Stories from Super Touring. Hello and welcome to Series 4 of
Stories From Super Touring. That's right, we're back for
another series where we look back at the Super Touring era of
touring car racing. Now as usual, joining me Al
Clark are my two Co hosts from stories from super Touring, Adam
Jones and Levi Riley. Guys, how are we both?
Are we ready for another series of the show?
Yeah, really good. Super excited to be back.
I can't wait to get these recordings underway.
I know we've got some some really exciting names lined up
and yeah, I can not wait. Yes, you're right.
I mean, Levi, we're starting off with a bang, aren't we?
This week's guest. He's a real Corker, isn't he?
It's a, it's a. Very exciting.
It's not someone that speaks to media or or anyone publicly
about his. His career much Rich is very
exciting that he's gifted us some of his time and Series 4 is
this. It's mental that we're here
already. But I mean, I know we say every
series, but I do think this is maybe the biggest series we've
done yet as well. I think we can.
I think one thing we can promise to the listeners is this will be
the best series yet. So let's start as we mean to
continue, shall we? Now today's guest is someone
that we've been trying to get on the show for the past three
series of stories from Super Touring.
So it gives me great pleasure to introduce him on today's show.
Welcome to Stories From Super Touring.
James Thompson. James, how are you?
Yeah, Good. Good, man.
Thank you. Yeah, very good.
We'll start at the start with you, then at the beginning you
you grew up in a motorsport background, your dad was a rally
driver, so I'm assuming that the Motorbug Motorsport bug bit you
quite early on. I think like anybody who who has
a sort of a motorsport father or you know, anybody or or mother
who's involved in, I mean let's face it, rallying was so
prolific back in the day. The 70s might be obviously my
generation where people, you know, having kids, you know,
rallying was was the sport to be involved in.
You know, and especially, you know, I was a farmer's son.
So of course, you know the Yorkshire, Yorkshire mafia,
they're all, they're all farmers.
They all had, they all had a mark to escort or a Vauxhall
Chevette or something. Rallying was in its heyday back
then wasn't it? Let's face it was it was
incredible when when you when you could have a car that was
almost as good as the works cars and you could run it from your
own garage, you know, you didn't have a raced or a rally team or
anything. And so the passion of
motorsport, it was incredible. And you know growing up on the
farm, my dad, you know, I can't actually remember learning to
drive, you know, I just know I know I can drive because my dad
built me a little electric car when I was, I mean barely out of
nappies. So I was just driving, banging
into stuff in the in the front room when you know, when I was,
you know, I could barely sort of toddle about.
So it's just one of those things I think if you've got family
passion, whether it be tennis or golf or whatever, they put you
into it, you know and and you know, so that was it.
Maybe it was just a family passion that got me, that got me
into it. In fact, it's very similar to
me, I think, because my my dad was a Co driver, my own course
was the driver and I was also in the motor trade and so I was
brought up around it. I was born into it, but I had
the Mark One escorts. Mark Two escorts eventually went
to Sierra Cosworth, and they always said that the Mark One
and Mark Two escorts were always better cars than the Sierra
Cosworth ever was. I think it was just amazing.
I mean back then, I mean I think that was like it wasn't a golden
era you know we always said about the touring cars and all
that sort of stuff. But you needed you needed big
teams to run it. You know whereas rallying back
in the day in that sort of 70s and and 80s people could run a
mark to escort. You know they're buying parts
from my uncle Yuck speed and and all all the all the people in in
our sort of northern sort of group.
And I'm sure there's you know people from Cumbria and you know
up north, further up north. But you could run it from your
garage and that made that made it easy.
You know, you could go on a world champion event and and
have a car that was almost as good as Hanu Nikola's or that
made it fascinating because all of a sudden you get, you know, a
guy from Barton Hill who was competing on the the RAC rally
which used to start in Harrogate back in the day, you know, and
finishing in the top 20, you know and and against all these
the works teams, you know, that doesn't happen these days.
You know, because everything is so there's so much money
involved in at this. You know you need so many people
to run the cars. You know, I I I love that sort
of generation. It was mega, a lot of them.
My dad used to turn up with a couple of guys from work and
stuff. There's you know on the front
Thursday finished and just throw it on the back of the trailer on
the back of the range driver and they'll just go off and do these
these forest rallies, the Isle of Man, you know the door of
these rallies and it was amazing.
I went to some of them also. I was very young so I can't
remember a lot of it, but so how involved were you James it with
that? It like do you remember was you,
was you really involved in it, got going there with them or was
you literally? I used to see a lot of the
wrecks that my dad used to bring back up.
Yeah, there's there's quite a few, quite a few of them under
Qatar Paulins in our driveway at some point.
Yeah, yeah, my dad was, my dad was a very, very, very good
driver. But he had a if he was going to
have an accident, he was having a big accident.
And and rallying was like that, wasn't it?
They always tend to be like not a Silverstone when you got loads
of run off. These were like failed trees.
You know, and he and he always, he always aired on the
eccentric. He was always trying to drive
something that nobody else was going to drive.
And I guess, well, I get that little bit of character of
myself, but I was involved. I guess I maybe missed a little
bit because you know, the whole thing for me with the rally and
what I used to love was there was always like a Bedford CF2
van with the tyre rack on the top, you know, and there's.
And at the time, you know, the rally was amazing because, you
know, not necessarily amazing for Rd. safety.
But in terms of if you had to get from service A to service B
and you only had a certain amount of time and you had to be
there. So you had to drive like the
clappers with all the stuff, with the fuel, the spare tire.
Without getting stopped by the police because the police were
waiting for most of them. It still happens now.
And that was the whole thing. It was almost like, I guess a
little bit like a Paradaca, Paradaca style thing where you
had to be there at that certain point in time otherwise you
missed the the service. You know, it's all, it's all
much more sedate now. Every stage in one place, the
cars arrived service and off they go.
But it was more like a it was a full team event.
So I was involved with that, but you know, I was mainly lots of
like, tea boy and Irish coffee boy.
You did start out doing some rallying yourselves, so it might
have surprised a few to see you start in Formula Vauxhall in
1992. Racing on a track for the first
time was sort of did you want to continue running or did you
always sort of see yourself moving into circuit racing?
Never, never ever. I always grown up.
I always wanted to be World Rally Champion.
Always the only thing I used to watch all the rallying all the
time. I was literally just that's all
I wanted to do like circuit racing.
I was like circuit racing really what we can go in forests, we
can go through trees, we can you know.
But you know, unfortunately the change in dynamic of motor sport
in that sort of period between late 80s men that basically, you
know, professional rally drivers almost died out, didn't they, in
that sort of period of time and touring cars at the time was
taken off. And so my dad you know, said to
me at the time, he said well listen, I know, listen lad, I
know you want to be a rally driver but there's no, there's
no brass in it. There's no brass.
So why don't you, why don't you give, give the circuits a go.
So I was like, oh, I'm not really sure about this, but
anyway, but you know, guided by my dad, you sort of you give,
you know you give it a go. So, but it was a massive change.
I never looked at racing at all, you know, like all the way up
until like I was sort of 16, you know, 17, you know, I'd never
been thought about karting. I did a few Kart events, but
nothing. It was only like as a bit of a
crash course. Well, sorry, crash course, crash
course. To try to get me into, like, you
know, actual racing. I had no idea how to race.
I mean, you didn't. You didn't do too badly
considering it was your first year in a in a track car, You
won the second time out at Orton Park and then won again at
Brands Hatch, so it's not a bad debut season.
Yeah, I don't know. I was.
I couldn't coming from driving, especially growing up, driving
back to Escort and I I always felt like I always felt safe
when I was sideways. It's, it sounds silly, but you
know when you're when you're driving the car, it's sideways
and it just comes naturally to you and you're scrubbing off
speed. It's quite a safe.
So first time on the race tracks driving and not not actually
letting the car slide, I found it quite disconcerting.
So my my first of the team manager is like, well why, why
why are you always sideways? I'm like, well, because it feels
safe to me. It goes well, looks bloody
dangerous to everybody else. That's why I didn't get
overtaken much. It was too.
It was too afraid. So this man's out of control.
What's? Going on make it look really
dangerous. People just back off a little
bit. For this series of stories from
Super Touring, we are delighted to be teaming up with Brands
Hatch to give away 2 tickets to Super Touring Power 2, which is
being held at the famous circuit on the 29th and 30th of June
2024. The award nominated event was a
smash hit last year when it's debut edition transported fans
back to the 90s and this year's event will once again celebrate
one of touring car racing's most fondly remembered eras.
To enter the competition, just answer the following question.
Who was the first ever guest to star on Stories from Super
Touring? Send your answers to Pod at
1990s btcc.com and we'll announce the winner on a later
episode this series. Meanwhile, let's get back to the
episode. So after that season then mean
single seizures, you moved on to the National Saloon Car Cup
racing Honda Civic. How did that then come about
then going from the one to the other and that was the Honda
Champion of tomorrow's scholarship.
Is that what it was at the time? Yeah well it was.
That was down to the fact that basically being honest when the
circuit racing, when you look at it and you you look at all the
steps and the ladders and you know how how much you've got to
fund to get to any point where you can start earning a living
is is just ridiculous. And you know we we've, like I
say we were farmers and my dad like you looked at it looked at
it initially from rallying perspective where you just buy
the car and you go rally. But circuit racing is so
different. You know you've got you you
start in Vauxhall Junior then it was it was Vauxhall Lotus and it
was Formula Three and then it was you know Formula 3000 was
it. So there's so many there were so
many layers to it and everywhere more and more expensive.
So we we did that first year that the formula Vauxhall
Junior, which was you know which was great Vauxhall did a great,
a great job with it. But then it was like well this
is not sustainable you know we can't do that and luckily and
and I will say Honda back in the day was amazing because I don't
think I don't know of any other scholarship that's been there to
run six cars in one of the top saloon car championships in the
country. You know six young up and coming
drivers with a view to give it to you and bear in mind we're
talking about it. It costs two and a half 1000 lbs
for the season. So if you were selected that is
what you paid to to compete in the second best saloon car
championship in the country for a full year with a with a
really, really good team. I mean you you you snapped your
hand off for that, wouldn't you? It's unheard of.
Isn't it completely unheard? Of I mean it.
So it was amazing. So to be fair you know caps off
to to to Honda and they they did something that's for those there
was two years of it and it was absolutely fantastic and they
they created a lot of careers you know and you know it's never
been done since I don't think in British moats but.
No, I can't think of a programme quite like that since, no.
And were you, were you more comfortable back in a a closed
closed wheel car roof over your head again?
Was that a bit helpful and sort of adapting to that, that
circuit racing experience? Yeah, because I was pretty
claustrophobic when it came out. It's really strange, isn't it?
You know you're used to putting on windscreen wipers and stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, you're seeing a single
single. I'm thinking, shit, I can see
the front wheels, you know, usually see anything you know.
So you know it's it's just a really funny it's a funny
situation like single six is is very strange from somebody who's
grown up, always been surrounded with a roof and windows and you
know look, you know, looking out the side windows, you know, that
was that sort of thing. It's like, you know as valley
boys like, oh look, I was looking out the side window and
that's where that's where you look too.
You weren't bothered about it missing up a bit in the front
one. It was like the side window.
You feel very you know, I, I, I doffed my capsule.
You feel very vulnerable. Yeah, master me for me.
You're sitting there, you know, and literally everything sort of
taped around you just sort of your arms are in, you know,
you've got the steering wheel. You can see the wheels.
It's very, it's very, it's very exposed.
Yeah. As you say, you don't know any
better, do you? So you just, but yeah.
It is what it is, yeah. It's as good as it gets.
But instinctively, when you do sit in the car and you feel
slightly uncomfortable before before you're even up to speed,
then you know it's probably not the right thing to be doing.
You want you win your class outright, the championship that
year, so you won it overall. Were you at that point already
looking at the BTC? So is a serious option moving
forward or is it still a little bit further away than or was it
or was you actually was it in your, is it in your mind at that
point thinking right, this is it now?
I don't know it was a difficult one because like the
championship was was really well, I mean that's it was
called the the Break in the Mould National Salute Car
Championship And to be honest there was a lot of really good
old boys, as in I don't mean old as in you know, ancient guys,
but as in really good old professional drivers who were
well funded. They brought, they had the
Escort Cosworths and all the fancy stuff and we had like 6.
We had six categories, whatever. There's like 30 or 3035 cars on
the grid. It was really, really a very
good championship and I right, enjoyed it, right, Enjoyed it.
And there was something really nice about finishing the top six
with like 1600 specific B.Tech, like.
And you've got these, you've got the historic Cosmos going, pass
you down the straight like the cat on the hot tin roof.
And then all of a sudden you, you get past them at the corners
and look, I guess it's probably a little bit like some of the
historic races where you see the minis.
The Mini against the Mustangs and the big forwards, yeah.
A good one and it and it was a bit like that.
So it was, it was it for me, it was really fun.
And I guess it was just the cars were great to drive.
They were so funny. You could extract everything out
of them and they gave us an ability to to compete well above
our, you know, what we should have done, you know, time to
your question. I don't think I'd ever thought
about, you know, jumping straight into touring cars after
that. But ultimately when you've won
that championship, then the only thing you can do after that is
do the touring car. You know, you have to at some
point you've just got, you've just got to go for it.
I mean people always, always ask me about, you have to say, Oh
well, yeah, my son's doing this and this and the other and you
know, how many years should have given this.
I said just straighten the deep end.
You know, don't, don't mess about, you know, if you, if you
can be involved in touring cars as young as possible, do it.
You know, I think it's changed over the years now because
obviously you can buy your way in, etcetera, but that doesn't
mean that you're any less of a driver.
But it just meant for me, I would always say just get
involved in the highest level you possibly can, as long as you
you can have a couple of years, right?
Just to find your feet, whatever.
Don't put your foot around on doing this championship outside
of it or just get straight involved with it.
Sooner you'll be up to speed, won't you?
Exactly. And you'll And then you start to
learn at that level. You know, you don't have to
second guess. If you do a couple of years at a
lower level, then you go, Oh no, straight in, just get involved
with it and if you're good enough you'll you'll you'll rise
and stop straight away. You then did make the move to
the the BTCC after that in a as an independent with an XC and
Flux Peugeot. Was that tough to get the deal
together on that one? It was an older Peugeot, wasn't
it, from Mick Linford, and so was that a tough one to get
together? Yeah, well, we ran it from our
garage, so we had an old horse box.
And yeah, it was, it was wing and a prayer, basically.
I mean, it was basically Mick, Mick to bless him.
You know, he gave us everything he possibly could with regards
to the car. But I mean, you know, the
Peugeot wasn't competitive like it was 2 years old.
It wasn't even competitive when it was new.
So I mean, what could you expect to get out of it?
But Mick, to be fair, was always a big fan.
He was with with my dad with rally and they were good mates
and as I say rally and mafia, they will stick together
ultimately. They've been through a lot, you
know, and I was very lucky with that and.
Alicia. Alicia had the trust with Mick
there then. If your dad knew him from old.
Anyway, through the rally, Alicia had that trust with him
till you knew what he was telling you, what you were
getting. He was there it.
Wouldn't it wouldn't happen without Mick, you know?
And so that was really nice, yeah.
But then once you got the car, you got to fuck out.
You got to try and do something with it, I'm sure make it be the
first to say that you know it wasn't the best car.
Yeah, we we, we had him on last series and he explained quite
nicely just why the whole Peugeot situation was just such
a sorry mess for him. It it didn't sound great, but I
mean, you say about making an impact, I mean you made pretty
much an immediate impact at the final TOCA test that year
because it was a wet session and you put the car forth.
Overall, I think there's only tar Queenie Rose and Radisich
were ahead of you. I mean, that's not a bad start
and not a bad introduction to the paddock, is it?
But perhaps the biggest impression was made by James
Thompson. Though lap two drama curtailed
his race, an engine blow up was a sad end to a great debut for
the 19 year old newcomer. Who was a Suprem for fastest in
wet testing? Well, I've never seen so many
people around the back of our horse box.
I'll tell you what, Betty takes bets on the Grand National.
There we go. It was.
It was really quite funny. And I saw the timesheets.
I'm like, oh, what the 4th? I'm thinking it's pretty easy.
I'm hoping for a wet weekend. I'll tell you what, if it had
been a wet weekend, it would have been really interesting,
because that was that was easy. I'd never.
I'd only ever been to Thruxton Warms.
I'd never driven the car before, so that was the first time.
That was the first time in the car.
Up against. That it was so nice because one
of the guys from Michelin came down and just came to look at
the whole situation and couldn't believe it.
I didn't know. I couldn't believe it.
And it was just and he just took me to one side and he just said
wherever you want, please. And it was almost like saying
OK, and it was amazing because obviously tires back in the day
and I'm sure it's something we'll talk about going on again
forward. But when there was that
incredible tire battle with Dunlop and Pokohama and Slan and
everything and it just came from out, I said OK, don't worry,
whatever you want. And it was almost like, right,
And I will look after you and it was So what that me was an
incredible relationship and I genuinely believe that I got all
year as good attires as anybody else with because I think they
literally took them, took me under their wing a little bit
and they really could see, you know the potential.
And you know what for a time and you know what it's like.
You're only as good as what you know.
The four points of contact were on the tarmac, you know.
So if you don't have good tyres you've got to be nowhere.
Well, bearing in mind as well as like as a as a private tier, as
private tier, and I mean like a real private tier.
The top tyres, I mean bearing in mind you had, we're talking
about carbon fibre construction as I say.
So you could just imagine, you know, a Thruxton weekend or
something like that, the amount of tyres you would go through, I
mean there's no ways of priority, you could even think
about it. So I think luckily for me I won
a little bit of, you know, favour with the guys from
Michelin back then and they looked after me really well,
which was nice. Despite racing against some of
the quick drivers in much more competitive equipment, we can
certainly say that with the horsebox, but you were rarely
out of the top three in class that season, so taking two
independent wins to believe so You must have been absolutely
thrilled with your debut year there, considering you know what
you turned up with true privateer.
Yeah, I think the win at the British Grand Prix was my was my
favorite and bearing in mind like there's not many people
went home after the Grand Prix when to watch the touring cart.
So yes, yeah. So if you had 100,000 people on
this on to watch the Grand Prix probably 60,000 stayed to watch
the yeah, the touring cart race actually, you know so that was
fantastic. So you imagine as a young guy,
like 19 years old, you know, to be on the podium and the only
autograph I've ever asked for was Gabrielli Tacoinis when he
won the race and I was the winner of the independence.
And so for the state, it's the only autograph.
And, you know, so that was a love.
That was a lovely thing, you know?
Yeah. That's cool.
Such an incredible feeling. Quite want to do it.
I mean just British Grand Prix, full stops of like he said.
To be on the podium, same podium as the the F1 drivers.
The crowd's still there. Yeah, something, you know, it's
something just, it's such a tracking, I guess when you've
not achieved anything, those those sorts of things, you start
just ticking boxes where you're just like oh wow, just amazing.
And the whole thing, the whole sense of occasion that that that
you know and competing and being around all the people that
you've looked at over the years. So it just made it makes you
feel very fulfilled. Yeah, and you were then sharing
a podium with them, some of those guys that you looked up to
and saw how good they were. And then also you stood next to
them spraying champagne and getting autographs.
It's just. I think I got Carver where I
was. Think Gabrielle in champagne, I
think I was. Going into 1995 now, then you
made the move to Vauxhall to partner John Cleland, which is a
moveful get a bit more 2IN a year.
We'll get a bit more in two in a minute, but you very nearly
ended up in a four of them, right, Didn't you?
Good researching, actually. Well, funnily enough, and this
is the the irony of it, I did a test at Orton Park and me and
Paul Radcic used to get on really well.
And I think Paul oh don't don't mean like, but he he always used
to talk to me and I I looked at Paul because he was the only
left foot breaker in the championship at the time and I
was I I arrived as a left foot breaker and everybody went, no,
you never thought that'll never work, you can't do that this and
the other blah, blah, blah. And I was like, no, I'm going to
stick with my process. This is what I do.
You know I was, I was quite adamant about it, even though I
was young. I was like they'd tell me not to
do it, but I would just, I'd just do it anyway, you know.
And a lot of the time, a lot of the time they couldn't see on
the data too much. So I used to get away with it
but there were there was a very anti left foot breaking movement
but Paul Randstick was the only one who used to left foot break
And so I and I identified with him And so Paul got me to have a
test with the Ford and I tested with him.
We got on really well. I was, I would like to say I was
reasonably quick and basically went home.
Next day, Andy Rouse rings me, said, right, OK, you're in for
next year. I was like, my God, I was like
jumping around. I was, you know, I was like kids
Here's just his first, like, conquered toy, you know, at
Christmas it was on me. I was like, Oh my God, you know,
And you know, it wasn't a lot of money, But you know what?
It wasn't about the money. It was about career and future.
I've just been involved at the highest level and it was just
amazing. So that was the Friday.
Monday I got a call from Andy Rouse.
Sorry, James, we're going to hear some news today.
I'm really sorry we signed Kelvin Burt.
I was like, what? He's not even driven the car.
Yeah, but. But, you know, I didn't say
that. But I'm like, I was like, oh,
OK, so you go from elation to ejection.
And I was really, I was really lucky because Vauxhall reached
out to me and they went OK, right.
So we heard you did the Ford thing, so that come and come and
test last minute, come and test for us at Pembury.
So I went to Pembury, had the worst pasta I've ever had in my
life on the Italian who's been there, never lived in Italy and
but I love the guy But I went there, was said to stay there
for about 3 days. I was waiting around, waiting
around, waiting around. Got my opportunity to do do a
test with them. I drove absolutely atrociously
because we had it was like a bit of a shootout because obviously
Vauxhall had quite a bit of a Chris Goodwin.
We had a lot of other people coming through and so they had a
bit of a stepping stone and they put them in the in the
privateers with their cars and every.
So they were sort of ready just to step in.
It was JC and Jeff Allen at the time and and obviously Jeff was
was was was a great guy and very successful.
But I think that was they were looking at maybe a younger guy
to go on and I'm sure Jeff won't mind me saying that, but that's
what they were sort of looking at.
And so Chris Goodwin was like the shoo in for that and I sort
of went there and said to me, right, OK, so go out, go out and
do a few laps and set the car up and then go for a qualifying 1.
So I did set the car up as what I thought and then went for a
qualifying run by what I didn't realise is because as a
privateer we'd be used to only ever buying like 2-2 tyres.
I set the car up like we were going to put 2 front tyres on
the car to make and it was going to be pointy and they put 4
tyres on and I went round there and I almost understood off into
the the fast lap I think was slower than the safety car going
so so that was a shocker. But I think, I think luckily for
me what being so young and I guess an easy sort of pushover
for John in the respect of he's trying to win the championship.
We don't want anyone who can who's going to sort of threaten
him. But we can get really good
marketing from it. I think worked and and to be
honest you know fantastic. To to Boxall for for for picking
me. Yeah, I mean that's that's quite
a tough gig, mind. First year as a works driver and
you're alongside John Cleland. What was your relationship like?
Because he's quite a character, isn't he?
I love Jobs bits. Our relationship is, is, is
fantastic now but I mean you know the the honest assessment
the situation was he hated being beaten and I love him and I love
his fierce competitive nature. He's fantastic, he's fantastic
like that and it drives him. But bearing in mind I was
brought in when it was Michelin, Dunlop and Yokohama, and so we
had, we only had so many tires. And the tires were counted out
of the truck into the garage and counted back out the garage.
You know, the lawsuit and all the other stuff that went and
counted back out of the garage into the truck.
Now each driver was only allowed so many sets of the fancy tires.
So what would you do if you had a junior driver?
Take yours. Exactly.
So basically I was there, I had, I was given second choice on.
So John would decide whatever tires he wanted for the weekend
take and take my tire allocation.
So basically John would would do all the testing.
Bear in mind we tested all day Thursday, all day Friday.
So we were on eight sets a day tires and then you choose your
tires for the weekend. So John would do, we would do
all the race runs over and then you go right, OK, I want those.
So whatever the best tires were to take my allocations, I was
left with the whatever was left. Yeah.
The shite ones. No, they weren't.
They weren't shite. But you know, I mean, like, he's
at second best of everything, you know, so.
But I suppose going in from your point of view though you're
probably happy with that to start up.
Obviously the competitiveness in you you probably wouldn't wasn't
deep down with the fact that look I mean with Vauxhall here
that's what he wants. That's just get my feet under
the table. Let's just get going.
I'm. I'm, I'm, I'm happy with
anything that gives me, you know, give me a shoes, tires,
But I'm still here. You know, obviously he's a few
years later on. If that was the case then I
wouldn't bother pitching up, you know what I mean?
But I mean, at that point in time it's like, well, yeah, John
is, you know, he's British Touring Car Champion.
They're putting everything behind him.
We've got a winning car and he's going to get double the tyre
allocation, which is going to mean that he's going to be in a
good place to win the championship as a team.
That's what we've got to do and I could try and do the best with
what I've got, you know and stuff, and that's totally the
right way to go about go about it.
Nothing at that point in time. I think with that limited tyre
allocation that you had, then having two drivers who needed to
share, that would have been, I remember going to Croft and we
had one tyre each. No, no.
Because there's one fancy. There's one fancy tyre that you
could literally, but you could. Each tribe can only have one for
each race, like me and Gabrielli.
So Gabrielli could have one in the first race and I could have
one in the second, or he could have one in the second race.
I got one in the first race and that was it.
Oh. We're talking one set or just
one tyre. One tyre for the leg.
Wow. And.
And that tie was the most closely guarded secret ever.
It is like it was the biggest security guards you ever seen.
Like, yeah, you wouldn't believe it.
It was amazing. But of course, then having one
driver who can have the ability to access twice that allocation
made a big difference, you know, and to be fair, and I'm not
dissing John at all because you know what, John, I think people
maybe underestimate him. He is a very, very good race
driver. Very.
I mean, I don't think there's been any better race driver in
touring cars than John, you know, I guarantee you give him
a, you know, give him a bone, he will, you know.
Yeah, yeah. And he and he, Yeah.
And he proved it multiple times, didn't he?
You know, the Cavalier days, Vectra days.
You know, he proved. His.
His class. You.
Know numerous times yeah he. Is he's brilliant.
I think he's just unassuming because he he doesn't have a
fan, you know, he doesn't have a fancy name.
You know, he doesn't have a a Nardy or something like that,
you know, Klenardy or something like that.
Yeah. Oh my God, He's, I think English
drivers in particular to get sort of penalized because I
think when foreign people come across and, you know, generally
they are perceived as being so much more exotic than homegrown
talent. And I would sort of disagree in
some ways. I agree that we generally get
the best of the best of the continentals coming across here.
So yeah, of course some of us are not going to look quite as
good, you know, but we do get the best people otherwise.
The British Championship, you know, was, you know, was the
best in the world at the time. He was.
And also, and you're a youngster in a Championship that was
filled with a lot of more experienced guys than yourself
at that time. So was that ever a problem?
For you, honestly, I think it goes back to what I was saying
before. I don't think.
I think the younger you get in there, you don't have any.
You have less, less of an issue with that.
I mean, you know, shouldn't make any difference.
Yeah. You know, really, I mean just
getting their drive, if you know, if you're good at what you
do, it doesn't really matter. I mean, you know, I I, I don't I
don't like to like spend too much time thinking about right,
Kevin, I need to do this. This a different level of
something just jump in. Does any of the guys have any
issues with you being a bit of a hot shot coming into it?
Like try and put any manners on you or anything like that or.
Don't think so. I mean, I was pretty lucky.
I mean. I'd like to run if you had John
in your corner so no one was probably going to touch you,
were they? Oh no, I'm trying to be like,
hey, listen, get rid of that young lad.
So it's a good job of you and his team mate because I think
you could have grief off anyone. You're probably going to have
grief off him, so it's probably a good thing as your team mate.
I remember the first first race at first race at Donnington,
then a a divided, I think I we had to call it because we had
qualifying ties back then as well.
So when I was qualifying ties I hate understand I am I terrible
understand it's give me overseer any day of the week but
understand. That's the rallying in you,
yeah. Yeah, exactly the same thing.
You know, I want to look out the side window, not the front
window. You know, like just these
qualifying tests. Oh my God, they're amazing.
Like you've put them on, but literally right.
So you know when you drive a front wheel drive car you're
always going to have understeer. Imagine driving a front wheel
drive car that has no understeer but but if you turn the steering
wheel too quickly, you spin it so it's like a little bit like
driving in the damp, you know where you've got really warm
flicks and like the rear tires are cold but so but you've got
so much front grip, it's incredible.
I mean like you'd be like a second second-half fast and you
could be on the race tires and it's just it's absolutely
bonkers. And so I remember I had
qualified John at first race meeting and he was wandering
around the paddock with a with a a sheet trying to show all the
journalists like and he's like yeah, no, but I probably my
gears and I thought I thought do you know what maybe I've got
this old boy rattled here and bless him I, I I guess I would
have probably had a very similar reaction.
But I think as the as the season went on I think he just settled
into the fact they just thought actually you know what this
guy's all right pretty good. I think anyone's going to judge
me by him you know that's the way out qualifying me.
But I remember following in that first race and he was after two
laps, that was 2 laps or 1/2 laps.
He was pussyfooting about and he wasn't overtaking anyone.
I just thought, I just want to get cracked on with this.
Now I overtook him there. I hope I overtook him down into
that. What's the one on the Donnington
Bronfrey Loop, The Melbourne? Yeah, yes.
I'm just looking into that. Next thing, the radio is going
mental and there's everybody go shouting on the radio and maybe
it's like you just said, you supposed to be following him.
I'm like, I know he's messing about.
What's just I just want to get cracked on anyway.
I wasn't going to ask you about that, I thought.
Did you Did you have like strict team orders before the races?
Well, yeah, John, John, John. It's obviously, yeah, I was
supposed to be learning from John, but you know, well messing
about. I want to crack on.
But ultimately he won the race. I finished about fourth or
fifth, so you know the old dog. He got the job done.
When when he was on the show with us before, he said that it
was a culture shock to go from Jeff Allen, who he was really
good mates with as well, which I think probably made things a bit
more tricky to get used to. But he did say the best thing
about it was that you had all the girls cooing over you and he
had all the mums looking after the girls cooing over him.
So it wasn't so bad in the end, I.
Think he missed a generation of the grandmas?
I think it was. Naproxon was the 3rd meet in
that season and you took your first pole and your first
victory. Guessing that must have been a
pretty memorable day for you and.
In the chicane, it's the last lap and James Thompson is going
to win. He's just got to keep going now
out of this right-hander and you'll see the chicken flag 21
year old James Thompson stunningly wins, only his sixth
race for. Vauxhall Yeah, it was good
because that was the first, that was the first time we had all
the same tires because Ruxton they, they, they gave us all the
same tires. I'd like to think that was a
little bit of, like, obsessed for me.
Was that? It's a it's a it's a It's a
tricky one that one though because obviously you had your
first pole in that second race, which you went on to win, but
you had to do it twice because Charlie Cox, when I visited a
gravel trap into club. Yeah, quite a big one that day
and it was quite a week. Then whilst they recovered the
car and pulled him out of the wreckage and it was, was that
added pressure for you or did you just take that on the
chimney? You know, you know.
Funny thing was and I never felt any pressure.
OK. Never, never felt any pressure
about like starting from proposition or like.
I don't know, I don't know. I've never felt, I've always
been. If I start from pole position, I
have zero pressure because I know and the fastest.
They're some of the easiest races you win, aren't they?
James from the. From the front.
Because you're out the chaos. For me, I just go, well, I'm the
fastest person on the track. I'm starting in front of
everybody else. I've got less things that could
possibly go wrong. I'm super relaxed.
But then the nicest thing that's probably ever been said to me in
motorsport because that when I took that pole position,
obviously Williams were involved with it at the time and Patrick
Hedra was watching at the chicane and Patrick came into
the carriage afterwards. Beta Might is Williams, and he
comes into the Vauxhall garage and I'm stood there and he just
came up and he went, do you know what I just want to say I've
thoroughly enjoyed watching your qualifying performance, he said.
It was fantastic, right. And do you know what?
For me, I was like, Oh my God, Patrick Head has just come in
and he's just told me thieves stood there watching that.
And I was like, you know, it was just one of those, like, surreal
moments. Yeah, yeah, it.
Was the last thing he was expecting to come out of his
mouth. I bet he thought he was going to
come and moan to you about something.
It was amazing. It was just amazing because I
just, I was just like I just loved watching you because I
didn't used to use the kerbs at the time.
I used to come in a bit sideways left and right and flick it a
bit like a which is not probably not the fastest way to go but it
looks quite cool. I've always been.
I've always been about looking looking good.
If you, if you can't be, if you can't be quick, you'll be at
least be the spectators friend. That's that's quite a compliment
because Patrick, it's not exactly known for being
extremely complimentary about drivers either.
Is he hard? Man to please, yeah.
Yeah, honestly, it was amazing. He sat with me all my career.
Yeah, I bet. So obviously you'd started well,
like we've just said, you've won that for that, that race at
Thrixton. Things are going well and then
you get to knock Hill and you've suffered a huge testing crash
and you miss the rest of the season.
It's it's it's because it was a test.
It wasn't well documented in the in the sense of not much footage
of of the incident. I mean, what do you remember of
the shunt yourself? Is it?
Do you remember anything from it?
Nothing, really. OK.
I could have won the championship that first year,
actually. Interestingly.
Yeah, yeah. Because you finished 7th,
missing the second-half of the season.
I was, I think I was third at the time, yeah and stuff.
So you'd just never know with these things.
But yeah, unfortunately we were doing, we were using two
different sorts of brakes. I had bigger brakes on my car
than John because I left the brakes and so they wanted me to
to use the smaller brakes John was using so we could have the
two cars the same. So we're doing a brake test and
I did a first run on one second run on the smaller brakes and
yeah, unfortunately for whatever reason, obviously knock it back
then was very different to what it is now.
It's much more brutal. But unfortunately the one of the
brake lines got severed on one of the Kurt and so I went into
the first corner, hit the brakes, nothing there and just
sort of barrel rolled to a finish.
So the lucky thing was, you know, I don't remember anything
about it. So you can't be afraid of things
that you don't remember and. That's what I was going to ask
you, actually. Did it.
Knock you back a bit? But I suppose you've just
answered that straight away. Yeah.
You've got no memory of it. So you've got nothing to look
back on, Abby to, to take you back, Because I suppose it was
business as usual when you when you did come back then.
Yeah, the minute I was ready to drive.
I mean obviously I the unfortunate, the the unfortunate
thing was that I end up being blind in my left eye.
Middle, slight, slight middle of my left eye.
So my ability to judge things has never been as good as it
was. So is that still something that
effects you now then? Yeah, totally.
Yeah. You're I just compensate for it.
But you know when I, when I was when I was driving in that sort
of that sort of phase early phase, I never need to I never
ever had people say about Marcus about you need to break to this.
I never. I just felt, I just felt it.
I felt it and after that injury I still could do it, but I
didn't. It was a bit more.
It's a little bit more difficult.
So you would use a bit of judgement and a bit of a bit of
it, but of feeling where you are.
So it didn't feel quite as natural.
But then my eyes sort of my eye starts to cover for that blind
spot. And then at the following years
it became easier and easier. I felt like I got back to where
I was, but initially it was quite difficult.
That first year with the Vectra coming back from an injury, not
driving for eight months and having like a slight blind spot
on your left eye. It took a little while to really
sort of get that ability to judge.
You know, it's a little bit like putting your hand over your eye
and then trying to trying to break as late as you can.
Your one eye doesn't have that ability to judge distance like
you know you two eyes do so, so that was that was quite tricky.
We've 96 as well. When you did return, as you
mentioned, it was the debut of the new Vectra as well.
You would take the first win for the Vectra in the BCCC in a
pretty crazy race at Netton. What were the main differences
between the Vectra and the Cavalier?
The. One thing I'll say about this
race is a lot of people give me credit for winning this race out
out of default. I was actually quickest in the
test, but RML decided that because I was quickest they
wanted to give me their new chassis.
So basically chassis that I've been using was made by I think
it's matter matter the French manufacturer but RML wanted to
wanted to basically saw an opportunity because we were very
low drag with the Vectra they and they because I was super
quick that weekend. They thought right give me their
car and eventually there's chance that we can win with the
RML car the first time but of course we'd not shook it down
we'd not done anything. So arrived in the race weekend
having had a car that I was quickest with and then I've got
shaken out Bugs didn't manage to make this, did half a practice
session, this, that and the other, but we managed to get
there. The car, the DARML car was
obviously better but we've not shaken the bugs out of it.
So I'd literally done half the test session, whereas if I'd
taken the other car I could have been on pole and maybe won the
race. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And. It looks more, it looks more
deserving, even if it doesn't necessarily.
I get the credit for winning at Snetterton but because four
people crashed out and I'm like well I was actually 2 tense
quicker than everybody else a few days before that with with
the old Vectra you know. So I think we would have won the
race if we'd gone with my old car we would have probably won
the race on merit. I'm not taking anything away
from RML because the way they do things is they are the best
touring car team that I've I've been involved with you know and
seen and. Obviously from a fans
perspective watching, they've never known about these two
different chassis. Would they?
No, no, you know, no, no, they're just looking at the same
car, you know? And that's all we see, isn't it?
From the outside? There's a lot of things, a lot
of things that go on you know behind the scenes that you know
you don't see. A bear in mind.
We used to have, we used to have a race chassis and a test
chassis. I remember with in Honda in with
97, a car, one car parked up in the pit lane with a secondary
set up on it and my main car and then I would do a few laps and
that, then jump out of that jump in this one, now two car, two
cars. We had a qualifying engine,
rails engine. I mean, it was just, it was
absolutely bonkers. That's crazy, isn't it?
Yeah. It was bonkers, but it was
fantastic. It was great.
Like living the dream. He's just jumping in now.
One car, another car. It's.
All prepped for you. If I just get in and drive, it's
ideal situations. I mean, as a driver, I think
it's what you aspire to want to do.
Amazing. So you mentioned their Honda in
97, you teamed up with Pro Drive and Honda at the start of that
year. But I when I was researching
this, I I read that you were offered the Renault drive that
eventually went to to Jason Plato.
Is that is that true? Yeah, well I I was, you know, I
I consider myself really, really fortunate.
Sir Frank got in touch with me via in Harrison, Ian said.
Frank would like to have a meeting with you.
I was like, well, OK, so I went there and so I go to Grove and
get there and you know like a school boys.
But I've always believed in. I never, never ever had a
manager in my life. In my life.
I always believed that if I can't sit in front of the person
and have a conversation about what we're going to do, then
it's not for me. So I I I work on a just a how I
see it basis. You know, it's like if you don't
like me, I don't like you and it's not my work.
You know, I'm going to be honest with you.
And so I went there and you know, I was.
They took me up into Sir Frank's office and he had and it was
Ian, Harrison, Frank and Patrick and they had like 3 or 4 chairs
like thinking about there was going to be a manager and this
and the other and it was just me.
I saw Walton like a school and we sat down there, we had a
lovely chat and it was so memorable, you know, I could see
them and like Ayrton's picture in the background, everything.
I just sat in this, this iconic, incredible office that not many
people have ever had the ability to see.
And it was, it was amazing. And I had a great conversation.
And then I left and I did. Luckily enough, I had another
meeting and the next time I went back, Frank, he had just one
chair just for me and for him. So he realized that I wasn't
going to come with the manager. And we had another incredible
dialogue and it was amazing, brilliant.
Yeah, that's cool. And so we hit common ground.
We've had everything. And cut Long story short, the
only thing that derailed us was the fact that he was, he was
negotiating with Damon at the time for the Formula One, which
obviously the bigger picture. And so touring cars got brought
to the side. And in the meantime, Honda came
to me and said, right, we want you, if we want this, we want
you, blah blah blah, and we want to do it now.
And I was waiting for Frank and of course Frank was waiting for
for a lot of other stuff that was going on.
And I was like, well, I'm a young guy, these guys are
telling me they really, really want me and they want it now.
And I just decided to go with Honda and there's no regrets
from I would love to dream for for Frank and Pearl Williams.
But but for me, the Honda side of it was what they wanted and
that was the biggest thing to them.
And so they wanted me and I was like, OK, really wanted so and
at. The end of the day, you don't
want to be left on the sidelines at all by waiting out for one
deal and. But but also you see that with a
lot of teams, like teams don't think twice about being
ruthless. I mean, look before when they've
said to James, oh, you've got the job, but then all of a
sudden a couple of days later, oh, but no, you haven't.
So you've gone from some, you've gone from Cleland as a team out
now you've gone to Gabrielli's, our queen.
So one minute you get any signature a couple of years
before and now as soon as you team mate.
How was that? Yeah, it's been it was really
good. I always remember he changed my
he changed my confidence in motorsport in the respect that
we I remember we just we did our first Test at Donnington and he
was two or three hundreds quicker than me and I thought
done me, he's done anything and like as a young guy you go, he's
still, he's quicker than me, right?
But he was like nothing but you. But, you know, mentally, you
Stew over there, you think, oh, he's still cooking to me,
everything. Oh, yeah.
And I just remember we were on the way to Throxton for the next
test, and I was driving in there.
So we stopped at a Little Chef because I said OK, right.
Listen, Italian, I know you like coffee for breakfast and
everything, but right. I'm going to teach you English
breakfast, James. No, I don't want love, don't
like English breakfast. Listen to me.
You teach me coffee. I teach you breakfast.
So we went to the Little Chef. We've had all the breakfast and
everything and he's like, he's laughing about.
We're laughing away. And he's like, James, I really
like you. He goes, listen, one thing, if
you're faster than me, I'm happy for you.
He's like, I'm Gabrielle. I love my life.
I have had a great career. I'm so happy.
If you're fast than me, fantastic.
I I say fantastic. And you know what?
It just made me realize somebody who's so confident without being
arrogant that to a young guy he was so inspiring.
As if to say, do you know what? I can deal with the fact that
you're fast than me today, but tomorrow it might be a different
thing. And it gave me this incredible
we had a really really good relationship where he was out
qualified me. Sometimes I qualified him.
But both of us would always shake hands and go, OK, next
time old man, yeah, I think that him obviously would say to me
but but we'd have this lovely relationship that it would.
It meant that we brought the most the.
Best out of each other. Without any toxic carry on and
and you know it was, it was, it was amazing it was a fact
really, really good relationship.
And the team must have loved that.
Because from a team's perspective, it's an ideal
situation, isn't it? Two drivers that get on and not
at each other's throats. We're not dividing the garages.
Oh, yeah, I mean, we we drove. I mean, we really drove hard for
each other, you know, But we, you know, but we also, we're
massively respectful, you know, and I suppose you can only do
that if you feel like you're both on a level footing.
You know, I guess there's probably only two people I've
felt that with, which is, you know, Gabrielli and Ivan, you
know, you know, we've always pushed each other to the
absolute maximum. And I think we've always said to
each other every time one's had a better result and the other
you know, well done. You know I think that you know
there was nothing left on the table.
You beat me and that was what it was you know and and and you
just go well done mate and but you know next weekend it might
be the other way round that's but that's that's that's
beautiful though as well. Well, it's rare, it's rare.
So I think that you've gone through that and you've
experienced it with 22 legends of the sport.
So to have that bond, that relationship you'd like, you
said you get the best out of each other, you're getting the
best out of the car and you're getting the best out for the
team. So it's win, win for everybody
when you when you have that relationship.
But as we know it isn't always that plain silent.
So I think it's been brilliant that you did have that
relationship with. Them and obviously I think the
feeling was very much mutual as well.
When we spoke to Gabrielli in series two, he actually
mentioned that you were his favorite ever teammate in his
whole career. So I think that must encapsulate
that relationship that you two had over the years.
Yeah, OK. We've spent, we've spent so much
time together. I mean you know not only
unfortunately we got, I think we got split up in in nine end of
97 where I think in 98 we probably could have won the
championship. I think if if Gabrielle had been
stayed in the UK, I think the two of us would have been.
I'm not given any disrespect to Peter or whatever, but I think
if Gabrielle and Gabrielli and I had stayed together in 98, we
would have been a force across the across the year when I
wasn't scoring. He would have been, and I think
we probably would have given it a better shot than we did.
But unfortunately the draw of having a European Championship
and having Tom Christensen and Gabrielle across there, me and
Peter Cox in the UK, you know that everything was sort of
divided and I think that unfortunately sort of hurt us in
in that respect. But yeah, into but in terms of
teammates, I mean me and Gabrielli and also you know Van,
I spent five, five years with the Van as teammates you know
and probably 544 years with Gabrielli and they're my
fondest, fondest memories of of racing.
You mentioned 98, then many consider that season as one of
the greatest BTCC seasons of all time.
It's been such a huge battle for the title, which has big names
and huge input for manufacturers, and even now the
likes of months will come in three race meetings.
What was it like to even be involved in that series when
people considered it to be absolutely at its peak at that
time? It was, do you know it, it was
great. I mean, I think looking back on
it now, get a little bit like little goosebumps where you look
back and you go, oh wow, like, you know, sometimes we feel like
really detached from it. We look back and and just.
Remind yourself you're a part of that when you watch footage and
stuff now. I think I was, I was in amongst
absolutely. Like within all that, at that
time it must be very. Much so.
You know, it's almost like because I've stopped driving for
quite a few years now, you sort of start questioning yourself
and you go, was was I doing that?
Was that Paul O'Neill driving for me there?
Oh, no, no, no, no. No.
No, I'm only, I'm only joking. You know, I love Paul, He's my
brother. But it's just one of those
things where you just you you look back and you go, wow, look
at all these guys who, you know, he do sort of get very detached
from it. It was such an incredible
saying, I remember. You know like they're watching
Grandstand back in the day and you know Mary Walker you know
bless him and you know you listen to his commentary and and
Charlie Cox when he was doing it and and everything and you know
you listen to the emotion that they stood up and you're
watching the races and and then the edited races back in the day
were incredible. I know the library they did were
good, but the the edited races tell me there's been no better
race than ever. I don't think there's ever been
any better racing when it's been edited like BTC back in in those
in the 90s like that, it was fantastic.
And I always mentioned to you all the time, don't know about,
you know, Steve Ryder's voice and Murray's voice.
You know, when I was a kid on a Saturday grandstands on it was.
It was. Like Steve, Steve has been an
absolute champion. When, when do you think what an
incredible career he has had been good?
I mean literally, if you want somebody to promote your
championship, to promote you or anything, he has.
Certainly you want that how well he's doing it, don't you?
Yeah, and aura and knowledge and everything.
Absolutely second to none. His passion for the sport you
know is is second to none And it's it's brilliant, you know,
longevity of being involved with it and and also he's just, he's
just a good guy. One of my favorite races from
that 98 season is actually one that you won James, but it I
feel it goes under the radar a little bit because it was the
race. Rydell cleans the title.
It was the finale at Silverstone where you pulled an over.
You've pulled an incredible overtake on Reedy and then he
didn't seem to like it very much and just absolutely walloped you
at the Abbey hairpin. And getting ahead of Anthony
Reid is what James Thompson's trying to do.
Side by side through maggots and Becketts.
James Thompson is absolutely nailing Anthony Reid.
They're heading down to the Island chicane.
They can't get through there two by two and he's back in front of
him. Amazing stuff.
Reid was challenging. Ryndell Thompson's now back in
front of him. He shot the fox Strong pass by
James Thompson. He took the addition of.
He forced Anthony to stay out. Now Reid, those onions and back
came in the back of the Honda and that was simply Mission
Impossible by the championship contender.
Anthony Reed And then you came back through the fields.
It was an incredible race and you you eventually overtook
Rydell and won. Well, we'll end up like eighth
or something on the 1st. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If the car's right on the day, I think I've always had a had
ability to. I don't want to sound arrogant
here, but you know, like, I mean if the car's right I can, I can
really peddle it and luckily that year, that curl was really,
really good. You know, I think when I win 5
races that year, which was quite a lot in the 90s, I mean, I
think if you look at the 19th to 94 onwards, what there's only a
few people more than eight and nine races.
So to win four or five races that year was, you know, a big
thing. Unfortunately, you know, we just
got let down with other stuff. Unfortunately.
I've always been really close, but never quite close enough.
I think. I think 99 was an exciting year
for me with the new car and all that sort of stuff.
I think that was that was going to be a fun year.
Well, the Hondas in the in the years you were there were always
quick but seemed to lack the consistency to win titles.
So was there any particular read?
Like you said there, you're close but never quite there.
Was there any particular reason for it?
Because we were divided over, we had to do 22 amalgations.
So we had the European Championship which Gabrielli and
Tom were racing in, in Europe and we were racing in the UK but
you could only amalgate 1 aerodynamic package.
So for the first year it was for the UK which was in 97 and it
was an absolutely shocking package.
I mean I remember what I did. I did about 15 days at Millbrook
and we did this aerodynamic package and it was horrendous.
I mean we had such little downfalls that we had right, our
biggest guy in the team, Rob, and he won't mind me saying this
Rob, because I love him to bits. But Rob we were checking the we
were checking the sensors to make sure we actually downforce
on the car by Rob sitting on the bonnet, right.
So Rob sat on the bonnet and going oh you haven't got
deflection. We're like where's the
aerodynamics? Well obviously we haven't gone
so aero package in 97 was shocking.
We had so much rear aero it was unreal and we had no from Arrow.
Well, of course Williams and all these people, they, they and
they sorted, they were so far ahead of us 98, we've managed to
make a bit of a change, but we had to have two aero packages
for, one for UK, one for Europe. And of course Europe took
precedent at that point because Europe needed long straights
like you imagine, Hockenheim, all those sorts of things.
They needed to be really quick in a straight line.
So they need the opposite of what we needed the UK and so the
Europeans took precedence. So we're driving around in a car
that's got literally load, super low drag, no downfalls.
Round Knockhill. As I say back looking at side
windows, which is great for me, but that's but that's basically
the way it was. So, and that's why because we
didn't have a package which was just for the UK, we were, we
were taking now a low drag package trying to adapt it to
the UK and occasionally would be quick and then we'd be terribly
slow because you know, our mail just went right, we're just
going to park it there. That's for the UK and we're just
going to dominate. Well, you know, and that's why
that's why they're so good. But 99 you had the new model car
as you said as the Accord you went into that year again as one
of the title favourites and new rock up at Donnington win the
first race in the car. I think that was that, was that.
Was back. Cool though, wasn't it?
Yeah, I think. I think that that day's more
known now though, that a certain Macneill dropped up and stole
the headlines, didn't he? Later that day as as a moment.
Was that even though it didn't go your way in the feature race,
was it still a pretty big day to be a part of that, that moment
where Matt wins as an independent?
100% the fact they listen, I take head off my captain for
doing that. I mean the fact, the fact, the
fact that he managed to, he took me off in that race.
If you remember, yes, he. Did he tried to?
He put me in the grafter, I managed to continue, he let me
back through and then overtook me again to take the to take the
call £1,000,000. So absolute play to him, you
know. And you know what?
The guy who absolutely deserves it.
Him and his Matt and his family have been the cornerstone of
what the BTC is all about. You know And so obviously I
drove for them in 2009. Yes and all that, you know so I
I know what their families that you know about and and they have
have such amazing passion and so to watch him do that it's like
for me, I was just so I was happy for him.
You know I won the first race from pole position.
I thought right do you know I've got my job done.
New car race, win next race. OK, finish second.
Fair enough. Yeah, it was.
It was all going well that 99 season, but it it mid season
then you just seem to get into a rotten run of bad luck.
He'd been involved in other people's incidents.
For example, the night race at SNET and you've got T boned by
Muller in the Sprint. And then in the in the feature
race you had made a pit stop and the wheel was loose and that
fell off and it just it just seemed that it all fell apart
halfway through the year, which again was not really your fault.
I think we should have won. We should have won the
championship there. Honestly, I think there was.
There was that that weekend was a shocker, but there's a there
was a few things that year that weren't quite right, you know,
and the car was good, everything was was there.
I just think that unfortunately we didn't just quite execute
what we should have done. But you know what?
Everybody gave it their all, so you can ask them all.
Going into 2000, that would be the the final year of the Super
Touring regulations in the UK at least.
Were you sad to say goodbye to sort of that formula of car that
you'd been racing for the previous seven years by this
point? I don't think so.
I was excited in 2000, if I'm honest.
I thought, you know what, here we go.
Obviously the grid had thinned down massively, which you know
at that point in time. But then again, can you say,
well, when I won the championship in 2002 and 4, you
know how many people could win races X, but you've still got to
win the races to win the championship.
It's a really, it's a really tricky one.
It's a little Formula One, isn't it?
So, well, OK, right. Max has won the championship,
but there's only Red Bull could win races, you know, but you
still got to do, I don't know it it it's very much a trigger and
I think 2000 was difficult because we lost a lot of
competitors. I think we had a really good
car. Unfortunate thing for me is
obviously with the crash in the first race weekend and missing,
missing 4/4 races effectively, I was never going to win the
championship. And so for me, in a team where
they know that one driver's totally out, you sort of
snookered. You know, I was at.
That was, to be fair, that was probably one of my worst years,
if I'm honest, because I've been Tom Tom's sort of teammate, and
we're sorry. You know, they're they're a
really good team. But like when one driver's down,
it's like, what? Who do you, who do you support?
I guess if I was a team, I would support the guy.
He could win the championship. I'm not going to win it when I'm
four races down with no score. No.
That's. Right.
You know, so, but that's hard. That's hard to take when you're
when you literally, literally fought for the championship in
the last sort of Four Seasons, you know, just rocking up and
knowing that you're the second guy in the in, you know, in the
in the in the team. So that's quite a tricky 1 to
take. James, going back to that shunt
that you had a Dingle doubt. Oh dear me, that's James
Thompson. James Thompson piled up
backwards onto one of the tire walls.
That's a very, very big off indeed.
The whole back of that car is missing.
Look, you can just see the edge of the boot lid.
Marshalls are going up to the side of the car.
James must still be in it. They're talking to him.
That has just happened. Fire Marshall's there with an
extinguisher. That is a very, very big off
indeed. That was reported at the 12 G
impact. Much more.
So, so obviously you know more about it than what?
What? We've read or.
We've if you could have seen the rear, the rear wheel ended up
underneath my driver's seat. It lifted the actual to the
seat, so it came from the back. But bear in mind that the, the
roll cages of those cars were incredible.
It was, it was a huge, I mean, a friend of mine, Dean Waddell at
the time was like 180 K so you imagine I've gone and I've not
stopped much. So, you know, and that was a
stupid thing. It was just the tie warmers,
because they've done away with tie warmers because for whatever
reason, I'm not going to get into that.
But of course you come out the pits first lap, you've got, you
know you've got probably 11.1 bar in the front tyres and you
need nearly 2 bar and you go, you have a jump and you land,
tyre sort of deforms and off you go and that's it.
That was a that's was a silly thing for me was when you've got
tyres that are that marginal and you've done away with tyre,
which everybody had, I don't think that was necessarily the
right way to go, so. What do you remember?
Do you remember much about the shunt?
Like, do you remember all of it? I mean that that's something bad
lot to do that matter damage I was.
Unconscious for a little bit, but it was it wasn't that crazy
a shunt, but unfortunately because I've had damage in the
back of my head, I had double vision for for quite a while, so
I wasn't allowed to drive because the double vision, but
it maybe would have put like twice as many cars on the grid
so might be quite good. In 2000 and James, so you
dovetailed what you were doing in the BTCC and you did a few
drives in the new reform DTM with the Audi TT.
What were what were those base large drivers think?
Always wanted to have a go in. Obviously never got the
opportunity but obviously downforce wise would have been a
lot different to what you'd obviously experienced in the
Honda. That was for sure, but
completely different from Super Tours do.
You know what they No, they weren't.
They were. They were not as much downforce
as the Super Tours but they they were just the one that we what I
drove the concept was good. It was just it was basically a
space frame. So it gave everybody the ability
to you didn't have to mess about with a road car shell or you
know you had a space frame and then you put the body work
around it which obviously made it relatively simple cost
effective. Problem was wheelbase, so an
Audi TT compared to a Mercedes C Class, etcetera.
Flat floor. You know what you're giving away
all that sort of stuff. So there was a lot of
complications with it. I wouldn't say I enjoyed driving
the car because they made the tub, which was an evacuation tub
the same size as Laurel and Christian apartment who are 5
foot 5 foot seven. I'm 6 foot.
I was, I was. I was driving with my literally
my head on the back of the my knees.
Literally. I couldn't get it was the most.
It was the moral worst driving position I've ever had in my
life. And it was it was it was
ridiculous. But you know what?
I was involved with it. You know, I finished 7th in
Nurburgring. I've got to race the full, the
full Nurburgring proper, the proper Nurburgring.
So at least I've got to do with that.
And I learnt that Lauren Aiello can't see more than 50 meters.
I remember because obviously Lauren Lauren was driving the
car and he's, for me, he's one of my favourite drivers.
He's absolutely brilliant. As much as we were competitors
in BTC when we raced together in DTM, we used to, we always used
to. We always used to share a hire
car together because we had the love of red wine.
Me and him used to have quite a lot of red wine over the
weekends and remember one time nerve agreeing we're in the pit
lane. And I was like oh how many
minutes we got to go. I didn't have a watch and he and
he goes, look he goes I don't know you tell me.
I said can you not see the clock at the end of the year pit lane
he goes no he couldn't see a clock.
Two pit lane 22 pit garages down.
I said, can you tell when it's even raining?
He goes. No, I said.
No one is so fucking fast while he's still on slicks.
Obviously, literally. But what what I love about him
is the fact that he left motorsport to be a DJ.
Wow did. He.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. He left Motorsport this.
Man, and to this day and I, we message each other now and then
and he's he's just such a lover He just went do you know what?
I have enough for racing. I want to be a DJ.
I'm like mate, I love you. That is just.
How good is that? How's it all in here?
It's like one of the best drivers I've ever seen in a
touring car. It was.
Fast, wasn't it? Yeah, it was.
Yeah. Ever.
Yeah. He just decided he's going to
stop. Could be a DJ.
There's somebody at their wedding at the moment from the.
That's not the Lauren ILO, is he?
No, no, it's. Not fast enough.
Oh, he's brilliant. He's brilliant.
In 2001 the the the BTCC moved on from Super Touring and whilst
this pod is about Super Touring, we will we will touch on your
later career as well, only briefly.
We've taken enough of your time up already, I know.
OK cool, cool. Well you moved to say the series
moved to BTC touring regulations which you you're in the export
car for the first season and then you moved to the the the
Vauxhall Motorsport team for the second season.
How good was that Astra Coupe? Because there's there's been
rumours that they weren't running at full throttle and
stuff like that just with the car that that good compared to
the competition. Yeah, it was good.
It was good. But you know, at the end of the
day you had, let's say you had four, four cars, you know,
competing. So you know, yes, we were better
than everybody else, certainly for the first year, but you also
had four top drivers competing. Let's put four people in a Red
Bull and let's see. You probably have quite an
interesting championship. Yes, yeah.
Yeah. So there's always cars that win
race, it's always cars that finish second.
You know, we were lucky that we were well ahead of the game, but
I don't think anyone will deny that Ivan Mora is the best
touring car driver there's probably ever been.
And so are you going to say to him, well, you know, you were
lucky to have an Astro. I think that he's he's he's,
he's done all right. You went on to win your two BTCC
titles in in O2 and O4, battling against him I think.
So some incredible championship battles across those that four
year span with him. I mean was he, in terms of we've
we've touched on it a bit already when we spoke about your
relationship with him and then also with Gabrielli.
Was he sort of your toughest opponent, you think in terms of
those into team battles in your career?
It's quite interesting actually because those two massively,
massively influential and I guess statistic wise and for
everybody else looking in on it, Gabrielli for me is the fastest
driver I've ever come up against Ivan.
Is also incredibly fast and I'm well we're talking about super
small margins here but Ivan will win races that maybe Gabrielli
wouldn't. In the respect that Gabrielli
sometimes gets involved with things not not latterly in his
career but in his in his earlier career he's he's we used to call
him he's Chingy Ali the the the wild boar would come out and
he's called the Chingy he's called the chingus.
So it's called the wild boar. And so he would.
He'll have all the speed, but sometimes would just his passion
would take over. But when he's won his
championships has always been when he's been, like, more
controlled Evan. Evan has the ability of speed,
consistency, racecraft, everything.
Gabrielli has ultimate speed. I've never struggled to sense
awfully arrogant and don't mean that.
But if there's one person that I had to go up against in
qualifying that I thought I might struggle with, it'd be
Gabrielli. But if there's one person who I
had to go for against in a race and thought I might struggle,
it'd be Evan. Interesting.
Yeah, yeah. So, so this is, this is the
thing I always, when I was racing with Gabrielli, I always
thought I need to be on pole to beat him.
If I was with Evan, I knew I had to be on pole to beat him.
If I was second on the grid team, I was going to, I was
going to finish second. We're really lucky to have to
have had such an incredible generation of touring car
drivers in that era. Absolutely.
Those two are the guys that I measure myself.
You know what? I think I was luckily lucky
enough to compete with them and I'd like to think that they
would look back and go actually, do you know what Jimmy was?
Jimmy was really hard to beat on his day.
I mean I remember, I remember rocking up, I remember rocking
up from Vegas. But we're doing a racing and I
think it's Darlington. I think the first time I ever
drove half from me and I was really nervous and I was.
I was in Vegas and I had to fly back and it was flight Friday,
Friday afternoon. And we were supposed to be
qualifying Saturday morning. Like I got in and literally I
got in just before the driver's briefing and let's say I was in
no fit state to do anything. I think, I think I had to get a
taxi from the airport because I couldn't drive.
And I'm thinking our first time I've been for half my Oh my God,
this diet. I feel rough as hell.
I go to bed. I went to bed early doors.
I said both in the morning I could still literally.
I thought I'd soon be better, soon double and got in the car
anyway. Took pole by quarter of a second
and then even 40 kilos. And then I won the race by 8
seconds. Do you know I must go to Vegas
more often? Did you did people know you've
come back from Vegas? Or do you keep it completely
hush hush? Well, few people knew, but you
know you don't. You don't, basically.
You're driving far from me. You don't say.
Sorry, mate, I might arrive a little bit drunk this week.
Yeah, the duty. Freak got me on the on the
flight you. Try to keep it leaves me low
key, don't you? You you talk about Alfa Romeo
there and you move to the World Touring Car Championship after
you left the BTCC. That was natural progression.
One didn't compete with the best in the world, I guess, yeah.
Yeah, staying in the UK and just been three or four times BTC
champion. I'm not interested in, you know,
I would love to have been able to say I was, I was world
champion, I was maybe they're best at partying and racing, you
know, we don't get prize for that.
And like you said, teamwork, that that that don't get any
tougher than what you already had.
So this was just obviously going to claim a title and and put
your name on that world championship title.
So the closest you came to that was in 2007 when you finished
third in the championship. Was that a tough battle in what
was an aging car at that point? I think, but honestly for me, I
should have, I believe 2006. I should have won the
championship. I guess I'm the only person
who's ever led the British Touring Car Championship and the
World Touring Car Championship after 2/3 of the season.
Because I was doing first say, I was doing half the BTC and half
the world's, got an intercept and I was leading the leading
the British and the world at the same time, which I thought was
quite cool. Yeah, that is quite cool.
I sound like, really arrogant now, don't.
I don't know. Yeah.
But no one else has done it. I know, I know, I know.
I don't mean to. That sounds really bad.
Even my cat staring at me going, oh, dad, what you do?
But yeah, it just, it just, I think the problem with 2006, the
issue was they took everybody out the game with regard to if
you led the championship, you had to have 80 kilos.
Yeah, right. So I was leaving the
Championship going into Bruno. I know I went from like.
Long as first corner. Well, the whole thing, the whole
thing, the whole thing about a like a championship battle is
you want to see the protagonists at the front all the time.
You give somebody 80 kilos in a championship that's covered by
one second for 20 cars and you take the championship leader
then he qualifies 20th, you know so you you you don't see any you
know you just see big swings in in the way the the championship
sort of is and you don't see that the competitors naturally
coming together to to fight. Weekend when?
Weekend out. You want to see the the two free
best drivers fighting every week at the front.
You don't want to see them in 14th, 15th every week.
Yeah, with no penalties on them. Just actually fighting for the
race win, Yeah, yeah. And so that was the problem that
year. Massive swings between.
But the ballast was too much, wasn't it?
One thing's out. Thrown a bit of ballast on but
80 kilos like that's. 80 kilos with the with the non turbo cars
was literally almost 2 seconds on on a on a big lap like.
Brunos, Brunos, Hilly as well, isn't it?
So you're kind of trying to carry that weight uphill as
well. He's like, let's talk about
punishment. I remember just said that.
My engineer just said to me, just just retire the car, all
right? No, no.
I'm going to like we 20 seconds. You're going to destroy the
engine, you're going to just retire the car.
And it's like so sad As a driver, you don't want to hear,
you know, I want to be going. So, you know, 2006 leading those
two things was such a shame. Unfortunately I had two engine
failures in Valencia that year, one in the race, one in in warm
up and that knackered me. I think 2007 was a very good
chance. There was just me and Priyo
going into the last race of the year who could win the
championship. Ivan unfortunately had an engine
failure the first race. It was me and Priyo who could
win the championship and so, so you know, three or four times
win into the last race of the year, been able to win the
championship but ultimately not quite achieved what I should
have done I guess. So, so looking back, James ends
out of all the the wide range of touring car machinery that
you've driven from DTM, which we've just heard a bit about
that, a bit of a tight squeeze for you.
You've got super touring era, BTCS 2000 and then the TC-1.
What role set did you enjoy the most out of all of those?
I would say 99. Yeah.
That transition from 98 to 99, the having the cars at the
weight they were, which was like nine, 950 kilos and plus driver
stuff, having the engines the way they were, everything, I
think that was the best that's ever been. 99 I reckon end of
9899, I think it was absolutely fantastic.
There's a special few years 9899 I.
Thought I think, I think those I think those cars were absolutely
amazing. But I mean, I do I One thing I
do. I do miss the rallying, though.
You did a bit of rallying in the early 2000s, didn't you?
You were on the network queue, so you did scratch that itch, I
guess. Yeah, well that was my dad
wanted to be, to be a rally driver and you know, when he
died, he did. He left me a wee bit of money
and said, well, listen lad, I want you to, I want you to do a
bit of rallying. So yeah, it was it was fun.
It was it was good. But what I realized was the art
of driving fast when you're rallying is your navigator all
right. So this, this is the thing.
It's like you all think, right, it's just it's just down to the
guy who's driving. It's not your navigator is he's
king, you know, and and so learning the notes and learning
the way to drive from the notes and everything you know is
absolutely incredible. And I made a mistake in the
beginning where when I was rallying I thought I'd make my
own notes thinking, oh, I'll just do it.
And like I tried to do a couple of allies having made my own
notes, that was just ridiculous. But you can take, organize
organizers notes and then you can.
It sounds really simple, but do you know what?
Every corner has to be the same every every.
The way you see it has to be the same.
Everything that you call and I say that because when you start
a stage and it's foggy and you and they say right straight,
flat Crest over 200 into 90, right.
And you're like, you sure? Because I can't see.
The fucking thing. And you can't see anything.
And you've got your navigator with the with the trip with 200
meters and you go, you literally drop the clutch for 2nd, 3rd and
he's going 5100. One, 5200, break 90, right and
you can't see anything. You have to have the utmost
trust in those notes and your navigator.
And you know what? It's I've never been my eyes out
on the stalks. It's it's absolutely incredible.
Yeah, your life is in his hands, although you're driving.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's absolutely better.
I'd like to thank James for spending some of his extremely
valuable time with us today on Stories from Super Touring.
James, thank you so much for for coming on the show and and tell
us a few tales from your career in in motorsport.
Thank you. Thank.
You very much. Thank you.
Meanwhile, we'll be back next week, where we'll be joined by
Eurosports, Greg Haynes and Andrew, Chairman, to look back
at what many call the best touring car race of all time,
Donnington 1998. James, you were in that one.
That was a crazy race, wasn't it?
Can we not make it silvers to 1998?
Well, do you want especially for you?
Yeah, we will do that for you that.
Works. Yeah.
It's just just just just link me in at the end.
Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, yeah, really, really
quick. Cheers guys.
Don't forget, if you enjoyed today's episode, please make
sure you give us a five star rating and a comment on your
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question for our end of season finale Q&A episode with
Eurosport commentator Greg Haynes.
If you do have a question for that episode, please e-mail it
to Pod at 1990s btcc.com. In the meantime, we'll see you
next week. Goodbye.