Look at the flames bounced out in the back of Ryndale's car.
Looks like spust too, not a ball book.
Menus hit him. They've been.
Pushed from behind, three melted down the fairways.
Look at the front of it. It's like a scene out of Mad
Max. Unhurtly.
Nervous in racing like those British touring cars has.
Certainly Eclipse. Anything we've ever seen before.
Hello, and welcome to our brand new podcast, the Super Touring
Years, a bonus podcast series created exclusively for Paddock
Club members. I'm Levi Riley, and for the
first series of this bonus podcast, we're going back to
1998's British Touring Car Championship, breaking it down
race meeting by race meeting, from the season opener right
through to the finale. This series exists because you
asked for it. Paddock Club listeners voted on
Patreon for a full deep dive into the 1998 season, and this
is the result. Each episode focuses on a single
race meeting, examining the story as it unfolded at the
time, the build up, the key moments, the controversies and
how each we can shape the championship as a whole.
Alongside regular stories from Super Touring contributors,
we'll analyse the season with the benefit of hindsight but
without rewriting history. Normally this podcast is for
members of our Paddock Club only, but for this first episode
we have decided to open up to everyone and if you like it,
make sure you subscribe to our Paddock Club.
It's usually £4 a month, but it's going to be 2 LB a month as
a special offer for your first month, where you'll also be able
to listen to the whole series along with many other benefits
and exclusive content. Joining me this week to look
back at the opening meeting of the 1998 BTCC season are Rammets
Clark, the creator and writer of our podcasts, and Greg Haynes,
World Super Bike commentator, Super Touring expert and a
familiar voice to regular listeners of our main podcast,
Stories from Super Touring Gents.
Great to have you both with us. How are you?
Yeah, fine. Thanks.
We're in a funny mood here because as we record Alexis
camera keeps zooming in on him for some reason, which is the
last thing anyone needs. But it's entertaining, isn't it?
It's, it must be just the latest Apple technology.
I don't know. It's yeah, it just seems to be
zooming in and out on me, doesn't it?
So apologies for anyone frightened by that.
But we are also excited, aren't we?
Because I think we will probably all agree that the 1998 British
Touring Car season is probably our favourite motorsport season
ever. It's certainly mine.
Out of any motorsport discipline whatsoever, yes, absolutely.
There's something about this season.
It just had everything. All the ingredients just seemed
to add up and it created one of the most spectacular
championships in motorsport history.
And I know people will say, oh, it's just, you know, they're
looking through those tinted spectacles or not watch this
season back. If you've got the season review,
if you've got footage from this season, if you watch it on
YouTube, I know there's bits of it on YouTube.
Go back and watch it and you will just see that there is not
a dull moment throughout this season.
Every single race has something special about it, has a story,
has a plot and it's so great and I was secretly delighted when
this was chosen because it became.
There is a three horse race between 9193 and 98.
I quite like the idea of 91 first because it would be the
first year of full Super Touring or as it was called then, the
two litre Touring car formula. But I don't think, I don't think
anyone would be disappointed to do 1998 first because as, as
Greg has just said, one of the most incredible seasons of
motorsport in any discipline, any category in certainly our
lifetimes. Yeah, and of course, one of the
two seasons that were covered in the Legendary Legendary code,
Masters games, Token, Story card, Charity, and of course
this was Token 2, PC and PlayStation.
And I don't know about you guys, but if it wasn't for those
games, I definitely would not be here talking to you now.
I wouldn't have had the career I've had so far, if you can call
it a career. It was all down to those games
and the seasons that those games were based on.
I mean, we had variety, we had drama, we had controversy
through the year, we had pretty much every weather condition
imaginable. It stops different looks to the
television coverage. It was just an incredible
classic. Yeah, wasn't it?
With some of the most iconic looking and sounding touring
cars ever. As you say, absolutely silly and
we'll get more into it both today and in the next few weeks,
but there were an awful lot of unknowns leading up to the
opening rounds of the 1998 season.
After a year of domination by Williams Renault in 1997, were
any of the teams going to be able to fight back this season?
With eight well funded manufacture entries and with the
possibility of a ninth coming into the series during the
second-half of the season, the BTCC was clearly riding as two
both said on the Crest of a wave.
The BBC had committed to showing more live events on BBC One
Grandstand and the introduction of a BTCC game on PlayStation.
The PC in the form of the Toker series had gained the series
even more fans than before. The major talking points of the
pre season were the introduction of new race links in 1998.
Each round was now split into a Sprint race and a feature race,
the feature race being twice the length of the opening Sprint
race with a mandatory pit stop to change A minimum of two tyres
also added into the mix. Guys, we'd love to know your
thoughts on the changes to the championship for the 1998 season
with both the Sprint and the feature races, and also the pit
stops as well. Well.
Just as you mentioned Toker then it reminded me the computer game
and we've just been talking about it.
Sorry. I'm I'm we'll go back to your
question now, but it reminds me of a story that Reedy has told
me. Anthony Reed has told me that he
was. I can't remember where he said
he was, but he was at some sort of event race meeting and
Romaine Dumas, the French sports car driver, was there.
I think it was a good word or something.
Good word. Yeah.
And and and I think Anthony introduced himself.
And the third thing Roman Dumas said was, Oh my God, I used to
play as you on Toca 2. So that's the sort of reach that
the game had. And I just think that was a
great, that's a great story, isn't it?
Yeah, and people often used to say to John Cleland as well, you
took me off on Take a Two last night or whatever.
I remember it was always Derek Warwick that took me off on the
game. It was always Warwick.
Very, very realistic actually. Always rude boy Tim Harvey for.
Rude boy. Rude boy.
So, but it was so realistic, wasn't it?
I mean, the sounds of the cars as well and they were and the
damage. Because back then you're up
against things like Gran Turismo, which didn't really
feature any car damage at all. And those Code Masters games
were absolutely phenomenal. And just also, as you touched on
Levi BBC Grandstand, it was getting coverage everywhere
because we've talked about this in earlier series of the
podcast, in the regular series of the regular episodes.
But Nigel Mansell even appeared for a second time on the one and
only Knowles house party. And that at that point, late 90s
was getting anything between 6 and 10 million viewers on a
Saturday evening to preview his Donnington races.
I mean, that is amazing. They even did the Ford launch in
the BBC television studio on the set of Knowles House party.
This was huge. And Williams, Renault of course,
were the reigning champions, as you said, not just in the
touring car world but also in Formula One as well.
So this was a huge time, a massive time.
Formula One teams in the paddock bringing their knowledge in for
the pit stops. The likes of TWR with Volvo,
Williams of course, with Renault.
Absolutely amazing. Well, you mentioned the F1 teams
and it's notable that every single team principal involved
in Formula One was flew straight over from the Argentine Grand
Prix on the Sunday for this event.
On the Monday you had Frank Williams was there, Tom
Walkinshaw was there and Dr Dave Richards was there for with the
with the Honda Pro Drive team. They flew over straight from the
Grand Prix, all to be there. And I think that just shows how
serious this championship was, was it wasn't becoming, was.
Right, then back to the question though.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's my fault.
What what did you guys think of of the changes for 9910?
We also had the the one shot qualifier thrown in the mix as
well, which we'll get on to. I thought it was great.
I thought it was absolutely fantastic.
So yeah, like you say, we'll get on to it.
But the One Shot Showdown was the second of the qualifying
sessions to take place, but actually decided the grid for
the Sprint race, the first race and then we had the long feature
race in the afternoon with the pit stops.
Brilliance of the point system as well.
Awarded a bonus point to anybody who stayed out and LED a lap.
Alexis cameras doing funny things again, which is making me
laugh. But if you led a lap of the
feature race, if you crossed the finish line in the lead
position, you scored a point. So it encouraged a lot of the
teams who started further back to stay out on a latest
strategy. Sometimes the front runners
would come in first and then they'd be out on fresh tyres in
clear space, but then they'd start catching these slower cars
and it absolutely shook things up.
And we saw a lot of races, particularly early on in the
Year 1, and more importantly lost because of slow pit stops
or poor strategies or getting stuck in the traffic.
So I thought it was brilliant. Yeah, I was concerned about the
pit stops. The only concern I had was that
it would diminish the racing because they would sort of say,
Oh well, I'll wait to the pit stop.
But it that never really came out, that never really became an
issue. Overtaking was still happening
on track. So it was, yeah, it was never
really a massive issue. I like the fact that it brought
the teams in a bit more as well. Yeah, I like the fact that they
were longer races. I've always thought that, OK,
you don't want to race, it's too long.
But the current, the the prior to 98, the races are about 25
minutes, half an hour each race. And I like the fact that you had
maybe a 25 minute race, but then like a 50 minute race and I
thought that was really cool. You know, 50 laps of Brands
Hatch. That's really cool for a touring
car race, you know. So yeah, I liked all the changes
and I particularly like the One Shot Showdown because you had
drivers just going out there and if you went to a qualifying day
at touring cars, it wouldn't be the most interesting session to
watch the 30 minute qualifying session.
Whereas when they just had one lap to just go for it, balls out
the bath type thing and just really try and nail a lap and
you had incidents like plot twist or so, plot spoiler menu,
losing it at the club chicane, cutting through the chicane,
taking pole and then getting thrown to the back of the grid.
You know, that created great drama for the races too.
So yeah, no, everything that there's introduced I really
liked. And I liked, as Greg mentioned,
the point because I can particularly recall at Oldham
Park, and I'm sure we'll discuss it when we get to that meeting
where Paul Radisson just is, will be still, many will be
spitting blood trying to get past Paul Radisson because he's
just there constantly just hanging on for this one point
and possibly the only point that Peugeot would score that day
because they were struggling at this point.
So it's brilliant. It added another dimension to
the feature race that, you know, this Peugeot suddenly with A,
was in the lead of a race and B could score a point when
ordinarily it would have just been languishing in 14th place
and wouldn't wouldn't have seen very much of either coverage or
B the race, to be honest, you know, So, yeah, brilliant.
They were all excellent ideas. Yeah, commercially it was great
as well for some of those smaller teams because they were
getting more TV time, you know, some of the dicing with the
leaders, as you've just said, Alex, because, you know, they're
mixed up because of pit stops. And let's just remember why they
did this as well. The BTCC always has done,
certainly since the Alan Gow era began in the late 80s, early 90s
and even to this day prided itself on being completely
unpredictable, which means not having another 1997 which was
utterly dominated wasn't it, by Menu and the Renault, Laguna and
Williams? So it was very much done to stop
them, very much like the 2003 F one season I feel, when we had a
massive shake up in the rules with the point systems and
qualifying change there as well. In the end Schumacher did win
the F1 title in 2003 but it went right down to the wire for the
first time in a long time. So yeah, you have to say the
victims in many ways were Menu and Williams and Renault, but
from our point of view it was absolutely brilliant, wasn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. One other major change for the
1998 season was the departure of Murray Walker from the BTCC
commentary box, with the BBC deciding to promote his 1997
sidekick Charlie Cox into the lead commentary position, with
former F1 race winner John Watson hired to accompany him.
When the deal was announced, Cox said.
Well, the way I look at it, I'm taking over from Murray, not
replacing him. Nobody could do that so I won't
even try. I'll be loud, boisterous and
we'll continue the Wise cracking and highlighting the funny side
of the things. I don't intend to change that
and the Beeb don't want me to. It'll be different working with
John Watson who is a driver of undisputed pedigree.
He's not backwards in coming forwards either so his views
will be entertaining, which I think ended up happening during
our practise runs together. I think we crushed 2 careers and
rivalled three other people within the 1st 7 minutes.
I mean, I think I know the answer to to what you guys will
say to this question, but do you think the BBC got this this
decision right of the pairing? Oh, absolutely.
Yes, they did. Yeah.
Charlie was the perfect lead commentator.
And what? He was the perfect foil because
as I've said many Times Now, I liked Charlie's wisecracks.
You know, he talked about highlighting the funny side of
things. You know, his catchphrases were
really memorable. He was just a brilliant talker
and he made things sound so much fun that he was perfect for the
role. And I know we had a debate about
this in the last series, didn't really have the main pod when
Jake, one of our regular listeners, said that he
preferred Charlie and Watty to Murray.
And I agree with him totally, 100%.
I think they suited the style of racing better.
And I really like the fact that you had somebody in Watty that
would call out bad driving and really say it as it is, which as
much as I love Murray Walker, he would never really do that,
would he? You know, he was always.
Sunnyside up. Yes, that's a very good way of
putting it, you know. Oh, Martin, you are a cynical
chap. Ironically, in 98.
Yeah. So yeah, it was the perfect the
the the perfect pairing as far as I was concerned.
Yeah, it's obviously things have changed, haven't they?
Because Murray I still believe is one of the greatest people in
the history of not just motor racing, but certainly the BTCC
and what he did along with Steve Ryder and obviously they're
absolutely PHP. But things have changed, haven't
they? The year before in 97, they'd
gone from 1/2 hour highlights programme to a 30 sorry, to from
1/2 hour our highlights programme to a one hour
highlights programme. Murray had focused on F1 and
Watty and Cox. They had to get this right and
they really did. And I never knew until John said
to us on this very podcast that he was going to be the lead.
That was the original idea because he'd LED commentaries
before. He'd been doing a sort of joint
lead role effectively with Ben Edwards in previous years on
Eurosport for Formula One. And that's a dream team as well,
Watty and Ben. But with Charlie it worked
brilliantly as well, didn't it? And we know they had a few
Contra tonnes between them be trucks to 99, as they both said
to us on this podcast. You know, it got a bit heated, a
bit like James Hunt and Mary Walker back in the day.
But it really, really did work, didn't it?
And it was a great dynamic. There were some really funny
moments. And it's exactly what the
temperature needed. Because that could have made or
or broken the whole TV situation.
Actually, it really could. Yeah, the wrong appointment
there could have killed it. Yeah, yeah.
And you're never going to replace, as Charlie said in that
quote, you've just read, Leave Like Murray Walker.
But he did it his way, and that's the way you have to do
it. And it was brilliant.
Whether it was the recorded highlights that made touring
cars what it was back then, all the few live rounds they were
then beginning to have, it worked really well in both
cases. Silent.
The first round of the 1998 season was held at Froxton on a
Bank Holiday weekend. Now before we get into the the
Sprint race side of things, probably the first thing to
address in terms of the on track action that weekend was the
Sprint qualifying. We've already alluded to it, but
Alan then knew Completely unstoppable in 1997 pretty much
puts in a pretty much hell of a lap to be honest.
A 90% of the way around the club Chicane all goes wrong doesn't
it? And he misses it.
That was really the the first kind of wake up call that the 98
might be different, wasn't it? Yeah, well, as he put it in his
interview post qualifying, it's exactly what Toko was looking
for. And it was because he said, you
know, as he says in the interview, what Toca wanted was
somebody quick to be at the back and have to fight their way
through the field. And that's exactly what they
got. And he was saying, I bet they
were happy at Toca. And it's a slightly barbed
response, but it's exactly right.
He's spot on. That's exactly what they would
have looked for. They would have wanted somebody
or the the grid to be shuffled up enough that would create a
bit more drama for the for the opening race.
Yeah, this race meeting in my opinion could not have been
better. Actually you had quite a lot of
different looking cars. Let's also not forget that the
Renault Lagoon has gone from yellow to green paint with the
Nest Cafe Blend 37 colour scheme.
Huge difference, especially to people like Kirstie Were really
into the helmet designs and the liveries of the cars.
And it had the rear light clusters were new and the smoked
front lights, yeah. All this ball who could.
The the. Smoked.
Front lights. Alan Partridge is amongst us.
Did they have a Toblerone on board?
But no, it was, it was it was a perfect way to start, wasn't it?
And to see menu coming through we'll get to the race in a
moment was absolutely spectacular.
Let's also not forget that it was only the second time in the
whole of the Super Touring era that Thruxton actually started
the season 94 was the previous time.
It's not often that Thruxton starts a season in any
motorsport, and track activity at Thruxton is very limited
through a year because noise restrictions.
So whether it's bikes or cars, Thruxton tends to throw up
normally in most seasons. Quite a different result to the
rest of that year. And it looked.
I won't spoil the results, but I'm sure those of you who are
listening to this already know them.
But it looked at the end of the weekend like a normalish weekend
for results. But it was certainly not to be
the pattern for the season ahead, was it?
And then, as you know, we get to the start then of that very
first race and Will Hoy and Matt Neil didn't exactly get off on
the front foot on the first lap. Did they just just guide us
through their little battle and inevitable demise in this Sprint
race? Well, first of all, Rydell had
made a bad start, hadn't he, from pole and dropped to the
third behind James Thompson's Honda and Plato's Renault?
And then yes, we get through church on the first lap.
I remember the coverage showed on board with Tim Harvey's
Peugeot. You got smoke everywhere and
Warwick is spinning the Vauxhall Vectra.
It's not even the end of the first lap of the season and
Warwick's off and then everyone was trying to back out the way,
dart around him. Binkliff got involved in the
ALDI and I remember Matt Neil saying Will jammed his foot on
the brake going through church. He went into the back of him and
then I think someone lost it and sideswiped Matt Neil.
And the next thing you see is I think Matt Neil was described as
the two would and Will Hoy was the golf ball by so a great one
liner already from Charlie in the first lap of the year.
And Alex, we see Will Hoy shooting off the infield a
little bit like Mike Smith had done at Donnington some years
before. Doing a bit of mowing, I think
was it was described as. And yeah, Will, I love the fact
that Will's just sort of trundling along the grass.
All you can hear is him just go. Oh, shit.
Yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry.
Well, I didn't hear that, but what's up?
And yeah, it was a it was a weird, a weird accident, but
very, very much a typical first lap bit of dumping and boring
that that just ended up with, with Will Harley, not for the
first time, coming off worst. Yeah, and ironically, of course
we didn't know this at the time, but Fast forward just over a
year and we had a similar incident with Menu in Plato on
the opening lap of a race coming out of church in 99.
So it kind of happened. Cold tyres, tyre warmers were
being used, weren't they, in 98 for the first time for the BTCC.
But Even so, cold tyres, first lap, fastest corner in the
country, fastest track in the country, carnage.
Good for the TV viewers though. And then is she, is she
mentioned Greg, right? I had a pretty customary poor
start firing fuel out of the back of a car as well as we'll
probably come back to in a little bit.
From then on though, it looked pretty much like it kind of felt
after qualifying that that Volvo in Rickard's hands was really
somewhat the class of the field in especially a shorter race
ball. And that wasn't it.
Yeah, it's interesting because quite there was quite a few
people when they're up at the front representing their team,
their brand, their manufacturer, Thompson in the lead Honda.
Plays their lead. Renner because many would have
his problem in qualifying. Claire Andrews up there in a
Vauxhall which we haven't seen for a very, very long time since
the end of 95 when he won in the Cavalier the championship.
But yeah, Rydell, not only was he a long way ahead of his ex F1
teammate Morbidelli. Morbidelli having come in from
Saud with the previous year. But he just looks so much more
comfortable, didn't he, with the car underneath him?
The only question mark, though, was menu because he was fighting
his way through the field. Yeah.
So we're all thinking what's going to happen in the feature
race later. But Rydell, definitely.
You could tell they'd made a huge step forward, couldn't you,
over the winter? Well, Rydell's pole lap was a
second quicker than Thompson, who was alongside him on the
front row. That's madness.
As Greg said, you don't need a discounted menu there.
Who was going quicker at the time before he had his his
mistake in club. But yeah, that was that's one
heck of a lap. That's that's as good a lap as
possibly as Bathurst pole lap. It's a shame he can't start.
Yeah, yeah, imagine how many titles he'd probably want to,
because. He'd certainly lost a lot of
races, didn't in a lot of points through 1995.
Yes, 1998, you know, and other times as well.
Yeah, absolutely. But there was also massive
pressure wasn't as we said, Tom Wilkins show was there.
He'd been with arrows with Damon Hill and Pedro de Nirs in
Argentina the day before flying back across the Atlantic.
Jet lags, I'm sure to to hell, but was there.
But there was pressure because this was the fifth year revolver
in TWR. And as John Watson alluded to in
the season review video, there was almost the threat that if we
don't get this done, you know, we might go somewhere else.
TWI might have lost the contract.
How long was Rickard Rydell going to stick?
Right? You just didn't know, did you?
The pressure was building. They had to before.
It reminds me of Reedy's quote at the end of this season when
they're fighting for the title and someone said to read, you
must be feeling the pressure anyway.
Well, I'm not the one in the 50th, my manufacturer contract
trying to win the championship. Am I also along those lines?
And yeah, so that, yeah, it just shows, isn't it?
That yeah, I've got a funny feeling something would have
happened in Volvo hoods let this slip through their fingers.
Yeah, and the second year of the S40, of course, also in a new
colour scheme. It had gone from white to silver
and blue. I much prefer the silver and
blue. Yeah, it looked fantastic,
didn't it? Yeah, it looked amazing.
But yeah, the pressure was really, really on.
So psychologically, that was probably the most important
element of that women and. And as as we've already
mentioned, Alan was pretty much the style of the show in the
Sprint race, wasn't he? It's hard to the amount of moves
that he pulled, you'd have been easily forgiven for thinking
that was the feature I see did all that work in it.
It was pretty spectacular that charge up the field, wasn't it?
And showed that he may have made a mistake, but he was still
around. He was in the quickest car
though. He was the quickest car.
Would you have the Volvo? Well, over one lap he was
quicker. He was on point to be quicker.
Yeah. So I don't know.
But I mean, you, you look at the feature race and the rain was
quicker than the revolver. So, you know, you've got your
star driver who's probably the the world's leading Super
Touring driver at that point in what everyone still assumed at
that point was the world leading super Touring car.
And you're cutting through a field of yeah, I don't know.
No, it was a good drive. I'm not trivialising.
It was a very good drive. But the first person he come
across without a problem or that was decent and had a good pace
and he couldn't get past him. And I guess to get on to that,
the flip side of that is also to highlight John Cleland and
Vauxhall and AAA had done a magnificent job in the winter.
Quite clearly from what was some, you know, 96 wasn't the
easiest first year of the Vectra. 97 was a pretty terrible
year from a Vauxhall perspective.
They were batting for bang, weren't they, John?
John held off Allan brilliantly in in.
It was just like old times. John Kerlan battling Allan menu
at the front end of a Super Touring race.
It's how it should have been, shouldn't, wasn't it?
Yeah, I mean, Coland at this point, don't forget having won
his second title in 95, first in 89 in an Astra, second in 95 in
the Cavalier, then hadn't won a race in still at this point had
not won a race since winning the championship in 95.
And again, the pressure was on. It was the third year with the
Vectra 888, the Derek Warwick organisation with Mike Nicholson
and Co. We're running the cars now and
had been since 97. New car came in about halfway
through, 1/3 of the way through 97 didn't it?
But the error package had been sorted out, but it had never
really translated properly. Had it from the Opal Vector on
the continent, which is designed for very different circuits.
They now are fantastic, full of character, quirky, tight,
twisty, strange tracks we've got in the UK.
It's the same with motorbikes. The way the vehicle uses its
power or traction to the ground and all these other things is
very different to what you see a normally flatter, quicker tracks
on mainland Europe. And finally Clinton was up there
and that battle we saw between the two of them, we hadn't seen
menu like this for a long time, had we?
He'd been very careful in 97, often winning from the front,
didn't need to fight. But this was great.
He was sideways, he was bagging into people, he was bumping into
the back of people. And it's it for this
championship itself. I really don't think it could
have been better. If you'd written a script, this
would have been more or less the sort of thing you'd gone for.
Yeah, John's defensive of many was brilliant.
It was incredible. And Alan, was he getting
frustrated behind him because there was a lot of contact.
There was a lot of contact. And I love the interview
afterwards where Alan says that John was a crafty little booger.
Yeah. And, you know, play, you know,
John SAT it in the exact right point.
It needed to be. Alan was not getting past there.
Was that incident coming out of Campbell Colvin Seagrave on the
last lap where, Yeah, where Alan tags the back and.
Tags the back, yeah. It's not really mentioned in the
commentary or anything, but that say from John Cleland is
incredible. It really is.
It's a really good save. The camera just about catches
it, I think. I don't think it's mentioned
because it's not, it's not really focused on it.
But if you watch, if you watch the Vauxhall rather than the
Renault, you can see it's a hell of a catch.
And, and, yeah, great driving and and great to see JC up there
because people were starting to question had had had his time
come and gone, you know, was it time to get someone younger in
the Vectra? Had had John Cleland, you know,
was he wasting a seat type thing?
And I'm glad to say that, you know, he put on a real good
show. It was great to see a Vauxhall
back at the front. And that pretty much sums up the
Sprint race to to recap the top five.
There you add Rydell winning Plato second, Thompson in 3rd in
the Honda which we haven't really mentioned, but a solid
drive from James, and then McClelland in Vauxhall Vectra
4th and a menu 5th leading independent Mark Lemma in the
Vauxhall Vectra. Impressive because it was the
the the least funded outfit on the grid.
Yeah, he was coming from the vector challenge.
Yeah, good performance from Lemma so.
Coming to the feature race then and before I guess we get into
the mid race element of the pit stops for the first time, we
have the second sighting of Frost 2 off the line as it was
described in commentary. We've been, we've mentioned it
before, haven't been on the main podcast with the Volvo and it's
an ongoing mystery. The seat, was it deliberate?
Was it an accident? Yeah.
It did lead to oil gating race. It wasn't really.
We saw the flames in the Sprint race, but it didn't really seem
to affect anything. In the feature race.
It became quite a problem and one that became worse at the pit
stops depending on team's actions.
I mean, when you think about it now, if that's something like
that happened in a race, now they'd probably stop the race, I
think. It was.
Really dangerous in hindsight. Yeah, it was crazy.
And I know there was debate on whether it was many was blaming
Reed. Someone else was blaming Reedy
as well. I can't remember who, but it was
very clear where the oil was coming from.
You know, those big black scorch marks are basically bumpers and
then leading from the exhaust up to the back of the boots to the
point where you couldn't read Volvo on the on the boot.
Yeah, just bizarre. I mean, and, and, and the amount
of cars that had to come in for their pit stops anyway.
And when they were coming in, they were saying can you clean
the window for me? And all it was doing because you
had rain in the air as well. All it was doing was just
smearing a layer of just this horrible film on the prospects
of the polycarbonate, sorry to give it its proper, proper name
windscreen, because obviously these were in glass at this
point. And it just left.
There was one bit of footage from Reed's Nissan and he just,
you just couldn't see. And he, in fact, he came in
again and said, I can't see a thing.
You're going to have to clean it.
Yeah, but funny enough, not one smudge on the Volvo windscreens.
Interesting coincidence, I'm sure.
It was a bit like some sort of Wacky Races deployment Dick
Dastardly sort of thing, wasn't it switched the oil on.
But it was, it was a terrible mess and like you say, the fact
it mixed and maybe everything will opaque on the windows.
It was, it was strange and we've never really known to this day
have we? Were surely they didn't do it on
purpose. I can't imagine for one second
they do it on purpose. But they were clearly running a
very fuelly car and it never happened again.
So I don't know what the background is, whether they were
asked to do something different or what, but it never happened
again. They were.
They were asked, they say. We'll talk about it in this week
next week's episode. Before the pit stop phase, we
did have another car that you know, probably to back up the
theory it was coming from the Volvos that didn't have anything
on his windscreen was Ala menu out front.
Before the pit stop phase, it seemed like a pretty good race
was developing between him and Rydell.
It for a moment, felt like the makings of a classic was on,
didn't it? Yeah, it was a good battle.
It was a good battle that I don't know about anyone else,
but I just assumed wrongly in this case that Williams, well,
they've got a Formula One team so they're pit stops are going
to be brilliant. And it turned out to be that's a
rubbish because the pit stop was awful compared to the vulnerable
boys, in fairness, who also had Formula One experience with,
with Arrows, with TWR arrows. However, I remember we've, we've
talked about this before, there wasn't that much F1 information
or advice poured down into Touring Car Williams Touring,
certainly Williams anyway, Williams Touring Car Engineering
seemed to be quite a separate entity.
So despite the fact that they were part of the Williams
Formula One team, there wasn't that much advice coming down
from from from the from the Grand Prix side of things.
One thing we did see though is the season went on was with Menu
in particular. He became the master of the
Schumacher approach to approaching the speed line,
didn't it? The greatest possible speed,
slamming the brakes on to lose his little possible time, but
coming into the pits and then obviously a rapid outlap as
well. Remember Reed being asked to
push really hard on outlaps later on in the season?
We should obviously just mention that Renault did have to clear
the screen, but Even so, it was not a good pit stop and they
they cracked under pressure, didn't they?
And Menu, who'd pulled a great move on Rydell earlier in the
race, had all that hard work to do again.
But it probably actually gave us a better race because had it
been a non pit stop race, Menu probably would have been gone,
having passed Rydell into the complex quite early on.
So it put Rydell back in front and Menu had to hunt him down.
So that pit stop thing was already working well, wasn't it,
in terms of shaking up the order?
Yeah. And as she say, probably if it
had been not a piss race, it would have been a last race
because once he was through, he then just.
It felt like 1997 all over again, didn't it?
Alan Menu romped home to victory, and perhaps it was just
a blip, was what we were thinking, wasn't it?
Yeah, I remember John Watson was a real advocate of Menu in the
commentary at the time, saying, you know, he's still very much
the favourite. I mean, the movie pulled around
the back of the circuit down through Goodwood and into church
was incredible in those conditions.
I think Ryder was probably being a bit careful, bearing in mind
he'd won the race. He was already playing the
percentages, I think. But great, great move from Menu.
And let's be honest, I don't. Alex, you were there, weren't
you, on the day? I mean, surely you would have
felt you would have had to be quite brave or maybe a bit silly
to bet against Menu at that time.
I mean, he'd been so dominant the year before.
Absolutely. And if you think as well, he
would have stuck it on pole in the Sprint race, yeah, had he
not made the mistake at club Rydell makes the same start
menu, goes off into the distance and probably wins.
So yeah, in another world menu, that's a double win and you're
probably thinking whatever took a throw at it, Williams and
Renault, we just got the answer. Yes and what was also great
there was just the fact the field had Constantine hadn't it?
Obviously those who prefer the bat had more ground to make up,
but it was definitely, definitely closer with all the
different teams and that was brilliant because we saw some
great fighting in the midfield. There was 1 little incident,
wasn't on the foot. I say little because quite big
actually. On the first lap Tommy Rushdad
in the ex Plato car from the year before went off contact
with Radissitch at the chicane and hit the barrier heavily.
Yeah, but it was a relatively incident free race day wasn't
it? Not too many big impacts, a few
incidents, but not too many. Big impacts, nothing major.
The only one that's rings a bell is Beardo having his door,
having to be having his door taped back on because him and
him and Moby Daly had a bit of a Contra to the club chicane and
they looked like a pair of midnight mini cabs.
And that's not my line. You'll be surprised to know good
old Charlie. But yeah, it was pretty instant
free apart from a couple of bits.
And actually, that kind of summed up Morbidelian bed
seasons right there, didn't it? Right from the first meeting of
the season. Pretty much, yeah.
Yeah. And it wouldn't be a British
April Day, perhaps with some showers.
And one of those showers turned into a flurry of snow at the end
of the race. Alex, we already mentioned you
were there. That pretty chilly that sounds,
doesn't it, for Easter? It was freezing, but bizarre
because I don't remember ever being a racetrack before or
since, and it's snowing, so the only time I can think of that
happening. And.
And yeah, it wasn't sticking because it would already rained
a fair bit. Yeah.
It was just unusual that he didn't really expect it to be a
BTCC event and it starts snowing.
Yeah, a bit of an odd one. One final thing I'm just going
to throw in here because I think it's important is the dismal
start to the season for Anthony Reed and Nissan, who of course
would go on to be the closest challenger to Rydell right down
to the last race meeting. He was pretty much nowhere at
this point. All sorts of problems.
They were well off the pace. So just bear that in mind, the
progress Nissan were to make, not just before the next round
at Silverstone, but all across the rest of the season because
it was not a good start for Ray Malik and for the Nissan team.
And it was a weekend really, that showcased the new rules
designed to spice up the British Touring Car Championship,
especially after the domination of Williams in Renault the
previous season. Final thoughts from you 2
gentlemen? Do you think the new rules had
worked on evidence of the first race meeting in 1998?
Yes, yeah, absolutely. Everything ticked the box.
There wasn't one. There wasn't one ruler.
I thought, no, that that that really didn't work out.
Everything was brilliant. The only thing is you couldn't
really see the yellow strips under the names because they
were so thin, which they amended for the next race.
So Alan Gow was listening. That just about wraps up our
look back at the opening round of the 1998 BTCC season at
Froxton. A fast, unforgiving circuit, a
sacked grid and all the ingredients that made Super
Touring such a special era. Intensity, intrigue and
absolutely no margin for error. Thanks for joining us for the
first episode of the Super Touring years exclusively for
Paddock Club members. If you enjoy diving a little
deeper into the stories behind the races, there's plenty more
to come. If you aren't yet a member of
the Paddock Club and enjoyed this first episode, subscribe to
The Paddock Club on our Patreon. The link is in the description
of this episode and you can then listen to the rest of the
series. We'll be back next week as the
championship heads to Silverstone for round two of the
season. Bigger speeds, bigger stakes and
more twists in a season that was only just getting started.
Until then, thanks for listening.
Then we'll see you at Silverstone.