Stories from Super Touring. The 1999 Deutsche Super Touring
Waggon Meistershaft delivered one of the closest title fights
of the Super Touring era, and it would also prove to be the most
controversial across the season. Works Opal driver UVA Ounston
and semi independent ALDI ace Christian AT went head to head
in a dramatic battle for the championship.
AT burst out of the gates with four consecutive victories,
building an early points advantage he would hold all
season long. But while AT managed just one
more win after that dominant start ounston mounted a
relentless comeback, taking six victories of his own to drag the
fight all the way to the final round.
Everything came down to the short Nurburgring circuit, with
only a handful of points separating the two drivers as
the STW era prepared for its final curtain call.
Joining me, Levi riding to look back at the final of the STW
meeting, are the creator and writer of stories from Super
Touring Alex Clark, touring car journalist Andrew Charming, and
motorsport photographer Greg Denton.
Gentlemen, how are we all exhausted?
Apart from that, fun. Yeah, yeah.
Good. Yeah, good.
Thank you. We're recording this in between
Goodwood, which was a couple of weekends ago, and Alton Park for
Touring Car Rewind, which is this coming weekend.
So basically full of Super Touring at the minute.
So. So, yeah, great.
Yeah, and and yeah, good. Thanks and really looking
forward to discussing maybe a a gem of, of super touring that
not so many people know about. But I think, yeah, once we delve
into it in a bit more detail, hopefully we'll whet their
appetite for more from from European racing.
Absolutely. And and Andrew, coming to you
first, it's our first dive into Europe on this podcast.
We've touched on on the other series in Europe before, but
when you think back to the STW in in this dramatic finale, what
first comes to your mind? Well, first thoughts.
The way this ended the short history STW Cup, as we'll talk
about in a minute, it was every bit as controversial as the
Silverstone 1992 in the BTC. But it's virtually unknown today
because I'll bet a great many of our audience don't know that
much about the STW Cup. But this was a meeting that
ended its short history in a memorable with infamous way.
Unfortunately, I wasn't at this particular meeting, but I went
to Central during the Super Touring era.
My first was at Zelda in Belgium in 1995 when I gave the late
great Brazz Hatch and BTCC commentator Brian Jones a list
in my in my company card BMW and he wheeled his way onto the PA
at Zelda within minutes of us getting there.
I went to the new Burger Ring that year where I produced what
I still consider my best ever feature.
After spoken Joe Finkelhot took me around the 14 mile launch
life in his BMW Rd car. I tried it again the following
day. My own company, BMW Rd car very
nearly had the call to my publisher after I went over this
left hand Crest which immediately turned into a right
hand Crest. And then there was the time, I
think it was about 97 Hockenheim where my wife came with me.
We watched a load of young girls speed bussed around the circuit
so that they could scream at an unknown boy band called the
Backstreet Boys. Apparently they did quite well
eventually, and I also went to this really weird place called
Zwybrook and which Greg no doubt will recall.
It was a recently decommissioned US air base.
And as you walked around it, there were signs on the tarmac
buried into the timer basically saying that you could be shot on
sight if you did the wrong thing.
So yeah, it was it, it, it, it was quite something.
But I quickly came to realise that this was a very serious
touring car championship, probably the most serious
outside the BTCC. Lovely and and Greg coming to
you next. What jumps into your mind when
you think about believe this Raves meeting and the STW in
general? Yeah, I think it.
Links to what Andrew said. If you think Silverstone 1992
was bad, this takes it to a whole new level and we'll dive
into that in more detail. But yeah, the SCW was a little
bit of a hidden gem. I went like Andrew, I went to a
few rounds older in 1997, Nurburger in 1998, and it was a
really top class championship. And yeah, full of high quality
drivers. So yeah, it was, it was really
well worth going to watch. It was difficult to watch the
coverage. I think in the depths of
Eurosport or Speed sport as it was at the time.
You you could watch the watch the coverage.
I got a little bit of German knowledge from it.
So you've, let's see Rundi last laugh so I could learn that bit
some, some interesting German phrases from it.
But yeah, it really was top quality, top quality racing.
And finally coming to you, Alex, what are your memories of this
event? For me it's just the yellow
Audi's because I love the colour yellow.
Those cars are fantastic, although not quite as good as
they looked at the TT in 97 when they were in that fluorescent
yellow when they came over from donning.
The Red Bull. Yeah, yeah.
But honestly, it's just remembering just how chaotic it
was. Obviously you've got the last
lap nonsense, which went on, but you've got to watch the whole
race because all race long people were going off, coming
back on, bumping into each other, pushing past each other.
It was, it's a chaotic race. And as Greg just said, then it
makes Silverstone 92 look like kindergarten.
You know, everyone talks about Silverstone 92.
And don't get me wrong, controversial moment brought
touring cars to the masses, Absolutely.
But this for controversy. And yeah, just just how crazy it
all was. This tops it easily.
Now, most of our listeners will know the BTCC inside out, but
the STW perhaps doesn't get talked about quite as much as
here in the UK, despite being one of the major championships
of the Super Touring era, packed with factory teams, big
manufacturers and hugely talented drivers.
Before we dive into the Nurburgring finale itself and
during Greg, as we've already touched on, you were at some of
the races at the time, can you just help set the scene for us a
little? What made the SCW such an
important championship at the time, and why does it still hold
such a special place for touring car fans today?
Well, if you think the Super Touring era of the BTCC was
short period, the STW Cup lasted just six years.
It was started in 94, ended in 99, but in that time it very
quickly became the most important Super Touring
championship outside the BTCC. In my earliest years as a
motorsport photographer. Yeah, Greg, I bet you didn't
know that everyone knew the DTM, the Deutsche Turin Waggon and
Mason Shaft as the most action-packed touring car serial
is basically in the world before the two litre BTCC came along
with it's two and half litre turbo turbo chargers and BMWs
bouncing off to each other. But by 94, the DTM had become
too expensive. The cars had become so complex
and quick they were, they were literally comparable to Formula
One cars in their complexity and their cost.
And the FIA had got to the point where they came in the middle of
it and they created their own international championship that
ran across alongside the DTM which the process doubled the
cost. So the German manufacturers,
particularly the big 3B, MWLD and Opal saw the success of
Super Touring and jumped at the chance of their own series
battling each other with multiple teams and listing them
forward, also joining again. And as has been said, they were
top drivers. I particularly remember the
Eurburgering in 95. Ricardo Patrese as in ex William
Z1 driver Ricardo Patrese. I think he was in a Ford at
time, but he was having a really bad time with it that year.
And one of my colleagues told me was story this little this
little girl went up with an autograph book hoping to get his
autograph. And he was sitting brooding in
the pics and he looked her and he went have you got a pen?
And she sort of nervously shook her heads and he went well then
and stopped off into the pit. But it was, it was a brilliant
series. And I will tell my favourite STW
Cup story here now. And it can be cut out of the
edit if you feel it necessary because it was run by the Aidac,
which is Germany's motoring body also organises its motorsport as
well. And they had brilliant media
hospitality. And at the time it was written
by this really great guy called Klaus Kramer.
He was German, obviously. He had a Kilani driving licence
which I never got to the bottom of, and he spoke better English
than I did. And he could not do enough for
us. See, my wife came to a few
meetings with me. He arranged us cars to get us to
circuits with the manufacturers. Him and his partner took us out
to dinner one night just so he could extolled the values of
German asparagus, which apparently supposed to be
something quite special. But we were sitting having a
drink one day in the hospitality centre at one of the meetings
and Klaus came back to us and he said, Andrew, Andrew, all of the
British journalists, they keep coming up to me and saying don't
mention the war, what are they on about?
And I looked at my wife Rosemary and she looked at me.
We both grieved and we said, Klaus, when we get home we will
go and buy you the video and we will bring it to the next
meeting. And you will know to younger
people listening to this videos of what we had before DVDs and
DVDs of what we had before streaming.
OK, so we did. We got the video of the
particular 40 Towers episode. We took it along and we gave it
to him at the next meeting and then cut the months later at
another meeting. We said to Clouse, did you watch
the video? Oh yes, he said, Cloudy and I
sat down one night and we watched it.
We laughed and laughed and laughed.
But a few years ago we would have been very insulted and that
is my favourite SDW Cup story. Nothing to do with racing cars
at all. Greg, how about you?
What? What kind of team made the STW
so special at that time? Yeah, I think it was.
It was slightly different to the British Touring Car
Championship. You'd never got the depth of
manufacturers. So there wasn't, you know, Rendo
never entered it, Volvo never entered it.
But what you did obvious that the the manufacturers that did
would often enter multiple teams in it.
So BMW just wouldn't enter one works team.
They'd have two, maybe 3 Oval as well, multiple teams.
And often you ended up with a really big grid, you know, 40
odd cars near enough every round at the height of it, as Andrew's
already said, some really star names, Ricardo Patrese, you
know, there was some proper top level Victorian car drivers in
it. You know, often Winkleheart
would be flitting between the BTCC and the STW.
So yeah, I think it, it sort of lacked the, the manufacturer
total backing that we saw in British, the British
Championship. But we, yeah, we saw a really
good variety. We also saw some Peugeots that
were actually good. They're actually bloody good.
They were, you know, when IL I was in that hassle Rd, a yellow
Peugeot that absolutely flew. You know, that was one hell of a
car. I think the other side as well,
some of the circuits were not, you know, they're they're not
the pedigree apart from your Hockenheim burgering songs.
Burgering was always a good one. But as Andrew said, they turned
up as well at some old airfield circuits.
So the pedigree, odd say, of the circuits were a little bit less.
But yeah, overall it was a really very, very strong touring
car champion. Yeah, I've recently been sent a
load of STW coverage, all in German, so I've enjoyed picking
up a bit from my GCSE German days.
And you're right, it's mad to see some of the some of the
tracks. There was one track in
particular that literally looked like an airfield with tyre
stack. Yeah.
Well, yeah, it was. Like a like a go Kart track in
Britain sort of thing. You know Arvis as well, which
was just a motorway. Yeah.
Yeah, I think it was one of the airfield circuits.
What? Warren Hughes had a massive
crash in a Ford Mondeo 5 brooken.
Yeah, as well I was. There that was, yeah, that was 5
brooken. And what it was because
vibrooken was basically taxiways in the runway and they all went
off the grid and it was a sort of slight left, right down this
first taxiway. And he got sort of pushed off
onto the grass. And of course, it was the huge
grass between the taxiway and the runway.
And his Ford went shooting across his grass and found the
one manhole cover that was in the hold of this field, hit it
and rolled itself to destruction.
I saw Warren a couple of years ago.
He still remembers that we've. Oh dear.
Yeah, it was. It was some accident he had.
We asked our Paddock Club members what they thought of
this controversial title decider and they've come back trusted
for the following. Jay Winsall said it was the
worst conduct he's ever seen on a race track, adding that it
makes Michael Schumacher's dubious moves from the era look
perfectly fine. The Doctor got in touch to say
that Roland Bash should have had his racing licence taken off of
him and shredded after the event.
Jake Callahan simply said if gap car, which I think a few drivers
took that quite quite literally and wrote until also got in
touch to add that despite everyone going on about
Silverstone 1992, this decider was much worse, which I think
we've already touched on that this is a little bit more
controversial than even Silverstone 92.
I think that's Jake Callahan. Comment ought to be said with
the the accent from Animal of The Muppets.
Yeah, as mentioned at the start of the episode, this was the
final year of the STW with major manufacturers such as BMW, ALDI
and Peugeot all withdrawing at the end of 1998.
Andrew, was the STW struggling with the same issues as the UK
for increasing costs and waning manufacturer support?
Yes. Absolutely.
Because anytime you get involved with manufacturers, they all
want to win and they will pile as much money as they can get to
win. And when they stop winning, the
manufacturer boardrooms, you know, the the financial side of
the boardrooms, say why are we spending all this money and
we're not getting the glory out of it?
You can understand why Peugeot went because they'd won
everything and Audi was getting much more interested in the
mall. And so yes, and the costs were a
major factor, but there was also another factor and that was the
DTN made a comeback. They come up with a new and much
more cost can train series, which all the manufacturers
decamped to in 2000. Because the DTN had always been
a very, very, very German series.
I mean, used to claim to have Grand Prix level crowds and its
meetings. What people, what they didn't
say though, was that 75% of the tickets were given out free by
manufacturers to get the so So yeah, so the DTMS come back in
2000 made a big difference. And I think you could also argue
that all the political nastiness that grew throughout 1999 and
then erupted at this finale, that couldn't have impressed,
impressed the high ups in the manufacturer board with anyway.
So any alternative would have seemed rather more appealing
after that. Yeah, with much of the
established competition gone, many expect in 1999 to be Opal's
championship to lose. Honda arrived with the new
Accord mirroring the fresh start scene in the BTCC and Opal fully
expected to begin the season as the benchmark team.
What nobody had quite anticipated was the speed of the
semi independent at Sport ALDI outfit, with Christian Apps
stalling to victory in the opening 4 races of the season.
Greg, were you shocked to see Apps sort of fast start to the
season, especially going up against the the might of Opal's
manufacturer effort? Yeah, I think if you didn't know
the championship when you didn't know the teams, you would have
been surprised by that. But App, to be honest, we're a
top level team. And yeah, were they a private
team? I'd say definitely not.
There must have still been a lot of behind the scenes backing
from from Audi and you only have to look what he did in 2000.
As Andrew said, the DDTM came back on stream and apartment
Audi turned up with four absolutely stunning Audi TTS
with a really strong driver line up.
Not an Aiello James Thompson, Chris Nissan was it 3 maybe
there's only three of them, but a really strong line up of South
build cars and you know a couple of years later they went on to
win the DTM as well. So they really were absolute top
notch outfit. So for the, I don't know of the
series, you know, you said, oh, how can a privateer turn up and
do this? But they were, they were far
from the privateers teams that we recognised from the the
British Championship, I would say.
Private teams have been granted special permission to run 4
wheel drive cars for 1999, but Apartment took a different
approach to what many expected. Rather than using their older
1997 Audis, the team converted their 1998 front wheel drive
machine into a four wheel drive car using a bespoke system of
their own design. We practically rebuilt the
entire gearbox instead of using the 1997 version hands.
You can act later explain to motorsport-total.com.
This gave us better weight distribution.
The car felt very good. Of course, the big debate
throughout the season was just how private the APP operation
really was. APP always maintained it as an
independent effort. Whilst the rivals are Opal,
we're convinced that they're effectively racing against the
disguised fact reality. Team Alex was the level of
support behind that, one of the major talking points throughout
that season. Yes, yeah, definitely was a Greg
sort of just outlined it there really apartment were a serious
racing outfit that built serious race cars and as you've just
explained adapted their own. They put their own touch on
racing cars. A similar example I can give is
very much a bit like Dynamics here in the UK when they were
running Nissans in the late the late 90s and they were, you
know, wiping the floor with the other independent entries.
Very similar sort of setup. For example, Franz and Franz
Ensler entered halfway through the STW in 99 with a, with an
AR155. We're talking 1999.
So it's quite an old car at this point.
That's what you would think of as a true independent.
Then he, you know, running his own team brought his own car.
This was on another level, you know, as Greg said, when the DTM
was reborn. They went and basically ran the
ODTTS for OD in that championship and, and, and
eventually went and won. So they were, they were a
serious race team. And yeah, it it, it was no
surprise that they were as good as they are, as good as they
were showing. Like I said, the the the best
comparison would be Matt Neil in Dynamics.
Imagine Neil running and it nearly happened a couple of
times. Imagine Dynamics running too
many sounds at the back end of the 90s.
It that's a very similar sort of story.
I think the the apartment ones would really stand up.
There was a second sort of semi works Audi team that do you
remember Majeva sponsored? I think it was Phoenix Racing,
which yes Andrew might correct me, but I think it was something
to do with Zach's feed. So again another top level team
with two well prepared cars but they were never on the papers of
of the out cars. They were good drivers as well.
Bartels race for them didn't. They yeah.
Michael Bartels. Yeah, Yeah.
So, so yeah, the the top, top effort, top top 2.
On the other side of the fight was the Opal Vectra B, updated
with a facer for the 1999 season and representing perhaps the
ultimate evolution of the Super Touring formula.
Packed with the latest technology, it was a car
developed with 1 clear goal in mind, winning the STW title.
With so many manufacturers having already withdrawn from
the championship, Opel entered the season as clear favourites
and committed fully to the programme.
Their in house tuning partner space produced a phenomenal
engine and at its absolute best to Vectra simply had performance
that few others on the grid could match.
Behind the wheel was Uve Anson, an all action driver with
immense natural speed and a fiercely competitive edge.
By 1999 he was no longer simply an exciting and talent, but an
experienced touring car racer who had sharpened his craft
alongside Klaus Ludwick during the ITC era.
In 1996, Klaus was the greatest touring car and sports car
driver of all time for me, Ouston later told
motorsport-total.com, while others had Ayrton Senate as
their role model. Clowns was mine.
Greg. What sort of racer was Anson
like on the track? Yeah, I think I looked at that
question. I thought, how would I best
describe him? And if I was to describe him
like a different sportsman, he'd be like, I think a cage fighter.
He was that type of guy, always, always on the edge, always
pushing. I always remember there was a
race, it probably was in 97 or 98, He was in the Promar
sponsored Opal. So you know, one of the yellow
cars and in one of the races that he had an accident and both
the doors off the side of the car got ripped off.
Then most drivers would just say, oh, I parked the car.
Now we can't continue like this. Not Uvay, Allison, he carried on
going. So there's footage of this car
racing with the 2 doors that are on the side, his side of the car
completely ripped off. I've never seen it in any other
in any other race. But yeah, Uvay was still going
absolutely flat out. And I think I first saw him in
probably 92 in the DTM when it came to Donnington.
And he was in a very old Mercedes, but in a private, I
think person Motorsports, something like that.
But already then he was streaks ahead of any other similar
driver in a similar car. So he knew that he'd got
something special. And he was a a very fast driver
in it. Yeah, that's what we saw get to
1999. I think he was really the the
pinnacle of his of his career. Then there was Christian App, a
driver many British fans probably first became familiar
with for his appearance at the 1997 Touring cartridge for
meeting at Donington Park. Wells, perhaps not as naturally
explosive as Allison, and to build a reputation as an
incredibly intelligent, composed and consistent racer, qualities
that have proved vital over the course of the 1999 season.
Andrew, What sort of driver was Christian Act and what made him
just such a strong championship contender that year?
Well composed and he could be harder racer when he wanted to
be, as he would very much prove in this finale.
He tried to make his neighbour single seaters.
He won the German Formula Junior BMW Junior Series in 91 but like
many of a single seater driver he he didn't really have
consistent success after that and he switched touring cars in
96. No doubt a consist.
A constituent factor of that was the fact that his brother was
running an outing team which he settled very nicely into and
became my central part of that for quite a long time.
But we talked just now about just how independent was his
team because clearly Christian impressed Audi's management
because in 99 and then 2000 he was in one of their the modern
cars and in the 2124 hours he finished third.
So you know, he, he, he had it all, he had it all there.
He he was so spring cheeky by anybody.
Shocked by the early dominance of the APT, Aldi's rival factory
teams at Opel and Honda began pushing back hard with
suggestions they could even walk away from the championship
altogether unless something was done to slow the four wheel
drive cars down. Alex, this is the age host
debate in touring car racing, isn't it?
Front wheel drive doesn't like rear wheel drive cars.
Rear wheel drive doesn't like 4 wheel drive. 4 wheel drive gets
upset weight penalties. It's, it's normal half of the
course, isn't it? Where's Charlie Cox with 30 bags
of sugar in the Alton Park pickling when you need it?
That's what I want to say. But no, you're right.
It's, it's the same old story. We hear it now in modern day
touring car rating. We heard it back then.
It's the same thing. Or, you know, you're not ever
going to get complete parity. And even if you did, nobody's
going to be happy about that either.
Yeah, it's literally the repeat of 1996 and 1997, isn't it?
In the British series, where in 1996 already came absolutely
wiped the floor with everyone, Frank Beeler was winning, was
finishing on the podium at Thruxton after 10 second
penalties and starting at the back of the grid in the early
start. Early part of 1997 Toker slapped
30 weight, 30 kilogramme weight penalty on them and the cars
were nowhere and they would only win like they did at Thruxton at
the start of 97 when it was raining.
So it would be brilliant if you could find an in between moment,
an area where everyone was happy but you just couldn't do it.
Yeah, exact same story. What the fall with everyone in
the first four races. Slapped another 30 kilos of lead
in the car and it's suddenly nowhere.
Or not nowhere. But, you know, Act certainly
wasn't, wasn't fighting for victories then.
He was very consistent, still regularly finished in the top
five, got a few podium scores, but the car had clearly lost in
his competitive edge because of that weight penalty.
And yeah, there's there's not ever going to be an answer, I
don't think. No one is ever consistently
happy in professional motorsport for more than 5 minutes per rank
weekend. Under increasing political
pressure, the organisers eventually acted, handing the
four wheel drive Aldi's a substantial weight penalty.
Their minimum weight was increased from 1040 kilogrammes
to 1070 kilogrammes, a significant handicap in a
championship where margins were incredibly fine.
Greg, 30 kilogrammes is a huge amount of Caribbean touring car
racing isn't it? Is that a viewed as a fair
decision at the time, or did people feel like the Andes were
being punished simply for being too competitive?
Yeah, I'm sure if you were Opal or Honda, it probably wasn't
enough. They probably wanted more.
If you're the app say it was far too much, they'll just say we're
penalising us for developing a great car.
We use the rule book to our advantage.
So yeah, I think without going back to that time, I'm sure
there was as many people saying it was far too much, as many
people saying oh, it wasn't enough.
So yeah, if you can never win. And we saw similar in the
British championship, yeah, what someone says is the right thing
to do, someone else will say that's that's not fair.
So yeah, I think, I think the organisers had to do something
with the threat of, you know, the two manufacturers that are
left pulling out. You know, they couldn't just
turn the turn a blind eye to it and do nothing.
Allison responded by winning the next three races in his Oval as
the momentum of the championship began to swing.
In contrast, AT was struggling more following the balance
changes, rarely featuring on the podium during the middle part of
the season. His next victory would not come
in still Misano, and even then that arrived in dramatic
circumstances after the 2A course.
Alpha Romeos, guesting at the Italian round, collided with
each other in Race 2, having dominated and won the opening
race of the weekend. Andrew, this is very much a
repeat storyline in BTCC during Audi's tenure in the series,
isn't it? You've got all the all-wheel
drive and weight penalties or team mates crashing into each
other. Yeah, there were so a lot of
parallels one can see between the BTCC and the SCW Cap.
That was part of the appeal of it really.
Yeah. I mean when I first went to a
German SCW cap round I felt in a very alien environment.
That lasted about 15 minutes before I realised it was just
all of the same issues that everybody has in every major
series, just in a different place.
So yeah, yeah, the same thing, really.
And and Alex, a quick word on the Antha collision.
Not not a great look in your single appearance in the
Championship for 99, was it? So the STW went to Mizano in
Italy and Alpha Course thought well great, we'll come and enter
Juvenadi and Lorini Juvenardi went and promptly won the the
Sprint race and then on about three corners in in on the
second race, they take each other out and they both end up
in the gravel. And it was just a bizarre crash.
I can't remember which one, which one, I don't know if
Andrew or Greg can remember, but one went wide and then onto the
grass and then just came back on.
And I think it was Lorini and he harpooned Juvenardi and they
both just sat in the gravel. Just a really, really, when you
think you you're coming along, guesting for that weekend,
already won one race. It's just, it's just a really,
it's just a really silly accident, you know?
The championship ebbed and flowed from that point, with
certain race weekends in the balance switch from ounston to
AT and back again, until the tempers boiled over at the
penultimate meeting at Hockenheim.
It was in the opening Sprint race that it all started.
Apartment was aggressively hit and spun by a lapped privateer
Oval driver, sending him directly into the path of
Allison. Allison hit the howdy hard and
left both cars of substantial damage.
Let's breakdown the incident first.
Greg Opal team tactics you think?
Or or just a coincidence? Normally I would say it was just
a coincidence, it was just bad luck.
But with the bad feeling brewing in the championship and they're
clearly Opal and Honda feeling agree that this private team was
beating them, that maybe it wasn't a private team.
You wouldn't be so crazy to suggest that maybe some of the
Opal privateers were asked to support the main Opal teams.
How you know? Who knows what free tyres or
engines they were given for the final rounds of the season.
We'll probably never ever know that, but I would have to be a
little bit. Yeah.
A little bit circumspect to say, yeah, maybe there was something
more more to it than met the eye.
First view was it was a basic incident.
But yeah, we've what was to come.
I'm not 100% sure. This was then the point where
the political tension the championship really boiled over.
Despite heavy damage, the App squad somehow managed to repair
Christian Apps ALDI in time for him to salvage a third place
finish in the second race of the day, a result that could have
proven crucial in the title fight.
But the drama was only just beginning.
After the race, Apartment was stripped of the result and
disqualified when stewards ruled that his mechanics had allegedly
become working on the car too early whilst it was still under
strict Park Ferne conditions. The protests had of course come
from Opal, who formally argued that the ACT crew had touched
and repaired the damage Audi before they were legally
permitted to do so. Alex, this is feeling like very
classic touring par politics, isn't it?
Was this Opal simply playing the game better than everyone else
at this stage of the championship?
Oh, if you're Opal then you're rubbing your hands together
thinking, well, we've got them here.
Because if Acted kept that third place, the the championship
picture would have looked totally different.
As it was with him being disqualified, there was only a
handful of points between Outson and Apartment before the finale
at at the Nurburgring. Adab kept that third place.
It was looking a lot rosier for for the ACT team, wasn't it?
You know, they were they would definitely be odds on favourite
for winning the championship. But you can you've got to say
if, if, if that's what app did, if they touched the car before
the rules entitled them to do so, then it's their own fault
and they haven't followed the rules.
And and you've got to say fair play to Opal for spotting it.
You know, I nobody likes nobody likes a telltale, but Opal had a
a lot, a lot on the plate. You know, they they were
fighting for this championship and that that decision to to go
to the stewards and report them. It kept them in the hunt,
whereas if it stayed as it was, they were nowhere near winning
the championship. So no, no problem with Opel
doing that whatsoever, because rules are rules.
And if it was the other way around, you can guarantee that
they would they would be doing the same thing.
So no, that's, that's motorsport, that's sport in
general, isn't it? You know that that's exactly
what sport is like. If you can get a competitive
advantage, you grab it. Yeah, you can only about
imagine. There's probably quite a few
Opal employees that were positioned around the ABS team
all weekend. But like Southampton, the
Southampton Sky and the meetings through shredding and crowds,
yes, I'm sure they scrutinise everything they did for the
whole weekend. The the Opal interns.
And so the championship arrived its final showdown at the Nurba
Groom, with only a handful of points separating Uwe Outson and
Christian AT. Despite everything that had
happened throughout the season, AT still clung on to the
championship lead heading into the final meeting of the STW
era. After months of controversy,
political battles and growing tension between the leading
teams, the atmosphere was incredibly charged.
By this stage, everyone sensed the finale had the potential to
become one of the defining moments in Super Touring
history. Oz struck first by winning the
Sprint race ahead of AT, cutting the points gap even further and
setting up a dramatic decider. The mathematics were now simple.
Ounces are needed to win the final race and hope AT finish
third or lower to steal the championship.
Any result of second or above for the Audi driver, however,
would swing the title back in AT's favour.
The atmosphere heading into the finale was incredibly tense.
Volkers 3 SEC ordered his team to attack me.
Christian up later recalled as the pressure and animosity
between the title rivals reached boiling point.
AT though had a strategy of his own.
Rather than trying to defend conservatively, he believed his
attack would be his best form of defence, particularly as many
felt the Audi package was stronger than the Opal around
the Nurba green layout. Andrew after everything that had
unfolded throughout the season, the protests, the boundless
debate is the political gamesmanship, it felt inevitable
that this championship decided it was going to be an explosive
affair, didn't it it? Did everything was getting
fairly hostile by this stage, which if you look at it
honestly, you know, some people would like all the, the
likelihood of the wrong sort of action.
But obviously it's a sad way to go motor racing.
I mean, everything was expected to kick off and it was expected
to kick off for all the wrong reasons.
To me, that's no way to decide any sort of championship.
I, I, I'd like to see proper pure racing, not you know.
So there we go. At the start at 4 wheel drive,
Audi launched exactly as expected, allowing him to grab
the lead into the opening corners, but the advantage
wasn't quite as decisive as many had predicted.
Outson produced one of his trademark starts in the front
wheel drive Opal and thanks to a strong launch, Outson stayed
close enough to attack and sweep him to the lead before the Vidal
chicane. As the pair approached the break
in zone Out made contact with the rear of the Opal, nudging
Outsense Vet just straight through the chicane.
There was later debate over whether the sponsor board and
Outsense car had already been damaged at that point, but
crucially he held on to the lead.
Behind him, the drama intensified almost immediately.
Eric Ellery attacked A slowed ALDI about into the final corner
that the pair ran out of room. Apps defended aggressively while
Ellery break too late, damaging Inspector and ending his race on
the spot as the cars accelerated away.
Apartment Emmanuel Reuter then became entangled in another
Flashpoint. Apps squeeze across Reuters
Opal, prompting A dramatic reaction from the Opal driver,
who swerved theatrically towards the pit wall before powering
passed in the chaos. App also lost third place to Tom
Christensen's Honda Greg. All of that drama and already
won Opal out by the end of that one.
It was a hectic start, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was absolutely a frenetic start, you know, with
all the title contenders or the two title contenders at the
front and teammates around about, I think, yeah, the
circuit had some tight corners as well.
So I think it was inevitable that something was going to
happen. And yeah, I think it it played
how it was probably we predicted with with some carnage just on
that one. On to lap 3 and AT had closed
right back onto the rear of Reuters Opal.
Reuters task was clear, keep the Audi bottled up long enough for
outs and to disappear up the road.
Also the chasing packs formed all over AT from behind.
AT wanted. No passing it though and he
lunges into the corner behind Rita, muscles his way down the
inside and powers from the exit. The pair banged wheels in the
process. The ALDI survivor about damage
or the Opal was the stranded and out of the race Andrew.
If Evat thought that the opals are out to get him, he was doing
a very good job of seeing them off wasn't he?
3 lapsed in and two of their leading vectors were already
out. Yeah, but when I came back at
the footage, some of the manoeuvres were very much on the
heavy side with AT handing out as much as he took.
Yes, yeah, certainly nothing like it would be tolerated
today. And even in those days, I
remember the long line of sheepish drivers standing
outside the Toker bus in Britain waiting to see the headmaster at
the end of race meetings. But they got away with a lot
more than they would today. But this, these German tactics,
they yeah, they would just would not have been allowed in even in
Britain then. It, it was just, it was, it was
banger racing, wasn't It was. The equivalent of the eight of
the Tucker bus in Germany, Andrew, the Adak bus or.
Where do they care for that punishment?
I don't recall seeing one, but then again there wasn't really a
character like Alan Gow. No, no.
There will never be another Alan Gow.
No, no, you, you're right though.
Driving like that, I know lots of people say that the the the
standards are worse then compared to now, but they
certainly weren't that bad. They were never ever to the
point where, as you said, it was effectively banger racing.
You know, there was very little racing excellence on display.
There was, it was just, yeah, it was just banger racing.
This talk of rubbing is racing. It was beyond rubbing.
It was shoving. And pushing it was, I mean, out,
I mean out shoulders. No, Reuter doesn't, let's be
honest. It's it's a shove on the
outside. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And he feels everyone's out to
get him. So if he's.
Going to get them first. Yes, exactly.
Yeah, attack is the best form of defence and as as you said Levi,
two of them are out. So not a bad start.
But no, in all seriousness, it wasn't.
It wasn't great. It wasn't a good look, let's put
it that way. By the lape the battle at the
front had settled somewhat, but the pressure was still building.
Apartment was consistently quicker than Oz and ahead,
whilst Christensen was laughing faster than both of them.
Alex Christensen had definitely got to grips at the Honda Accord
at this point. Hadn't needed it was you'd have
fought the time setting yourself up for a charge in 2000.
Yeah, he was flying in the second-half of of 1999 in that
new Honda. It was the same model.
It was the same new model Honda that had been brought to the
British series. Unlike James Thompson, they
struggled with it at the start and it only really got to the
the the middle point of the season where it started winning.
And Christensen was one of the quickest drivers from that
middle point of the season in the championship.
He was winning races. He was always up there.
He was fighting for wins, podium finishes, unless you're right,
you rightly say look strong for somewhere in 2000.
And we know that he came to Britain and raced the the Accord
in in the BTCC that season, but came across three extremely well
developed and well funded Mondeo was driven by touring car
royalties. So yeah.
But at this point Christensen had won at Le Mans, hadn't he?
So, you know, his stock was high.
He was, you know, he was a world class driver and showing it.
Meanwhile, further down the order, Roland Ash was handed a
stop go penalty for jumping the start, a penalty he simply chose
to ignore as he continued charging around the circuit.
The race calmed down but on lap 17, with the leaders bunching
back together, Christian Up made a major mistake at the Vidal
chicane. He clattered over the tyre stack
on the inside and although he managed to keep going, the
impact left the right front tyre rubbing heavily against the
front wheel arch down the start finish straight at violently
jerked the steering from side to side, trying to free the damage
body work. From the outside it looked as
though the tyre had let go completely.
For the next two or three laps, smoke continued to pour from the
right front corner, but once again, and not for the first
time that season, and AT Audi somehow managed to separate the
crumpled Fender from the tyre and keep the car in the fine.
Craig, it really looked like desperate times for apps, didn't
it? I mean, on the pit will, they
were pulling their absolute hair out in the TV coverage, weren't
they? It was really just adding to
such a tense finale. Yeah, I think when you think
your whole season is now dependent on these last few laps
and you think that there's a chance that you might blow a
tie, you'll, you'll do absolutely everything to try and
to try and save it. So yeah, I'm, I'm sure he tried
many, many things that were not what you'd normally do.
But yeah, he had no other choice.
He couldn't go into the pits but clearly lose his position.
So he was a do or do or die situation I guess.
The completion of the championship fight changed once
again when Tom Christensen finally found a way past at
Still Smoking Audi. In an instant Abd lost control
of his own destiny and everything hung on the battle
ahead. If Christensen could also
overtake Outson, the title would have swung back in AB Saver, but
if Outson held on to the lead whilst and limb Homan third, the
championship would belong to Opal instead.
Traffic only added to the tension.
When Apartment called Olaf Pfluger, the very man who had
wiped him out at Hockenheim in the last meeting, there was a
collective sense of dread on the Apartment pit wall.
This time, however, Pluger calmly moved it aside and let
the ALDI free without drama. Meanwhile, the chaos surrounding
Roland Ash's race was escalating further.
Having ignored the stop go penalty again and again, the
immature driver finally was shown the Black Flag.
Remarkably, Ash refused to acknowledge that as well,
continuing to charge around the circuit whilst regaling in the
stricken Audi about corner by corner Andrew.
When Ash was repeatedly ignoring the officials instructions and
continuing to race as if nothing had happened, did you begin to
suspect there might be foul play on the horizon?
Or, or was it just a case of I'll keep driving and I'll fight
my corner after the race possibly?
But if there was a plan, and it looked very much like there
could be a plan, then there was absolutely no excuse for it.
You simply can't ignore the decisions of the race
management. If you allowed that sort of
thing to carry on, motor racing would very quickly descend into
chaos because everybody would do it.
I'm not sure what he got in the way of penalties afterwards.
I reckon his licence should have been taken away for a very long
time because you said we can't do that, you know, it's just
totally wrong. It's it's a bit strange as well
because it was totally out of character of Usher.
They would recall him and ever doing anything like that in his
previous racing. You know, he was a top driver
Mercedes in the DTM. He raced for Nissan in the in
the STW. Yeah, he Roland Usher was a
really good seasoned professional drive through.
I, I don't even call him ever doing anything like this in in
the past. So yeah, it was a very strange
situation. He did have a.
Must have been a big bonus. He did have there wasn't wasn't
there a wasn't there an incident with Nanini in the DTM in 94?
At the Oh yeah, they might, they might have been here, but the
industrial estate circuit. Wasn't he, wasn't he racing?
And he was he, he was Nanini was lapping Ash, Yes.
And Ash intentionally drove into the side of him.
Yeah, yes. And then.
But then. But then Nanini did it back,
didn't he? He came out the piss and Toby.
Pole axed him. Yeah, he axed him.
Kept driving and the car basically blew up, didn't it?
After that one? Yeah, there was.
A bit of a track record there then with.
Roland. That's the only thing I can
think of that's vaguely similar. But of course he hadn't done it
yet. This time he was.
If I remember rightly, he was complaining that his radio
wasn't working and that's why he wasn't answering the calls to
come in for his stop and go. And he couldn't see the big
Black Flag exactly. Some of his eyes.
Sit temporary blindness down the street.
His eyes weren't working. Either.
As the race entered its closing stages, the tension was gripping
the AT Sportsline pit wall. The crew were readying itself
for a pit stop, with many fearing that the damage to AT's
freight front tyre finally it become too severe to risk
continuing. Then came an unexpected twist.
It was not Christian apartment to dive into the pits but Chris
Nissan, the team blade a puncture.
But after a rapid stop, Nissan rejoined the race directly
behind the leading Honda of Tom Christensen at the front.
The pressure was beginning to tell on Outson as well.
Once again he out broke himself at the Vidal chicane and he went
straight across the run off without any contact from another
car. This time he collected one of
the responsibles which wedged itself into the right front
brake cooling dock as he really joined the track.
Alex Alison was clearly feeling the pressure of what was
becoming very quickly a the crazy and bizarre into the
season. Well, he kept taking that line
to the veto chicane and yeah, at some point he was going to cause
himself a bit of problems with with with doing so.
And, and yeah, yeah, the sponsor board attached himself to the
car and it blocked the the brake duct.
So yeah, it was not good for. I mean, apartment was worrying
about his dramas with his tyre and the the wheel arch rubbing
and go. How many times have we seen that
in Super Tory over over the years?
But and, and eventually causing a puncture where it's just worn
away the tyre so much. So apartment was really
struggling and really worrying. And now you've got Alson with a
a damaged car and not being able to drive at its full potential
either. So it really is, I'm expecting
Dick Dastardly and Nutley to appear in the in the background
at some point to be with some sort of contraption because it
was descending into that sort of race.
It was like it was a destruction Derby.
It was like who's who could just finish.
And yeah, it was clearly very tense in both camps.
The damage to Oz Opal began to take effect almost immediately.
His breaking performance dropped away corner by corner, and Tom
Christensen sensed the opportunity at once.
The Honda driver closed rapidly on the struggling Opal and by
the final corner he made the decisive move, sweeping past and
into the lead, a position that for the moment handed the
championship to Christian AT. But the drama was far from over.
AT Sink caught the wounded Opel himself and slipped through as
outs and battled desperately with fading breaks.
For a brief moment outsense title hopes appeared all but
finished, but only two corners later AT made a mistake of his
own, skating off the circuit and ploughing through the gravel
trap that allowed out some to regain second place without
dropping back to 3rd. But that would still be enough
for AT to secure the championship ahead.
Christensen had begun to lack Chris Nisson, who'd rejoined the
fight directly in front of outs in an act.
At the same time, the already disqualified Roland Nash came
charging back into contention at alarming speed.
This meant that the battered Opal and the wounded ALDI were
no longer racing for victory alone.
They were simply trying to survive to the chequered flag.
Greg, with a few hours ago certainly starting to kick off,
wasn't it? It was.
It's a bizarre sight of of actor announced and not wanting to win
the title simply and throwing themselves off the track at any
given opportunity. Yeah, absolutely, I think.
That you can clearly see the pressure was really building in
both of the cockpits and things were repeating.
You're not going to plan. And then you bring in the Roland
dash coming onto the scene and Chris Nissan in the yeah,
absolutely right. It was it was really beginning
to ramp up in terms of the pressure.
And I think if you were watching on the telly, you can see what
was going to happen and it it's all then unfolded in front of
our eyes. On the final lap, the race
erupted into complete chaos. Just three corners from the
finish, Chris Nissan, still lapped, broke on the racing line
before the Beadle chicane and suddenly pulled to the right.
With his brakes almost entirely gone by this point ounston had
no time to react and slammed into the rear of the Audi,
breaking the front suspension on his Oval.
Amid the confusion, App squeezed past both cars whilst the
disqualified rolling dash just bowled straight through the
chicane without hesitation, staying flat out.
Everything then came to a head in the final corner.
Ash lunged to ACT and made contact, sending the ALDI off
into the gravel trap. This meant that behind him,
Ouncesen limped across the line on three wheels in second place
behind Tom Christensen. ACT was recovered from the
gravel in classified 11th and therefore in the provisional
standings. Despite the chaos to the very
end, Eve Outsum was confirmed as SCWS final champion in the 1999
season. Wow, deep breath guys.
What do we think of all that? That was fairly chaotic and and
let's go just from the TV coverage.
What did you make of that? That's not motor racing for me.
It's very simple. It's it's disgraceful.
Yeah, you mention it. The fact that Roland Ash
barreled straight through the the chicane on the last lap
meant that there was every intention that was the sole
intention was to get apartment. And yeah, that is a disgrace.
You know how, how anyone can justify that, how anyone would
want to win a title like that? I don't know or understand.
Personally, I I don't see the value of winning the
championship in such a such a a horrid way.
It it, it would always just be, you'd always have that asterisk
next to it, wouldn't you? Yeah.
It's not pleasant. It's not motor racing.
It's it's banger racing. And yeah.
That's that's the phrase that I was going to use.
Yeah, it it was horrible, horrible, horrible racing and it
had no place on a racing track and did a disservice to a
championship that was actually a very, very good championship.
As Greg and Andrew describe, it was a probably second to the
BTCC only in stature. It was a wonderful series.
I'm slowly getting more into it, watching back a lot more of the
footage now and it was a great championship which didn't
deserve to end on such a such a low point.
Yeah, no, it was no way to decide a major championship.
Any, any championship. No casual fan might have thought
it was great at entertainment. No, it wasn't.
It was appalling and all the matter.
The factories involved should have been thoroughly ashamed of
themselves and it's no surprise they all went elsewhere.
I think it was bizarre when you watch the footage, Uve Harrison,
as you said, crawled across the line on three wheels and pulled
into the end of the pit lane. Then he sort of sheepishly gets
out of the car and then stands on the roof of the car and
starts celebrating. They're like team, team.
It must have been his manager or his dad or someone comes railing
down the pit lane and they sort of hug and then the next minute
out was out of his car in the gravel.
And then the next thing you saw is he was back in his car.
He hadn't done his seat balance after.
If he watched the footage and then drove and finished across
the line, it's like he was just totally bizarre.
What long after the most the cars have finished up, then got
dragged out of the grave of a trap.
And then he finished the race, which normally, you know,
outside assistance would say he shouldn't have finished either.
It was just a bizarre situation. And yeah, as a when you watch
the footage, right when I when I first watched it back again and
I got a bit confused because they thought outs and had hit.
But it wasn't, it was Nissan who was, you know, backed himself up
into the pack. And then on the on the TV
footage, you didn't actually see the Roland Dash clash with
without that. That comes later.
But it was just a wholly bizarre situation.
I think I echo everything Alan Andrews said.
It was it was a bit of a disgraceful end to what was a
great championship. I would have been shamed if I'd
had driven like that on Toca 2. Yes.
Yeah, that's how bad it was. It really was.
Unsurprisingly, Apt ALDI launched A protest over the
events of the final lap and on 10th of November 1999 the appeal
hearing was held, somewhat ironically, at the Nurburgring
Uwe. Outsen expressed a blunt
assessment on Opal's approach to the hearing in an interview with
motorsport-total.com. So people messed it up
themselves. They didn't really take it
seriously. They didn't even bring in a
proper lawyer. I don't know whether they simply
didn't expect to lose the case. With competent legal
representation. We could have won, but in the
end they handled it badly themselves.
Greg, do you think any lawyer would be able to argue what
people's case to successful conclusion given the evidence?
Well, I think it would be very unlikely.
The only way it would be possible is that you, Roland
Nash, would have been thrown under the bus and said, oh, he
was absolutely working on his own.
He had nothing to do with us. He wasn't a works team.
How could we have any influence on what he did?
I could only see that that would be the only way or the only
argument that they would have would be to distance themselves
from what Roland Ash did. But yeah, I think it was a, it
would have been a very hard one to to argue, I think.
Hands you again out later told motorsport.com his team went
into the hearing without knowing anything about the crucial video
evidence and as it turned out, without much expectation of
success. Everyone, ALDI, the FAA, the
DMSB told us there was no way we could win it.
They said it simply wouldn't work, he recalled.
Even today, he remains somewhat proud of how the team handled
the situation at the Nerve agreeing.
One key decision, in his view, was limiting the process
strictly to the final lap. We only peeled the final lap,
otherwise the case would have been dismissed outright by the
court. That was a very good decision on
our part. Abt explained.
He also believes Oval arrived well prepared, but ultimately
with arguments that were difficult to prove.
Oval said nothing had happened at all, that the cast spun on
its own and that Roland Dash never made contact.
They came of extensive data analysis and telemetry to
support their case, he said. But as Apartment pointed out,
data can often be interpreted in different ways and the official
broadcast footage was of little help.
With only a rear facing camera from Christian Apskar available,
there was no clearview of the decisive moment.
All the official footage was useless.
Opal put forward 1000 theories, even claiming it was my driver's
fault. He noted the turning point came
unexpectedly. In the end we played our Joker
and said we still have something.
Then we produced a fans video. It clearly showed Roland Dash
making contact with Christian and pushing him off and said at
the time such amateur fishing was extremely rare with no
mobile phone cameras in the Internet.
Still, it's in its infancy. Sharing video online was virtue
and heard of in the 56 K modem era.
The recording had actually been physically sent to app
Sportsline by post, was only made public 25 years later.
It captured the light contact from Ash that ultimately sent
the ALDI into the gravel. Andrew had really struck gold
receiving that home video footage from a fan.
And it's bizarre to to watch, isn't it?
At such a time. You wouldn't.
You wouldn't normally see that, would you?
No, absolutely certainly struck gold because all the younger
fans of today will perhaps not appreciate this sort of thing
was unheard of in those days. Most of us had not had mobile
phones for long in most times. And when we did have them, all
they did was make phone calls. They didn't do anything else.
So when teams were looking for evidence to back up appeals and
against decisions, they went looking for anything to help
their case. Which actually reminds me how I
think it was in the same year I got dragged into a Malek Nissan
appeal over a ride height penalty at Snetterson because I
just happened to be standing by the check pad when the when the
reading was taken. I saw the incident happen and as
soon as I happened to mention that in passing to Ray Malik, he
virtually frog marks me down to their appeal hearing.
And I can tell you, sitting in an appeal hearing, we pick it to
Richie's, the Chief technical officer and the clerk of the
Claws glaring at you over a table, it's not fun.
So yeah, no, we didn't have videos and stuff like that in
those days to help us. So yeah, that they were really
lucky to get hold of this. Does that mean Andrew, then you
also were in the queue at the talk of Busan?
No, I was in the token bus, in the token bus.
And as we came out and they lost the appeal, which they should
never have done because it was slam dunk, The flipping car
wasn't parked right on the concrete pad.
You can see it wasn't. But Malik still must appeal.
And as we all walked out, Richie's was walking alongside
me and he mucked into me. Journalist shouldn't get
involved in things like this. And then walked off.
Really is. Oh yeah.
Oh dear. Happy days.
To get such footage, the, the, the, the person who was
recording must have had a physical camcorder on them.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And they were not. You look at the, you look at
like go pros and the Insta 360 cameras that people have got
these days, you know, they're smaller than than a, than a bank
card, but the, the, the camcorders in those days, almost
some of them would have been on your shoulder sometimes.
You know they. They were big pieces of
equipment. They were my my wife went
through the racing school, the Browns Hatch just after I got
together with her when she was and her dad used to video all
her lessons of the Browns hatch. So they watched him back and he
had quite a big camcorder do this.
I remember there was one really funny time when she got pushed
off into the pit wall by another car pushing over onto the grass.
And we watch about the video and it's really funny because he
follows it all the way and you can see the car come up the top
straight and then suddenly get pushed onto the grass and go
across the track and so gently hit the pit wall and the camera
stays on it. But in the background you hear
oh, shit, and in the car hits the pit wall and she's able to
drive it back. And when she got it back to the
pit, she found she couldn't get out of it because it was banana
shakes. But and the camera, the camera
stays on the car as it reverses out the pit wall and carries on
down the top straight. But it's going up and down the
camera because he was shaking. It's it's great bit of footage.
Let me go different times. A crucial factor in the really
was that Roland Dash was no longer officially classified in
the race, having already been shown the Black Flag.
Nevertheless, his actions still had a direct impact on the
championship outcome. For that reason, the final
classification for the race was taken from the standings after
lap 32. Alex.
Did that feel like the obvious choice for the outcome of the
hearing? Yeah, I mean, that makes
complete sense, doesn't it? You know that that there was a
there was a problem on the final lap.
So you, you come back, you just do one lap lesson and that gives
what I believe to be the rightful result, the right
result for the championship. It's mad to think that we're all
sort of criticising Roland Ash for, quite rightly so, for his
disgraceful move and driving, but we've forgotten that.
Well, not forgotten, but he was also Black Flag.
He wasn't even supposed to be in the race at this point.
Yes, yeah. I, I don't, I, I think it was
Andrew who said it. We're not sure what became of
him penalty wise. I don't know.
But I hope it was something very severe because, because yeah,
it's, it's appalling what he did.
Absolutely appalling. But yeah, for the, for the
hearing, it's the obvious choice.
You want to, you want to reverse the results call that's been
created by the poor driving standards and the the the
breaking of the rules. So you go back to the lap before
it happened. It makes sense.
Complete sense. Uwe Ounston, however, saw things
differently. I would have preferred it to be
counted after 75% of the race distance, he said.
Oh, she was. Of course he would.
In that scenario, he would have been champion with the order
reading Oz and Christensen apartment after 25 laps.
He also argued that a different interpretation could have been
made given the involvement of Chris Nissan earlier in the
sequence. You could have also said that's
racing, Two team mates got caught up in it, one effect
announcing the other rat and leave it at that, he said.
Greg, did you feel like ouncing had much of A point?
Well, I'm not really I think it's a bit of a rose tinted view
on it. It's a bit like me getting a
call for speeding as to Lord Mr Policeman, rather than you took
them by speed before I broke the speed limit them and I've
actually broken it. It's a bit it's a bit
controlled. I I sort of get his point.
The Christmas sun, you know, we shouldn't forget that apps were
also playing games as well. You know, there is no need for
Christmas sun to be there. You know, they clearly hold him
into the pits, it would seem to get him back into the pack.
So that there was also there was all sorts going on.
And yes, that wasn't wasn't necessary as well.
So from that side, Alison does have a point.
But yeah, to to make the Baums meet me, your requirement is is
not really that in the spirit of it.
You have to accept it as it's, it has to be taken to the last
lap, not not the lap where it suits you, I would say.
So that wraps up our look back at the controversial STW title
decider at the Nurburgring in 1999 and our first foray into
Europe in the STW Championship. A huge thank you to Greg Denton
and Andrew Charming for joining us once again to revisit this
unforgettable weekend. It's been brilliant hearing
their memories, stories and insights from one of the most
dramatic events of the Super Touring era of racing.
We really hope to welcome you both back on Stories from Super
Touring again. Very soon.
Well, you know, you don't have to ask me.
Even though I get very old and struggle to remember half of
this, hopefully I've still got a lot of memorabilia and notes and
books from the period so I can remind myself and stir up the
old grey matter. Yeah, I think it's been great.
Hopefully it's wetted the audience's appetite to delve
into a little bit more of European Super Touring racing,
that there were some absolute classics in the STW.
You know, without going into all the details, if you get a
chance, watch some of the races of the Sobsburg Rib, you know,
absolute high speed, slipstreaming action.
So, you know, they're worth a watch and probably worth talking
about. So yeah, I think we can dive
dive into the history of Super Touring in Europe and and some
other gems to to talk. About our thanks as always goes
to you for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode,
please do leave us a review, give us a five star rating and
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