privateers in the majority
of cases but but to compete with such likes as the alphas, we
should no chance we we don't get me wrong we we didn't have a
defeatist attitude at all. We were extremely determined.
Everybody in the team was including the drivers and we
wanted to bloody do well. But you just we weren't able to
compete with the level of development that most of the
other teams were achieving or works teams anyway.
When you could see things like that with the wings coming into
play and all the arrow bits, was it a case of right?
Make a note of that Monday morning.
We're getting onto it and then trying to do something with your
own car based on what you were seeing the others do and just
knowing that if you don't, you're going to fall even
further behind. There were small tweaks, but I
have to say we didn't ever seriously look at aerodynamics
in the way that anybody else was, which we just hadn't got.
You know, we could, we could add something that looked like
somebody else, but then if we hadn't got you're not using a
wind tunnel, we wouldn't know whether it was a benefit or not
a benefit. So you've got to be careful that
you don't actually make yourself slower.
Rather faster, yeah. Yeah, that year as well.
I hate to bring it up again, but that that was the Aiello started
winning. He won the title in in France
with the Four O 5. You're rubbing it in now, Alex.
I know, I know. But.
Was I mean how demotivating was that?
Was it demotivating at all? You know, it it it's a that's a
really hard position to imagine to be in demotivating, to be the
wrong world. Just frustrating.
Yeah, I think is a better word for it because there was nothing
we could do about it. And what made it even more
frustrating is that everybody was asking us why, you know,
they're winning. Why aren't you?
You know, you go in the press and reports on, on touring cars,
in whether it was all sport, motor news or something,
somebody would be having a dig. You know, French Aiello sort of
won this and the French are doing it.
Why aren't Britain, you know? And I in my position, I couldn't
turn around and say because we're not getting enough money,
you know that because against my employees then you've got to be
very tactful how you respond to these things.
But the bottom line is, as I say, the winter testing, you can
get a lot of work done over four or five months in the winter and
you could could potentially make a good step forward in your
pace. Or these people can spend a
couple of separate weeks in Italy or France or somewhere in
the sun doing it. But two, two or three days at
Snatton, you, you don't get much from that.
No, I. Mean you must constantly be
getting asked the same questions like week after can't believe
that that separation between France and the UK.
But it must be worse for you. And because the the questions
are going to be asked even more so from your drivers that you
had in the team like that must be saying like why have we not
you know that that must have been an endless thing for you
especially when the you know drivers can be known into your
people. Kind of I'd like to have Patrick
and that they were well aware of the situation and they were well
aware that we couldn't do anything about it.
As I say I used to go over there every sort of six weeks a couple
of months and have a meeting and every single time I would
request you know technical information supplier parts fell
on deaf ears. Yeah, it was a great respect to
them. You know, they did it in a very
sort of friendly way, but it was closing the door on anything to
do with their cars. Was it sort of doubly
frustrating as well given the especially with how you started
that that 1994 season that it didn't to be a case of the
people there or already about, but just purely?
If you, you know, do you feel like if you'd had that funding
you you could have taken the fight to maybe Alpha or BMW in
the second-half for 94 as it was.
I think if if we'd have had the funding, there'd like to be
quite a lot of things different. I would, I believe I would have
had to take on some additional staff that were sort of
specialists in certain areas, whereas all our guys, and I'm
not knocking them, they all gave it 100% and they were fantastic.
But their knowledge was based on tarmac, rally cars, rally cars
and it was a big, big step up and they did a bloody good job,
don't get me wrong. But to take it that extra step
forward to get us in a competitive position?
Yeah, a budget twice as much as what I've got.
That's it. I mean the the, the, the talk
was that Alfa Romeo that year had a budget of £5,000,000, so.
How much is your budget, Nick? Three and six months I.
Bet he felt like it, didn't it? It funnily enough, I went to my
storage unit today and got some papers out because I thought I'd
got the details of the budgets on it, but it was only the
budgets from the rally side, not the race side.
So, and like I said, I'm old and I can't remember exactly how
much it was. Into 95 then Eugene left the
team and you you were joined by Simon Harrison in the second
four O 5 Patrick had a. Semi competitive season, couple
of podium finishes, finished 10th in the standings.
I suppose it's always going to be tricky for a new coming to
come into that sort of situation.
And Harrison struggled a tough year for him.
Yeah, I mean, Simon got the the drive again, I'm afraid, because
he he brought a lump of money with him.
Yeah. So yeah, he he struggled.
I mean, he'd done National Saloon Car Cup is it?
Did they call it National Saloon?
Yeah, National Saloon Car Cup. He drove in that and did it very
well. But touring cars, whether it was
the additional competitiveness or whether, you know, the car
didn't ever really suit his driving style, you know, for
getting getting to the finer bits and pieces to make it
perfect for him, I don't know. But no, as you say, Patrick had
a reasonable year. Patrick's got massive
determination and I don't think Simon had quite the same amount
of. I don't want that to sound like
I'm being negative to him, because I'm not.
No, it's just two, Two different people's ability, yeah.
Yeah, he was. He was obviously quite a decent
peddler because I I remember he came back into Class B much
later on when the when the series moved away from super
touring and I think he won the Class B title.
We certainly won races in a three O 6, so he obviously had
talent, but that's a really tough situation to be thrown
into I guess. Yeah.
I think the characteristics of the 306 suited him down to the
ground, the size of it, the characteristics of the handling
and everything. Whereas moving into the the
touring cars, it just didn't suit him in the same way.
He didn't really ever fully adapt to it in the way that,
well Patrick will get in anything and be extremely
determined. However, it handled sort of
thing. Coming into to 1996 then, and on
the face of it at the start of the year, it was kind of a new
era of feeling you had. You had Tim Harvey.
Former champion coming in replacing Simon Harrison.
You had new sponsorship with Butal and then the new Four O 6
model as well, but it wasn't. Wasn't the greatest year, pretty
tough year for the team? I mean, were there, were there
any major reasons for the struggles?
Was it? Was it just purely struggling
with a new car or? Was it the same scenario as what
you had with the floor of hardwood dealing with France but
just with the new model? God, it sounds like I'm a
winger. Doesn't it keep using the same
excuse? No, I mean we we started with
the the four O 6. Patrick and Tim were a great
pairing, both as determined as one another.
I got an extremely well with both of them and we were hoping
that we'd be able to make a major step forward.
But we did everything we could but but still we were just that
little bit behind everybody else, no specific reason.
We tried various things to to make a difference, but and we
did make differences, but of course everybody else were
making differences as well and you still have the same
situation with things like wind tunnels and that if you were
able to do anything aerodynamically.
With that season that and I, and I don't mean this in a in a
disrespectful way at all, but you, there were teams like
Williams, Formula One, there were TWR coming into the sport
and and and and really bringing on the level of touring cars to
to new heights. So it must have really been a
struggle for a team that was still running out of the
Coventry factory to go up against the likes of Williams
and and and these F1 teams. Yeah, it it was.
I can, I can always remember that going back to Alpha days,
going at Brands Hatch, seeing them get there, whatever you
call it, the flatbed flatbed out to set the car up, but the whole
thing was carbon fibre and I mean everybody else has got
aluminium ones, but no, theirs was carbon fibre.
So yes, coming on a few years later, these very serious teams,
yeah, their, their, their level of technology and potential
development was higher than ours and their budget was much
bigger. And I'm really sorry that I keep
blaming everything on the budget.
It's not just the budget, but it was a major contributing factor
and if anybody looks at it seriously and how how serious
that championship was, then they they have to accept that.
If you haven't got as much money by a long way, then it's going
to make a difference, you know. Absolutely.
You can't make miracles. Happen and did the bosses that
you were dealing with in terms of where you the money was
coming from, obviously the you know, the the board or the
directors, whoever your main people were at Peugeot UK, did
they understand that as a case of look?
This is this is the money we have.
We can't get any more. We understand that you could
probably do a better job if you had more money, but we can't
give you any more money. Was it as what?
Was it as straightforward as that?
Once a month I had to go to a meeting where the head of each
department was sat around the table with key board members and
that did each other a little bit talking about what's happened
and and obviously I had to say about where we were finishing,
we weren't finishing. The board on the marketing side
was still using the events for hospitality and taking groups
there sort of thing. But of course, even when they
took a group there which was good entertainment for them, we
still weren't getting the results that we ideally wanted.
And our best ally was Brian Llewellyn, who was, as I say, my
boss at the time. He was.
I can't remember his exact position, Public relations
director, because we came, our department came under public
relations rather than marketing, which it normally would.
But Brian was public relations director and he was a true
enthusiast and that helped us massively to continue running
the cars because he sat on the board level and he managed to
convince them that we should still be doing it.
But, but, but yeah, there was some frustration there.
But as I say, Brian was was a very good ally to us and he came
to every race and he was a good guy suddenly not with us
anymore, but but yeah, he helped us through those struggling
times should we say? There's there's an article that
Andrew Charman wrote for Super Touring Magazine following the
build of the four oh sixes. And at that point you were, you
were quoted as hoping that Peugeot, France would be
building or certainly be involved in the build of the
four or sixes for the UK. I'm guessing that that was just
another point blank, no? Then from from what we've heard,
they seemly didn't want to collaborate, collaborate with
you in any way. Absolutely.
And I mean it was in a much friendlier way than what it
sounds, but it was a closed door situation.
We got nothing off them, no finance, no technical
assistance, no opportunities to buy engines other than customer
and customer spec engines. We got nothing.
It was as simple as that. And then in sort of towards the
end of 96 the and into 97 there was the switch from running the,
the, the cars yourself from the factory.
To hand in the the running of the team to to of the cars to
MSD. What was the reason behind the
the the switch to to outsourcing to MSD?
I think David can't think of his name now.
David who was the sort of boss of MSD.
He obviously taught the good, talked and convinced us that
with their level of technology. Excuse me, although I don't
think from memory they've done hardly racing, but they've done
World Rally Championship and at World Rally Championship then
you've obviously got a higher level of technology involved so
that their technical know how was quite a little, a lot
better. It it was an opportunity to take
the whole lot out of house. We could still run rally cars in
house which of course we were second were second nature to us
and because there was so many question marks as to why aren't
we doing well, why aren't we doing well and every other team
bar none at that time was outsourcing their teams.
It was an opportunity for us to still compete and not have the
budget taken away from us completely.
So let's try this sort of thing and we obviously, well I
obviously trying to push the point that we you know this
should give us some better results if the board would
approve us and as I say because everybody else is outsourced, it
sounded like it was the way to go.
Coming into that 1997 season it it sort of initially felt like
that that switch did work. Sort of big upturn in form
before I said Harvey gets 2 podium places and and definitely
one of, you know, probably one of the best for Peugeot in that
area. In the wet at Fruxton, you know
probably one or two more that said he won.
That was that sort of a joyous day for the team, but but also
frustrating to have just missed out on that win.
Joyous for sure. I think I stood on the pit wall
and said to the guys, I said if we win this I'm going to break
down in tears because it had been hard work and we didn't
ever think, well we didn't ever achieve it, no.
I mean obviously it would have been fantastic to have another
couple of laps and but we were just extremely pleased as you
can imagine with the result and you know it was, which is the
whole team up. You can imagine how when you
struggle so much, when you actually get a result, it's just
fantastic. Yeah, I mean it was a that that
race was a wet and dry mix race weekend.
The the both the races that day were were mixed conditions.
I mean it does show, I suppose that that sort of sometimes that
experience that know how of maybe when to switch from the
from the dry to the wet. You can't buy that sometimes.
You know. No matter how much money you've
got to throw at something, you still need good people in the
team, in the team to perform something like that, You know,
Yeah, those sort of decisions are major decisions, yeah.
And somebody's got to stick their neck out sometimes because
somebody's going to say, well, put it on wets.
And we're all sort of looking at the sky and saying, what are you
talking about? It's just got somebody's got
other balls to do it. And making that decision worked
a couple of times for us. There was another one at
Snetterton. Naturally, they came in the pits
and went on to wets. I think we finished second on
that one. Yeah.
But as I say, you've got somebody who's going to say do
it, that decision. And from experience, I think
when you're not in the fastest car, always find it an easy
decision to make and you'll always see some of the
underdogs, whether it be motorcycle racing, touring cars,
whatever, or even Formula One even, you know, like hassle to
throw or gamble as opposed to the others or sort of go what
the years are doing. So at least they're all in the
same boat. But it's always an easy decision
to make and it always makes it an exciting one.
But every now and again it works.
Yeah, exactly. You've got and without taking
the risk you're never going to know why.
You could, you could, you could do the same as everybody else,
but finishing the position everyone's expecting to finish
in or take a gamble if it doesn't work, you're never going
to be punished for it. You can only be victorious if it
works your way, but just go on to the 97 season which was a
final year for Patrick with with your squad in BTCC.
Obviously you've already touched on the fact that what he brought
to the team and how good he was to have within the team, but was
it sad that it seemed to like there's a fallout towards the
end of his sort of season? You know his end of his days
with Persia? Yeah, Patrick got got a bit
upset with me over it. I mean he he said I ruined his
career but all I did was I didn't re sign his contract so I
didn't do anything at all to him and I get on fine with him now.
But at the time he was very upset but just not re.
His contract has run out so I didn't sack him.
I just decided to sign somebody in another direction.
And did the factory have any involvement or the board members
in in terms of driver signing or was that purely down to?
Obviously, you know we've, we've already spoken about people
bringing money to the team, which obviously is a massive
help when you're not one of the bigger teams with the bigger
budgets obviously that is needed and that you still, you know,
that's, you know, all forms of motorsport now, even in Formula
One, but. Did you did?
Was the sole decision yours or was it a discussion you'd have
with the board? Would you tell them who you're
going to have or was it a combination with my superior at
the time, but but ultimately it was my decision, yeah. 498
Patrick's replacement was Paul Radysich.
Obviously double world champion. Won the the the two World Cups.
At Donington and Monza, I mean, there's not many drivers that
that have that on this CV. What a what a driver to sign.
Yeah. And I think what helped, that
was his his current wife. I want to say current.
I'm sure it's. Yeah, it still is.
It still is, yes. His wife was actually the PR
girl that worked for me. Yeah, so, so there was lots of
discussions and talks with Patricia, you know, and she
could go home and talk to talk to Paul and it made it a very
nice family type thing for him to come and drive for us.
So I think that helped having Patricia working for us as well.
But, but again it it was a struggle.
We we didn't have massive success or anything like that.
It was just quite hard work all the way through.
But we did everything we could with the budget we got.
Paul got certainly a bit frustrated at times.
He tried with his engineer some some different things.
Sometimes they worked a little bit, sometimes they didn't.
But I mean, they they both did the best they could within the
limits of what the car was capable of.
Yeah. When we spoke to Paul at at
Brands Hatch for the Super Touring Power Festival in in
July, he said that he'd obviously he'd signed A2 year
deal with you guys and the hope was that there would be a there
would be a French car coming along for 1999.
How, how realistic was that ever to happen?
And was that just the same hope you'd have each year or was
there actually any any sort of little hints that this was
coming or was it like, yeah, I'm just hoping, you know, I think
it we'd given up on that. But then when we're signing
Paul, you know ex world champion, I tried to use that as
as a bit more of a. Bargain chip to suggest that you
know we're now in a completely different position.
We've got ex world champion driving for us, etcetera,
etcetera, but it was still closed doors in the end.
Yeah, because that's some discussion, but he didn't get
anywhere. That's that's one hell of a
driver lineup, isn't it? Where you've got double world
champion Radisich and in the other car, 92 champion Harvey.
You know that's you can't really do much better than that.
No, no. But but also from a budget point
of view make it must have been raised because obviously you got
like world champion and team, both champions in their own
right. Folks are from a budget point of
view that must have, you need, must have needed more driver
wages than you've ever needed throughout the whole time.
No question about that. So how?
Like how? How does that discussion like,
how does that go down? Yeah, I mean, the budget or the
biggest lump of budget that came from Peugeot didn't actually
come from the board as an allocated amount of money.
There was actually a levy, if that's what you want to call it,
on each brand new car. I genuinely can't remember how
much it was, but let's say for argument's sake it was £50.
I can't remember what it was. I seem to remember the figure of
137,000 cars were sold in one particular year.
So every dealer was told there was going to be this levy on
every car that came in. And the excuse was that
obviously this is going to enable you to get extra, extra
sales because the exposure we was going to get in the race in
and on television and things like that.
So you get 137,000 * 50 LB or whatever it was and all of a
sudden you've got a big lump of budget there.
So Peugeot themselves, certainly for the first few years didn't
actually put a penny in. They did into the rally, into
the rally budget. But they we ran on this, this
levy money. I mean, don't get me wrong, they
did start throwing money at it eventually because it was just
getting so expensive. It was the only way we could
survive, but certainly for the 1st and again I can't, I
genuinely can't remember the first two or three years anyway.
The only money came from the levy on the cars and when there
was discussions at board level about the money that was sort of
spent, they was always saying we put in, I don't know, let's say
£1,000,000 but don't take that as fact.
We've earned 1,000,000 lbs. They didn't put in a million
pounds, it was the dealers that put the money in.
But of course, because it just happened every year, it just got
taken for granted and board level it was case of Peugeot put
this number of money in, but they didn't.
It didn't affect them at all really.
Genius idea really when you think about it like it was the
IT was the benefit of the dealers as well as the the brand
because obviously the dealers were earning money out of
selling cars. So it was a genius idea.
Do you think all manufacturers had that same philosophy, like
sort of business model? Don't know for sure, but I think
some of them did. I mean, it was a sensible thing
to do, wasn't it? It was an easy option.
You know, yeah, completely dealer and honestly I can't
remember how much it was, but if you turn around with a dealer or
something, they put an extra £50 on each car.
I want it, Sir, I don't know what it was then 1518 grand car
extra 50 quids, neither in nor there.
So they just, yeah, OK, we'll deal with that.
With 1998 as well, obviously you mentioned it was a year of
struggle. Initially sort of there were
some strong results. Paul got a four foot at
Silverstone, but sort of lots of engine issues that year as well,
the recurrence of the first year 92 and that's what what what was
sort of the nature of the issues and and how did that sort of
affect morale and and so on. Yeah, I mean, I've got to be
honest, I can't even remember where we were getting our
engines done at that time because in the early years we
did them all of in house. And then Richard Longman used to
do some engines for him. Do you know Richard?
Richard Longman specialized in minis and things like that.
And he did a lot in the very early days.
We did a piece with Paul Rizbridger and well, Paul
wouldn't know the MSD side of it.
Yeah, he said. MSD were forced to carry out
multiple engine changes throughout.
There was 5 engine swaps at Croft.
And Mount Tune took over. That's right.
Mount Tune. Yeah, yeah.
There were five engine swaps at Croft and then after Croft the
decision was taken for Mount Tune to take over.
I find it difficult to believe we'd had five engines.
For two cars, A bit like what I was saying with Ruxin.
Yeah, yeah. Run out of engines.
I could potentially believe that spare engine for each car, but
anyway, that's what he says. I'm sure Paul remembers it.
He's younger than me, so he'll remember better.
I mean, I hate to mention it again, but meanwhile whilst all
this is happening, you know, lots of engines blowing up, not
really many positions, but Aiello's winning the STW in
Germany. I'll.
Tell you what, Mickey's got it in for you.
But it was it was no great surprise that towards the end of
98 it would, it was realized that Peugeot were looking to
pull out of the Championship. I mean, were you surprised?
And how early did you know that this was on the cards?
I wasn't surprised, no. I mean, it was inevitable, but
how early on, I can't remember to be honest.
It it's a bit like when they actually closed the department
eventually they told me in I think in early November, but
told me I couldn't tell anybody they was going to close the
department at Christmas. So I had to supposedly not say
anything to all the people that were coming to me with their
budgets, their own departments. I had to say, yeah, yeah, that
sounds great, knowing full well. So I wasn't happy the last the
last six months. Difficult position for you to be
in, Yeah, Yeah. And a couple of the people I was
close with, two or three of them, you know, did get other
jobs only because I actually ticked them off sort of thing.
Yeah, yeah, it it's it, it was sort of inevitable when you know
it was, it was mentioned towards the end of the era that Ford
spent over 12 million on their their their, their Mondeo budget
for for 99 and 2000. Paying the drivers of the you
know their their driver budget was over 1,000,000 lbs.
So it was inevitable that the, the, the teams that were not
winning were soon going to get spent bored or spending a lot of
money to not win anything. Yeah, I can remember sitting on
the on the committee of the British Tory Guy championship.
You know, there was a sort of committee, I can't know what
they called it. And I can remember when they had
the discussions about everybody having to use the same this, the
same that same Gearboxes, same front uprights or whatever.
It was with the the in being that you could run a car for
£1,000,000, full championship for £1,000,000 and all these
things happen to be the same like gearboxes.
As I say brakes, everybody have the same brakes and it it was
the way they controlled the budget.
Well, we ran that year. At the end of that year I went
out to get quotes on running the team if he was going to put it
out, and at the end of that one year where they wanted it to
happen for £1,000,000 but he quoted me £3.9 million.
Right. And that was a bare minimum,
yeah, that was the the amount. And yet TOCA had said the, you
know, 12 months before and you've got to be able to run a
car for £1,000,000. You should have asked them to
run 2 cars. What are you then?
You'd like to show me a man that can ready for that.
So yeah, so difficult in a lot of ways.
And and when when super touring ended and as I say Ford had
spent silly money on on the on winning the 2000 title the BTC
touring cars came into play and and you actually came back into
the championship with the with the four O 6 coupe run with with
Victoria Lee. I mean, fond, fond memories of
that time it was Again, it's. It was.
It was not, not the not the most successful period, but good
memory. I I knew Victoria well.
He he was again another character to say the least, but
I knew Victoria well and got on really well with him.
Victoria was extremely determined and got got some
clever, clever thoughts sort of thing.
The car was a very heavy car. I mean, I got it down to the the
white, but the white limit sort of thing, yeah, but it.
Was a big old car, the coupe, wasn't it?
Yeah, it didn't ever achieve any results ever from what I can
recall, but not even as good as the as the Four O 6 Saloon.
Really. No, made him want to choose
that. The coupe why that model?
Was there any logic behind that or no, just visual.
I think something that stood out from the crowd, something
different to everybody else. I think it was a simple.
When you was running the team and obviously you know we're
here now, you know forward budget was 12 million at the
time. When you were running your team
or for Peugeot, did you get other team managers telling you
what their budgets were or did you hear roughly what they were
spending in comparison to you? Was that a bit of a thing?
Was it or something that comes out afterwards?
No, the individual teams didn't tell me.
But you saw here it third hand, you know, as I told somebody, I
was in confidence and then it sort of drifts back to you, but
not many earlier, earlier couple sort of thing.
Yeah, Ian Flux told us that he was.
Maybe he was reminded of a time. I think he said he was at Monza
and he he bumped into Renault's Tim Jackson again.
Sadly, another person not with us anymore.
And he he asked him what the budget was for running the the
Silka Lean car in 93 and he said, oh, it's about 400 grand,
give or take for the whole season.
And Tim Jackson said, well, you know, you did bloody well there
then because our budget was 4 million for those two Renault
Nineteens. So, you know, there's just a
prime example of the differences there laid bare, you know, oh.
Yeah, and I mean, when they have a massive amount more, it's not
all necessarily spent on the car.
There's obviously a lot of PR comes into it as well, but there
is a huge amount spent on the car.
Basically what we what it boils down to to help Peugeot turn
into a winner at the in that era was basically more budget and a
bit more support from Peugeot France.
Bit more support or just any support?
Some support, from what I was going to say, it's it's support.
Even a phone call would be nice would.
Would would have made a huge difference, huge difference.
Just out of interest, do you think there was a point where
obviously if you'd have the support from the start it would
have been a completely different story.
But do you think there was a point where sort of you got to a
point where even if you had report on the funding, it
couldn't have changed overnight or do you think that powers
always? There for Peugeot, Peugeot,
France. If they wanted to make it a
winning operation, they could have even sort of like 9798.
I mean the idea would have been for them to supply us a complete
car and supply an engineer with it for us to run it and learn
the characteristics of the car. That would have been the ideal
situation, but it needed to be a work spec car.
You know, they probably would have sold us a customer spec
car, but that would be completely pointless.
But I mean, for sure that would have made a big difference.
I'm confident in that. They've got a winning car, yes.
The characteristics of the engine was a bit different to
ours, but they've got a massive variation of race tracks.
Some of them were faster than ours sort of thing, but our guys
could have adapted to that for sure.
Once once they were confident in their own minds that what
they've got under their right foot, you know, in the car they
were sitting. I mean, that would have given
them a huge boost, knowing full well the car was a winning car
in other parts. Of the world plus me, I'm
guessing you that your engine guys or?
Depending if France would have done them for you, you tune that
into the car. Anyway, like you said their
their power maximum power was coming at a certain Rev range or
at a certain point because suited to the tracks then surely
that would would have just been tuned to a you know, for the
suitability of the British tracks as well anyway, wouldn't
it? Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. It we could have done something
with it, that's for sure. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Frustration beyond belief, but.
You know, after two or three years trying to do it, you just
have to accept it and you just have to live with it.
Well, Peugeot and the lack of success compared to the other
manufacturers during the era is possibly one of the most asked
questions as to why throughout the era.
So I'm glad that you've been able to come and fill in some of
the gaps for us for us today, Mick, because lots of people
really, really want to. I mean, especially that four O 6
in the Ultron livery. It's one of we did a we did a
survey before about people's favorite super tours and the
four O 6 in that livery is a top of a lot of people's lists of
best looking super Torah. Yeah, it it's, you know, it
sounds like I'm making excuses all the time, but they're
genuine reasons why we're not competitive enough.
To go against all the big teams, no, it makes sense and it's it's
similar problems. I think the Vauxhall suffered
with the Vectra because the Vectra was successful in Europe
but again wasn't really successful in Britain and I
think they they had similar sort of problems with that.
Yeah, AAA had a pretty big budget though, to to do this.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
That's very true. And.
I think because the Peugeot looks so good in that green and
gold colour scheme. It's even more frustrating
because he looked fast and he looked like he was a winner, you
know? I think that's why I think was
honestly. Yeah, even now, like you look at
you think what a bloody cracking looking car that was and the
colour scheme was brilliant. Yeah, better than most.
Yeah, and we I sold those to a guy in Australia and as you
probably know Patrick went down there and drove the cars for him
in some of the races and he was winning races down there.
But I think down there they tend to concentrate on the big V
eights rather than. Super Tourists, Yes, Yeah, yeah,
yeah. They I think they've looked upon
as a poor relation. Aren't they the Super tourists
compared to the V eights? Yeah, the the year because I
also arranged 2 cars to go down there and we did Bathurst and
then we on another occasion we did the Poker Curry 500 and the
Wellington 500 and it was Patrick and Paul Relish who did
that. Yeah, you had more backing than
Peugeot in in ounces the other side of the planet than you did
from just across the water in all my seasons that you had over
here. Peugeot New Zealand Finance One.
And I forget where we've got the finance for Bathurst.
Yeah those those two years at Bathurst were were obviously
there was the TV fallout with the V eights and that's why Alan
Gow organised for the the Super tourists to come and take part.
Quite an experience to be at Bathurst Racing A4, A 406 there.
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, Bathurst is incredible.
The track's incredible, and yet the funniest.
The thing I remember about it most was the mechanics were all
stopping in her house, just off the track somewhere.
I was in a hotel, obviously, but they was in this house.
And I think it was Richard Jones who said to me, you wake him in
the morning, he said. You look around the room, he
said. And almost every morning there's
a spider. And these are huge spiders, he
said. But you have to move really
slowly, he says. Because they jump, he said.
They can jump about 6 foot. I forget what they call them
now. Apparently Australia's famous
for them, but I always remember the stories about the guys
getting up in the morning and having these massive jumping
spiders everywhere. Big as your hand.
Almost sort of thing. The four O 6.
The Four O 6 is quite competitive at Brad Bathurst as
well. Yeah, no, it did well.
I mean, it broke in the end. I can't remember what, what it
was, whether it was a drive shaft or something like that, I
can't remember. And I can't remember how many
hours in it was. But if I was guest and I'd say
it was about two about 1/3 of the way through.
But I must admit I can't remember really
well Mick and I just want to thank you today for sharing your
stories from Super Touring, about your time with Peugeot in
the British Touring Car Championship.
Thanks for sharing all your stories.
You're behind the scenes knowledge and the whole politics
of the Peugeot outfit during the 90s, so thank you.
Brilliant, Mick. Great insight, great insight and
I think a lot of answers that a lot of us and a lot of us fans
from the Supernaturian of. And that answered by you, to be
honest, because even you know to those days it's been you know.
You're very welcome. Out out of all the drivers that
you've had throughout the seasons that you did with
Peugeot, who was the easiest to get on with?
Who was the most difficult to get on with and who was the and
who was the fastest? The fastest I have to put two of
them together. It'd be Tim and Patrick.
The only thing is Patrick's car always needed.
More maintenance on the gearbox and Tinsley, but I'll put them
to equal both. Equal amounts of determination.
The most difficult to get on with.
I'm not sure any of them were awkward.
Eugene was a difficult one, but but in a different way.
You know, just sometimes he was on a different wavelength to us.
But if somebody was, if somebody's going to get Stroppy,
Patrick would be the first one to get Stroppy.
But usually for good reason. In his own mind, anyway.
Tim was probably the easiest. Paul Radisish just kept himself
to himself. He was very easy going.
Paul was just really laid back. You know, get this done, get
that done. But but yeah, that's about as
much as I'm prepared to say now. Thanks again to Mick Linford for
joining us today on this week's episode of Stories From Super
Touring. If you enjoyed today's episode,
don't forget to give us a five star rating on the podcast app
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feed immediately. Every Monday an episode is
released. If you've got a comment or a
suggestion for a future show, feel free to send us an e-mail
at Pod at 1990s btcc.com. Until then, we'll see you next
week, where we're joined again by Andrew Charman as we look
back at the last ever BTCC race held in Wales, taking a look
back to Pembrey 1993, the debut of the Ford Mondeo in the
British Touring Car Championship.
Until then, we'll see you next week.
Goodbye.