Stories from Super Touring. The British Touring Car
Championship held its first ever Night Race at Snetterton in
1999, with the unique conditions bringing a touch of Le Mans to
rounds 15 and 16 of the season and in doing so creating one of
the best race weekends of the season.
Welcome to the latest episode of Stories from Super Touring.
I'm Levi Riley and to help look back at the first ever Night
Race in the BTCC, Alex, Adam and myself are joined by journalists
Andrew Charmin and Andrew Golby. Thanks for joining us everyone.
How are we all this evening? Yeah, good.
Thank you. Yeah, Thank you.
Yeah. Looking forward to another
classic race. This one's a a Corker.
And Andrew Golby will start with you this evening.
There's two Andrews this week with Andrew Golby and Andrew
Charman, which might make it a little confused.
And I think we'll maybe go by Andrew G and Andrew Seal or
AGAC, whatever you guys prefer. Well, I should have been
reporting on it. That was my day job for all
sport at the time. But I ended up racing in it, or
at least in the support race in the Ford Fiesta championship.
So Ford had a guest car for the season and we'd asked right at
the beginning of the year if we could do the night race, knowing
that it was going to be something new and different.
And they they'd, they'd allocated the car to somebody
else for that race weekend. So I'd done a round at Brands
Hatch, did OK and thought, well that that would have been nice
to have done the night race, but never mind.
And then it was only a week or two before the race, they called
and said it's free, it's open, would you like to do it?
So of course we said yes, great, let's go.
And it was a, a rapid fit liberal car, looked exactly like
a touring car from the out, you know, from the, the colour
scheme. And it was a sweet little car.
Actually, I'd done some won Vectra's the year before and
that was a bit of a pig of a car by comparison.
The Fiesta was a much to be a much nicer car for bride.
So yeah, that was obviously the the big thing for me.
I handed over the baton for my reporting duties to Marcus
Symonds, who's still reporting on the championship to this day
for auto sport. I didn't last long at all, but
he's he's still there. And so, you know, I got stuck
into into the racing. My other memory of the event
actually is getting out. I don't know if any of you
remember that some genius decided that some Rd. works on
the A11 was what was needed on that Saturday night and we were
a hell of a time getting home. So aside from what happened
inside the track, that's my actual main memory.
It's quite a few. I remember the the the you say
about the guest car that was obviously run at all races.
I remember, I think I remember even Caroline Menny racing in a
couple of races of that. Because Andrew G's memories
sparked a totally different one to me.
It's got nothing to do with this meeting, but as you say, during
the time the Fiesta Challenge was a support race for the BTCC.
They had this guest car for several years and the number of
people raced in it. I particularly remember in 95 at
Silverstone, Jenny Birrell, who was basically the Toker boss of
the paddock. Who?
You never got on the wrong side of Jenny Berry wanted to survive
and I remember she crashed out at Silverstone and we had her in
a in a Super Tory magazine. We used to have this age of
pictures that we put funny captions under it and I remember
I used a lot of asterisks, question Marks and detre as to
what she might be saying. But as you say, Caroline Menu at
Orton Park a couple of years later was one of the most
popular occupants. And over about three or four
years, a very small number of BTCC journos got to do it And I
was never among their number, which was really annoying for me
because I was desperate to prove to the world that I would never
have been a racing driver and I the opportunity to buy Eternal
Regret. I'd have the chance and proved I
couldn't. So you know, if you can say
should have, would have, could have.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yes, Yeah.
But memories of this meeting, it was obviously into a period
where Mr. Gale was trying many things to keep the interest in
the championship nice and high. He told me in an interview back
in 95 at BTC. So he doesn't do gimmicks and
then of all the gimmicks he tried after that, this was
definitely one of the best. I was like Jason Plato.
I had never been to the mall so I didn't know much about night
racing. I'd only been to two night races
at UP at this point. One was in Wilhire, 24 Hours of
Snetterton 97, which was a proper 24 hour racing, the same
venue, and the other one was in 88 when I went to the 12 hours
of Whisper Green, which was a lawnmower race around the field
in Sussex when it started at 9:00 at night and finished 9:00
the following morning. So I mean Sniffington in 99, it
wasn't exactly the mall, but I tried really hard and it was, it
was surreal, but it was highly enjoyable.
Oh, there was one other thing too.
What was odd about this meeting? Not having to be at the circuit
at the crack of sparrows, you know, because nothing happened
for most of the day. It reminded me of the days when
the BTCC used to support the British Grand Prix because they
always ran the touring car race after the Grand Prix.
So I used to rack up to Silverstone at lunchtime on
Grand Prix day, drive straight in on empty roads to my media's
car park spot, be there in time to watch the Formula One before
going to work on the touring cars.
It was great. Brilliant.
Adam, coming to you next. What jumps out in your memory
when you think about this race? Well, I thought about this and
at the time I remember just thinking at night race as Alan
Gow lost it. I thought because you just you
don't associate night racing with touring car racing with the
BTCC. You just didn't associate the
two things. But then at the same time, I'm
thinking, or is this an absolute masterstroke of an idea?
But I think to him it was probably a massive gamble.
He's a risk taker and it's just another, you know, wasn't like
it programmed in to be, you know, four or five night races
throughout the season. This was obviously a trial.
Let's see how this goes. I think adding the the titanium
skid plates, genius, I'd clear, you know, for the for the cars,
obviously the cars had to do a lot of modifications with the
headlights and the dazzle and the glare that you get from the
through the rears, which I've experienced in GT racing, you
know, many a time, which is horrible.
But I think probably the biggest thing for me was the Peter Cox.
Didn't he win the second race like.
Spoilers. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean,
his first ever BTCC win wasn't it?
And yeah, night race, you know, but I think everything was just
a good spectacle. I did question the whole idea of
of doing it from Gauss perspective.
But like I said, he's a risk taker and I think he certainly
paid off and added, you know, a lot of excitement to it.
I remember thinking, Christ, these guys can't behave on a
daylight track. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, it paid off, didn't it?
Was brilliant. Finally coming to you Al What,
What are your memories from this historic meeting back in 1999
for? Me, it's there's one particular
moment and coming into the bomb hole, Mueller and Plato,
surprise, surprise, are having a bit of a battle.
Muller. Yeah, Muller moved across on
Plato courts the front end of his Renault and slewed sideways
at the most ridiculous angle and somehow manages to catch it, not
only catch it, but get past further ahead than that he was
before. It was one of the the the most
incredible saves I've ever seen in in a racing car.
The the angle that the vector was at was ridiculous.
And yeah, yeah, it was. A nice place he did I.
Was just about to say that, yeah.
Yeah, the man, the man was known for his catches, but that one I
think even tops Thrixton 2005 when he was sideways coming into
club. But yeah, that that's the
outstanding memory for me is that incredible, ridiculous save
of Ivan Muller, who features quite a lot in this this
meeting. He did have the most amazing car
control. I remember watching him and
qualifying once at Croft around the back, you know, super high
speed and very edgy. And he was, you know, you know,
he was sideways through the the gym club curves in a way that,
you know, nobody else was. It was amazing to watch.
I think he was probably up the same stuff at Thruxton as well.
In all those kind of places. He would just be, yeah, doing
things that nobody else would dare.
And so it doesn't surprise me that he did.
You know what you described. Out.
No. It was incredible.
Well as we've also asked our faithful listeners what they
thought of this race meeting through our social media
channels. And Andy Bell starts us off this
week by saying that the unique carnival atmosphere is what he
remembers most from this meeting, whilst Mark Atkins also
says the smell of the hog roast amongst the burning rubber was
utter bliss. There are lots of shouts
unsurprisingly for Charlie Cox on this one because many of his
infamous one liners come out to play at this meeting.
Classics such as trying to hold off the Terminator with a water
pistol which was remembered by Pat Crannon.
Whilst there are also numerous shouts of it's a goal from
various people like Ian Jones, Liam O'Donnell and Roland Hill W
Surrey race and actually got in touch.
So they remember being the first team to get a a night race
feature race win in the BTCC which was also remembered by
Stefan Bowen. He says he remember it being
Cox, Peter Cox's only BTCC victory, which I'm sure will
touch on Peter Cox and and that aspect of things later.
Simon Bertenshaw, he says that he remembers how much he loved
the effort put in to make it more interesting for the fans
with the glow in the dark liveries and as Adam mentioned,
the the titanium skid plates given the the sparks all over
the track. Daniel Ellis said that it was
actually his first ever BTCC event and he absolutely loved
it. And that's a a special one to
start with. Yeah.
Barry Finch just says he remembers the floodlights of
that meeting, whilst Darren Williams says he remembers, or
maybe doesn't remember by the sounds of it, getting extremely
drunk and passing out next to his tent that evening.
That's. How do you remember that?
But. Yeah, well, there's another Cox
classic here with Simon May saying I'd like another Vauxhall
please. This one's habit whilst Peter
Perrin remembers the great Will Hoy return to the series in the
Arena Motorsport Laguna. With that, with that Peter, that
Charlie Cox one, the the other bit with that was that you
couldn't kill that Vauxhall with a stick, could you?
There's got a straight panel left on it for some reason.
He must have had some Witovic before this happened because he
was brilliant. This one he was not it, wasn't
he? Dave Sill, he remembers the
midfield battles that occurred that evening between Plato,
Rydell and Menu, which, I mean, I'm sure we're going to go more
into this later, but that was absolutely brilliant, wasn't it?
All of those battles. And finally, as we've kind of
already touched on a little bit, lots of shout outs for Peter Cox
and his sole British Touring Car Championship win that evening.
And Chris Lammess, Robert Lewis and a few of us all got in touch
to to go into that with us. The night race was the
brainchild of Toca chief executive and BTCC boss Alan
Gal. It should be a great spectacle,
he said. There is something about running
after dark that gets the adrenaline pump in and both TOCA
and the circuit have put a lot of effort into ensuring that we
create a fantastic atmosphere. The only thing we cannot control
is the weather, but if we get a fine summer's evening, it will
be a great show. Alex, coming to you, we've kind
of already touched about the the idea and gimmick here from Gall,
but did you think this was a good idea to get keep that
interest in the series as it sort of rode the end of the wave
of Super Touring? Well, as Andrew said, Goward
started introducing a few gimmicks.
I mean, you know, the pit stops in 98 were were were one, they
were great. They were a great addition.
And this one, the night race, superb.
I mean, yeah, as I said, just thought really they can't keep
themselves behaved on track in the day, never mind the night.
But yeah, and quite a gamble because that that lighting setup
was not cheap. When I was researching this for
a piece a few years ago, it was over 50,000 lbs to to set up the
lighting for the weekend with all the the floodlights on the
on the pit straight and the paddocks.
So an expensive gamble, but one that, as you can see from the
comments from the fans, one that definitely paid off because this
was fondly, fondly remembered as a wonderful, wonderful race
meeting. And GAO got lucky with the
weather. It was perfect weather.
It got a bit cold towards the end of the night, but the
festival atmosphere, it was really cool.
It was really weird actually being at a touring car meeting
on a Saturday and after qualifying, everyone hung
around, whereas normally people would start filtering out that,
yeah, it was an interesting idea, something different and it
was a great spectacle. The addition of, as has already
been said, the skid plates for the Sparks as as they the, the
liveries. The liveries were really cool,
weren't they? With the the glow in the dark
additions. I think all that really added to
it. Yeah, it was a a brilliant idea
and one that paid off handsomely.
Whilst the series was looking forward to its first ever night
Race, it was dealt a huge blow in the week before the event
with Reverend Williams confirming their much expected
departure from the series. The mark had enjoyed remarkable
success in centre in the BTCC in 1993, including a drivers title
of Alan Menu in 1997 and manufacturers championships in
1995 and 1997. Renee's Tim Jackson said the
team decided to quit the touring car series after its contract
with Williams Touring Car Engineering came to an end.
We always had in mind an X number of years, he said.
We set our goals and achieved these, so we are cancelling our
future BTCC plans for the foreseeable future.
It's a sad day for us. We've thoroughly enjoyed our
time in touring cars. Andrew C coming to you now.
It's undoubtedly the withdrawal of Renault is a huge bug for the
series. Oh absolutely.
Tim Jackson I knew quite well by then because he was the PR head
at Renault and I was also writing about Rd. cars, so I was
going on the launch of new Renaults on a regular basis and
he was a massive fan of the BTCC and I reckon it probably hurt
him quite badly to have to pull the plug on the Renault program.
But what it did really was increase the sort of ominous
mood music that was beginning to swirl around the series.
I can't remember if Volvo and Nissan had already publicly
announced that they wouldn't be there the following year, but to
those of us in the series it was looking, you know, the writing
was on the wall. So there was a whole lot of
change coming in, teams, drivers.
This was the meeting which fun in which John Clever finally
decided he was going to quit at the end of the season.
And yeah, I mean, I'd see my second attempt at touring Cart
magazine going crash and burn in 97.
And there were many reasons for that, but one of them was the
fact that the BTCC was beginning the sort of downward spiral you
get, you know, boom and bust spiral in a championship is
absolutely dominated by manufacturers.
Yeah, when you've got manufacturers leading things,
they're not going to stick around forever.
So you are going to get these boom and bust periods, you know.
Absolutely. Shortly after that announcement,
Williams announced that it was also closing down its BTCC team,
scotching rumours of partnering up with BMW or Rover in the
future. Frank Williams said the touring
car paddock has seen great technological advancements since
we first became involved and I hope we helped play a part in
that. Rowing's decision to withdraw
will have been taken only after a lot of deep thought.
Its cars will be greatly missed on the BTCC grid.
We are extremely proud of what we have achieved with Renault
Welter over the past five years and we are pleased to have had
such a successful association. Andrew G sort of again Williams
A big loss to the series at a time where, as sort of Andrew CS
mentioned, things weren't looking too good for the future
of the series. No, Williams was a huge name.
Obviously to having touring car racing.
It was a very prestigious team to be present in in touring
cars, given that they were still at the height of their powers as
a Formula One team at that point.
But it was no big surprise because, yeah, it was really
only BMW or wherever that could have been a possibility.
And the category wasn't really bringing new entrance in.
It was it was losing them. So as Andrew C said, yeah, Volvo
and Nissan also exited at the end of that year.
I don't think anybody was too surprised about the Renault
move. And I remember talking to Jason
Plato at the following round of Thruxton 2 weeks later and he'd
nearly finished his deal with Vauxhall by that point together
the following year. So he was dotting the IS and
crossing the TS. And you know, it was just a
little bit of bargaining to go, but he was, he was pretty much
done. So he clearly knew that things
were were happening. So yeah, it was a shame, but
just a few years before you'd never have believed a Formula
One team would have would have been racing in British touring
cars. So at the same time, you know,
it was just amazing it ever happened in the first place.
Yeah, especially not just any Formula One team, Williams, who
would, As you say, we're at the peak of their powers.
Yeah, very much so. Another departure from the
series, albeit an immediate one, was the announcement that
Russell Spencer stepping down from the Arena Motorsport
Renault Laguna to be replaced by the 1991 BTCC champion Will Hoy.
Mike Earl, boss of the Arena squad, said.
We've come to an arrangement with Will with Russell in
complete agreement. He's still a part of the team.
His business affairs mean he hasn't got the time to devote to
it. Wow, it was a tough year for
Russell in the Laguna. Are you surprised that he made
the mid season decision to step down?
No, what surprised me more is that it didn't come sooner to be
honest with you, because yeah, he had a really tough year.
It was a it was a bizarre one that he sort of came back into
racing anyway. He hadn't raced anything since
94. He'd raced in the 80s in F3 F
3000 but never done anything in a touring car.
And yeah, it was a slightly bizarre choice to to come into
the series anyway, especially let's say after five years of
not racing. I expected it after his massive
qualifying shunt at Orton Park, where, I mean, there was no
front end left on that Laguna after he'd finished with it.
So he went on a bit longer than that.
But yeah, it was a he was a tough year.
He was he was struggling to keep up with the with the rest of the
pack. And I mean what a what a guy to
replace him Will Hoy. Hoy was delighted to be back on
the Touring car grid. It's great.
The team is very ambitious and I'm giving them the credibility
it needs and the direction with the car.
It just needs developing now, he said.
Adam, I think Alex has already touched on this, but great to
see Will Hoy back on the touring car grid, isn't it?
Yeah, 100%. You know, 91 champion.
He's sort of he's one of these guys a bit like Rouse that had
been around for such a long time with in touring cars over the
years that his name's always been there.
He's you know, he's been at the front many, many times when tons
of races. And I think just to have a name
like that back in the series is always going to be a positive no
matter what he was racing. I'm sure he'd love to have been
in a more competitive car than he was at the time, especially
the fact that he's got his develop this one.
He's come partially, he's come back partially into the season,
you know, halfway through it. But yeah, just Will Hoy, you
know, there's not. Unfortunately, I've never, I've
never met Will. So it's one of the things that I
wish I'd had done at some point, but I've never had the pleasure
of meeting him. But anything I'd ever heard or
anyone ever spoke about him that knew him well, only had had
positive good things to say about the man.
I think he was a true Gen., a proper racer and I think he was
loved by a lot of people and and obviously sadly missed today,
but I think it was, yeah, what a great name to have back in the
sport. There were a lot of unknowns
heading into the championships First of the night race.
There were even a few doubters before the meeting, including
some drivers. Some questioned how they would
ensure that no dirty tricks would be played.
How would the officials ensure there were no naughty moves?
There were also worries about the weather.
What if it rained heavily? Andrew, cheers.
You've already said you're in the Fiesta Challenge for this
meeting, but these sort of worries that you also shared in
the days and weeks leading up to the OR the days as it was with
you getting the late call up into that race.
Yeah, not really. I mean, obviously I didn't have
too much time to think about it. I mean, as it turns out,
obviously there were some filthy going on in those races.
So I think they were right to have a bit of a concern about
driving standards. I didn't fancy the rain and
certainly that was one thing that I didn't want to happen.
And of course it didn't. Happily, I'd raced in the dark
before in go karts, I'd done the lemon 24 hour go Kart race so
fine. And I wasn't too fussed about
the dark overall, even in the dark patches, because obviously
not the whole circuit was was lit up and it was very dark down
the river straight for example, until you got down towards the
complex. But yeah, I didn't really, yeah,
didn't really have too many worries at all.
I didn't have too much time to think about it and just got on
with it. My favorite thing in the race
buildup in the on the Grandstand footage was Anthony Reed saying
that he was a little concerned about the the move from daylight
or almost daylight with so many floodlights to the pitch black
Rev it straight as as Andrew just said there.
And what was he? What was he said?
I might take out a pair of shades with me to slip on.
I'm very. Anxious.
It is very, very Anthony, isn't it?
And it just really made me chuckle that that, yeah, only
Anthony Reed could say that. I think the Championship had got
to that stage where there was a bit of overthinking going on in
some aspects of it. I mean, that's basically we all
drive from daylight into the dark every day.
Yeah, yeah. Not really very different.
No one's ever mentioned that we've all driven home from work
in the dark. We've all driven down the
motorway. You can't see sweet FA when the
spray is there in the rain and or the mist circle.
We've all been there. But it's amazing how you adapt
to. Yeah, yeah, I'd slip on a pair
of shades. But it's the odd idea of like,
let's get the fastest part of the circuit, no lights.
Yes. But then you've obviously got
the spectacle of the titanium ski plays, haven't you?
So. Yeah.
Again, it's probably method to his madness.
There was also, I think there was a hot air balloon.
Yes, it was. Yeah.
Yeah, there was. Yeah.
And so there was that. I remember certainly in the
Fiesta took a while to get down the river, which straight.
So there was. Time to look at it.
Plenty of time to look at it. And I remember the hot air
balloon a lot in the car. Yeah, yeah, that was there,
yeah. Thankfully, when the weekend of
the meeting arrived, the weather was perfect.
Clear skies and hot temperatures ensured a carnival atmosphere.
It drew large crowds to the East Anglian venue.
More than 30,000 spectators taken in the first overnight
race. Andrew C coming to you and
Galan. The organisers I don't think
could have wished for better conditions, couldn't they?
Absolutely not. To show just how much of A
gamble it was, Alex mentioned earlier that, you know, Mr. Gale
paid 50 grand for some floodlights.
I start that in an inflation calculator and in today's money
that's 92 grand. So that was definitely a very
big gap, very lucky. Snetterton, as we know, is in
one of the flattest parts of the UK, not that far from the East
Coast, and when the weather is not nice, it can be a pretty
horrible place to work at. Having a race in July is no
guarantee of a walk of summary day either.
We've seen more than one British Grand Prix and need an absolute
terrible weather. But on this this occasion, the
weather gods were kind and with all the efforts he made it, it
was a very special atmosphere about the place.
And I think part of that was the fact that there were 30,000
people in Snetterton, which he knows that he's especially it
was an extremely good crowd from the circuit.
Yeah. Snetterton had to undergo some
small changes to be ready for the night race, with floodlights
being placed at the stadium section and the pit straight,
with the remainder of the track largely left in total darkness.
Toga spent over 50,000 lbs on the lighting rigs which were
more at home at cricket venues than it's Snetterton.
It wasn't just the track that underwent some changes.
The teams had to fit a different standard of headlights to each
car, with teams also adding tint to the rear windows of the cars
to counter dazzling. Each car was also fitted with
mandatory titanium skid plates to add to the spectacle.
The cars spark and as they hit the curves in the floor.
Each car was also fitted with a new reflective livery which
glowed in the dark, allowing for some incredible photo
opportunities. Adam it sort of even before you
get into preparing for the race weekend of the team and the
championship. A lot of off track changes that
the teams and organisers had to deal with just to even get to
the point of making the grid. Yeah, completely.
I mean, from, you know, Andrew's already mentioned, you know,
that the lighting and, and everything else that the circuit
had to had to undergo, which obviously didn't affect the
teams. But obviously the bit that did
affect the teams and the mechanics, which I'm sure
weren't overly chuffed about it, was the fact that the headlights
had to be changed. You know, the rear screens had
to be tinted a certain way to stop the dazzle.
Because again, from experience from GT racing, I can't tell you
how bad that is. You know, you can be driving and
and you know, you almost you have to push the mirror up to
try. And even with even with the
tinted rear screen that they had, they still would have got
dazzled a lot. He was just trying to minimize
it. But you know, I've been there
with the interior mirror I've just faced up of I've put my
hand over the, the side window to try and stop the, the glare
of the lights coming through the, the side mirror as well.
It's awful. It's horrible because you think
the person is also a lot closer sometimes than they actually
are. So yeah, it's very, that's very
off putting to be honest. And it's weird then when you are
in a piece, you know, a section of the circuit where you haven't
got a car behind you, you know, in GT race, because then it is
very you've seen the very, very dark.
But with those guys, because it's such close racing and there
wasn't the gaps like you'd get Le Mans and places like that.
It would have just been constant headlights everywhere.
You know, the teams would have had to obviously undergo the,
you know, all those changes which would have added obviously
more pressure to them. But I just think it was good.
I just think it was a it was a good addition.
But yeah, they've I know the mechanics wouldn't been overly
impressed with all the, you know, things that would have
added to the cars and next, but also testing the stuff as well
is one thing is just adding some headlights to it.
But like with you doing GT race and you've got to make sure the
headlights are pointed in the direction you need them to.
It's not just the case of bolting them in, you know, are
they how high are they? You know, you've got to set them
a certain way to try and give you the best visibility
possible. So it's they would have done a
little bit of night running. When I say night run, I don't
mean ran the racetrack either. Potentially could have been an
airfield just to try and get the gist of because one of the
things setting up in a workshop, other thing is what it's
actually doing when you're on, you know, when you're moving.
So they would have done that. But you know, these teams were
full, full professional outfits. So, you know, some of them would
have had experience from GT racing as well from what they
know with that. But yeah, I think it was not
hard work put into it, but it was definitely worth it.
There's the grandstand piece, said They had Malcolm Swetnam
describing the changes they'd done to the Hondas at Westerly
Racing. And regarding the headlights,
they said, you know, we've been working with Honda R&D in
Germany. They didn't just stick more
bulbs in. They, you know, they developed
and worked on making that the best possible.
That just shows the rate of the, the level of development in the
series at the time is, you know, working on a program for
headlights. It's.
And it's having the beam facing into the corner, you know, not
obviously your conventional headlight that you've got in a
car is just facing directly ahead of you.
But obviously you've got some of the the Byzen on stuff that you
experience now where the headlamps move with the steering
wheel. But on certain mystification
cars, but you know, you sort of want the headlamps to sort of
obviously it's a clockwise circuit.
So you predominantly have them facing more to the right.
So when you are about to turn and you can see the apex because
otherwise you wouldn't see. I think they had, I think they
had three, three lights on each side, so six in total.
So yeah. Quite bright.
GT race. Yeah, with GT race we'd always
have like a set facing forwards, but then you'll also have a set
like your main beam as such when it's it's facing into the
corners. But then when you when you've
got a row of lights on the front, you know, sort of two of
them facing to the left, two to the right, because not every
circuit goes constantly right all the time.
So, you know, it's a lot, lots to think about.
There's lots more, more like you said, more to it than just
bolting the set of headlamps in that you've just purchased from
your local car store. This would be the longest ever
day in Touring Cars. As usual, the two qualifying
sessions would take place during the day, with the two races
taking place later that evening. The Sprint race was at dusk,
with the feature race taking place in the total darkness of
the night. Alex, that's a fairly long day
even for the most endurance ready of people, isn't it?
It was weird, as I mentioned it before, but you know, after
qualifying it was like, right, OK, now we're going and we'll
come back tomorrow. But people hung around and, and
suddenly the you could smell the barbecues and you could smell
the hog roasts and you could hear the people getting slightly
merry as you think, oh, OK, people are going to be staying
here for a duration. And it was bizarre.
And then to hear the engines fire up in the sunset just.
Yeah, it was just, it was just really bizarre, really funny
day. But yeah, yeah, it was a long
all day. And what I found quite funny is
that a lot of the drivers couldn't keep it on track in
qualifying in the daylight, so it didn't bode well for the
evening race. That's.
The story of cast for you, Al. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. We kept all four wheels.
On plaster. But yeah, it was it was a long
all day. I can imagine there were a lot
of very tired mechanics and team members at the end of this
weekend. Points leader Lauren Ayala took
both poles in the daylight qualifying sessions with Nissan
teammate David Leslie locking out the front row for Nissan in
both races. The grid symmetry for both races
continued on the 2nd row. Reigning champion Ricard Rydell
took abrasive third places. The Volvo driver was pretty
satisfied with his performance after a difficult pre race test.
If you'd asked me yesterday if we'd settle to 3rd, we'd take it
said to Swede Andrew G. It's just more proof of how
dominant this Nissan team we're at this particular point of the
season as well, isn't it? Very much so Red Bull style
dominance, really in today's terms, it was two very evenly
matched drivers right at the top of their game and that meant
they were both scoring a lot of points at each meeting.
So at the end of this particular weekend, we'd raised 436 laps in
the season and a Nissan, including McNeil, who led 26
laps, a Nissan had LED 249. So almost 60% of the racing laps
have been led by Nissan. So, you know, they were a long
way out in front. They've got over 100 points in
handover Hondler in the constructors championship.
And the only person who was really putting up, you know,
perhaps some kind of fight on speed for them was Ricard
Rydell. So he was certainly, when you
consider qualifying particularly, he was still very
competitive there already at this point.
James Thompson was kind of struggling to hang on to the
championship battle, though. It was, it was super, yeah,
super strong from from Nissan at this point.
And you know, nothing really changed for the rest of the
year, but they were, they were formidable.
Championship contender James Thompson had a tricky session in
the Honda Accord. He lined up 4th and 6th that had
gone much quicker in testing but couldn't reproduce the times in
the hotter weather. Andrew C.
It's something that that Andrew just touched on into in his last
comment from your side, with Thompson's championship chances
looking quite bleak at this point.
Yeah, they were. Obviously.
He'd started the season on a big high.
He took first and second in the opening 2 races and then he
disappeared for something like 9 races.
There was some mechanical issues, some bad luck, quite a
lot of having to develop a new car because people tend to
forget that the Accord was the only properly all new car that
year in the field. But he recovered his mojo and he
got, but he won at Donington, he won at Croft.
But all, of course, all the time, in between times, the
Nissan's, especially Aiello, have just been banking point
after point after point. So Jimmy T could hardly afford
another weekend of issues. And that's exactly what he got.
Yeah. And.
So one feel good story was Will Hoy qualifying in the top ten
with his independent running a guna notably out qualifying both
factory Fords who would have spent the last two seasons
driving for something. He was quick to point out Adam a
good return to the series for Hoy so far in the weekend wasn't
a. Yeah, really good.
And you know, the circuit is very demanding on on the engine,
like you need a strong engine around Snetterton.
So at least you knew for sure that he had something strong
under the Bonnie. But yeah, what a good, yeah,
really, really good. And I think the fact that he
points to the fat, you know, he beat the two fours, I think it
was good to get a little digging there, wasn't it?
That's almost like a footballer leaving one club, going to play
for another, but then scoring against your old club, isn't it?
You know it's. All it's it's.
That's sort of what he did there.
But yeah, it's it's great. It was all especially, you know,
first time out in that car, that team, you know, the team would
have been overjoyed with that. So that's a really good start
for him. Really, really.
I don't think he would have been expecting that.
And the team probably, you know, up against the competition that
they, you know, the that works teams.
So yeah, he'd been really pleased with that.
We're talking about Charlie Cox's comments a lot on this on
this pod so far. And he had another Corker in the
the grid walk where you say can and cheers.
Will Hoy in 10th out qualifying both Fords.
You know, Ford, he drove for them last year with this little
grin. I like that.
I really like that. That was funny.
That was really funny. It was only when the evening
arrived did the atmosphere truly take hold.
Instead of everyone starting to filter out as they normally
would on a Saturday evening after qualifying, the spectator
areas were filling up with the smell of BBQ starting to linger.
Whilst it was not quite Le Mans, the sight of the grid forming
under the floodlights as a sunset coloured the Norfolk sky
bright orange was fantastic. Alex, you were lucky enough to
be there. What was the atmosphere like on
the ground at the time? Yeah, it was.
I've sort of touched on it already of night.
It was it was brilliant. It was really, really good.
The the atmosphere was really special.
It felt weird that the sun was going down and touring car
racing that was starting to happen and you could hear, you
know, these touring car engines firing up and yeah, it was
weird, but it was good. It was really cool.
And as we've already said, the weather was brilliant.
So, yeah, it was like a beautiful summer's evening walk
with 15 Super tours or 18 Super tours.
Join a new film, right? It was really, really surreal.
Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.
The smell of. Yeah, as I said, you know, the
food, you could smell. You could hear music.
It was like a festival. And then the Super Touring
engines, just yeah, brilliant. The Sprint race started at
sunset with the cars glistening in the orange light.
Aiello converted Paul into the lead and was sauntering off into
the distance until trouble stuck on Lap 2.
Problems 1 E Problems were on board with Aiello, the race
leader. He's lying.
Listen. And that is one thing and one
thing only. It's a slipping clutch.
His race will be over. The clutch on his Nissan Primera
was slipping and the Frenchman pulled into the pits and out of
the race. I have a slipping clutch,
explained the clearly gutted ILO.
And I'd continued for one more lap.
I would have stopped out on the track.
Andrew Gee, that's an absolute gift for ILO Championship
rivals, particularly David Leslie, isn't it?
Yes, and in truth, David Leslie was his only real championship
rival in in all honesty. And if it wasn't for David
Leslie, Laurent ILO would have already had a much bigger lead
in the championship by that point.
It was because they were so evenly matched and all the
expectations were that ILO was going to come and blow Leslie
away and and he didn't. Of course, he was learning the
circuits. So, you know, that was an issue
for ILO and it was an amazing year that he had when you
consider that he was racing at a new circuit almost every
weekend. But nevertheless, you know that
point in the year they were tied on qualifying.
Results, They were eight all. And yeah, David Leslie, you
know, kept him honest all year long.
And it was only towards the end of the year when it began to
look like, you know, it was slipping out of reach.
But yeah, it was definitely a good weekend for David Leslie
because he did end up winning that race.
And we'll hear about the second one soon, I'm sure.
From there on, David Leslie coasted off into the lead with
the Volvo pair of Rydell and Vincent Rademacher following
closely behind. And we see it's a strong showing
from Rademacher in the Volvo. Did you feel he went a bit under
the radar in his BTCC? Career.
Yeah, I definitely did. If you think in the history of
Super Touring, there's so many names down that we just don't
mention anymore more. Delhi Bouleon to a degree.
Peter Cox and Radameka is definitely in that lot, but he
never took a touring cold wind. I'd argue he was one among the
best of those forgotten names. 99 The Volvo wasn't the car it
had been the previous season when Rydell won the
championship, but by the end of the 99 season, Radameka as the
new guy of the team was absolutely matching Rydell for
pace. And Rydell by that time was one
of the legends of the BTCC. I reckon if Volvo had stayed in
the series another year, Radameka probably would have had
much more success in 2000 rather than what did happen where he
would became very much the third man in a Vauxhall team that had
Plato Muller in it. Yeah.
I think looking back over the years of Rydell's team mates,
apart from Tim Harvey, who obviously won a couple of races
with him in 1995, I think Radameka is the one by far that
drove him the closest. Yeah, you know, I thought
Rademacher did a brilliant job against Rydell.
Yeah, his, his 2000 season wasn't so great.
But when you're having to hand over cars and they've been
commandeered by the number one and #2 driver, then you know,
you're in a bit of a hitting a bit of a raw deal straight up,
straight away there anyway. But yeah, I liked Rademacher.
I thought he was, I thought he was very quick in what was not
such a great Volvo. He.
Was a good tough racer as well. He slotted into the touring car
way of racing faster than a lot of other drivers.
So for example he never really, he's a good example of a very
quick driver who never quite got to grips with the rather touring
cars. Rademacher worked that out much,
much quicker. Yes, we're in the Orton Park
where he, he sort of, he'd not shoved Ricard out of the way,
but he certainly put manners on him and Oh my God, someone's
pushed Ricard wide in a, in a, in the sister Volvo.
Just doesn't happen. But yeah, he, he really, really,
I thought took it to, took to it very well.
Yeah, but out of the car, very gentle.
Yes, yes. Nice.
Very nice guy. On lap 11, Reed's engine blew in
his Monteo, with the car chucking oil all over the
circuit as it did so. This of course created very
treacherous conditions for the drivers.
Coming out of the final corner, Muller slid wide on the oil,
with Jean Christophe Bouillon getting past him.
As a result. This would lead to one of
Charlie Cox's most famous one liners.
You've got to be kidding, Jason Plato telling his team tell JCP
to hold off Mueller, like trying to hold off the Terminator with
a water pistol. You're going to be kidding.
You make your own battles maybe? Despite Plato's request, Bullion
didn't hold off Miller for long as the Frenchman was soon back
past coming down the Revit Straight.
Recovering, Thompson dragged himself into the fight and
coming into the complex, they were free wide.
Thanks a lot. If he can hold off, and there's
no guarantees, we'll most certainly be getting Le Jean
Donaire from his government. Well, here's the view.
James Thompson ahead of us is JCB on the left, but doing a
great job be holding off mullet because Muller's on the right.
Thompson down the inside 3 abreast.
This ain't going to work. Thompson on the right, JCB in
the middle, he called it. No, he hasn't got it.
He's up on the infield. It's a goal.
Miller had suddenly shot off his wheel, damaged after the contact
with Plato. He bounded over the grass and
speared back onto the track, right into Thompson's door.
So, guys, a fairly messy sequence of events.
How do we call that one? How do we unpack that one?
How do we even begin to do any of that?
Can I just say what goes and what is goes under the radar
slightly? It's obviously everyone goes on
about Charlie Cox is terminated with a water pistol comic, which
is brilliant. But then you got what he going.
Well, he certainly won't be getting a legend on it from his
government because he let Mueller straight past.
Actually, I thought was just as funny.
But yeah, not not so many people pick up on that one.
No, but listen, of course had one of the best one liners of
the meeting, didn't it when he impacted inside the door and Cox
goes it's I mean, we all knew that Mueller it was
uncompromising and there were several moves he pulled in the
years he was in the series that you could definitely question
that one, I reckon was more racing accident than anything
else, certainly involving Tomo in it.
It's but it certainly showed that when you're not going to
have a good weekend, you know, went for for James T when it
wasn't his day. It really wasn't his day.
No, no, he had a stinker, didn't he?
I agree. I think it was a recent
incident. It was three wide.
Going into the complex is not the greatest thing to do.
And and as we know now, obviously Muller had damage.
So that explains why he went off.
And and when you're when you know you're out of control,
there's nothing you could do at that point.
You know, it was just Thompson was just very unlucky.
Wrong place, wrong time. When you've got that many.
Cars going into the into a complex, you know, you look at
it's rare that it happens when you've got that much going on at
one time, but you just look at it and if you could just freeze
it and then you think right, what's going to happen?
Hey, one thing I can guarantee is they're all not going to come
out of it, you know, and that's just one of those but you
imagine being in the Toca bus afterwards.
So when you get your rollicking, I went up from Alan GAO or you
know one driver's man in about the other.
He took me off. Obviously you get dragged into
the Toca bus with your team manager.
And so, you know, you think we're we're debating about it,
But you imagine when one driver's blaming the other and
the circus and they're trying to get a resolution out of it.
And you imagine being in that situation where which I've been
in before. But you know, you imagine being
the guys you know, because Alan Gauss sits there as well.
Yeah, he's there. He's there.
And. Just watching it all and for.
Yeah, as as he say as well. And also you've got the clerk of
the course there and you know, it's team managers, drivers.
So yeah, it's you might have been trying to rule that, you
know, trying to come out with a decision that you, you know,
you're not going to please everybody.
And with a lot less data than they probably than they do have
these days when you look at steward decisions and you know,
you're like a Formula One now and they've got every single
trace possible of every car and. Your whole whole telematics.
Yeah, exactly. Whereas back then they would
have had stuff, but it certainly wouldn't have been as advanced
as it is now. So yeah.
Yeah. I think with the toy cars though
is a lot more blatant when it's to make decisions on stuff as
opposed to like Alonzo coming off the throttle and brake
testing. Someone or.
Now it tends to be doable that car, car poon that one, and then
it's all a lot more obvious to sort of try and digress, to try
and come out with some sort of resolution.
But that's one thing that did make it slightly easier for the
decision makers. I think Thompson might just
thought that he was safe and exactly the point that he was
hit because he'd done the move. It was quite cool.
It didn't really look on halfway down the straight and he managed
to complete it and it was only, you know, really on the exit of
the chicane when he got. Covered.
Yeah. So he must have felt very
unlucky at that point because it was kind of job done.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
And it's one of those sections of a circuit where you're
carrying so much speed into it. And if it does go wrong for one
of you and you are heading towards the, you know, you are
going straight, you then come back on the cross the track.
So, you know, when you've had a bit of a battle with another
car, not a Spearing off you, someone's like you have to
brake, slow down because you know the car is going to come
shooting back past again sometimes.
So yeah, that situation, he was just, yeah, it wasn't really a
lot he could have done, to be honest.
No. But I think like we said earlier
with the look wasn't on his side for a period of time.
And that certainly was the case of Snetism for him.
The van appeared on the grass then harpooned me, said an angry
Thompson. I'm gutted we'd come up from
last to the fifth, Miller explained.
The left rear wheel was broken when I touched with Plato, but I
didn't know until I got to the yeses.
I lost control. I was full on the breaking and
Thompson was unfortunate. I'm very, very, very sorry for
him. James is one of the guys I don't
want to take out. We'll get to the last part of
Miller's interesting comments later there.
But Alex, in terms of the incident itself, I mean, we kind
of already touched on in terms of what happened, the damage,
but do you think that's a fair assessment from Miller?
Yeah, I mean, you know, that's a guilty driver being interviewed,
isn't it? It's like I can't help it.
I can't, you know, in fairness, he couldn't if the the wheel was
damaged from contact with one of the Renaults.
And when that happens, you, you, you he was a passenger.
He was as much, you know, as much as a passenger as Thompson
at that point. I did feel for Jimmy T because
as he said there, so he couldn't take his qualifying spot on the
grid because he had a starter motor issue.
So he had to start from the back and fought his way up to 5th and
then, yeah, that happens. So yeah, that's when you know,
your luck's not in and we're supposed to follow, sadly for
James. But yeah, interesting comments
from Ivan. As I said, he featured quite
heavily in this in this race meeting and it got, it got a bit
more heated later on, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to
spoil anything for now. But yeah, James is one of the
guys I don't want to take out. So come on, What's the list of
the drivers you do want to take out?
That what you will. As the skies darkened, the race
finished with David Leslie taking victory from the Volvo
pair of Rydell and Rademacher. As Leslie crossed the line the
darkness was setting in and after being treated to a superb
firework display off the track, the drivers were soon lining up
on the grid for the feature race.
Despite it being the first full night race in the BTCC, all but
one of the factory drivers had experienced night racing before.
Jason Plato, the only driver who was totally in the dark on the
night. Adam.
Is that a big disadvantage for Plato's to never have had that
experience before? I don't think so.
It's amazing how you do adapt, you know, like we've all driven
cars in the dark and you know, that would have been, you know,
quite a freak, you know, easy for you to sort of adapt from
that respect just from a road car point of view.
So it's what once once the doors close, the vices down, the
adrenaline kicks in. Its business as usual.
You know, it's he wouldn't have been fazed by and I don't think
he'd have been too bothered about it either.
But it's amazing how you do. You know, I remember my first
ever GT race in the in the dark. It was a 24 hour race to Spa and
you can overthink it sometimes going into it, but I didn't
really think about it too much. Some people do, but I just got
on with it. I just got on with it.
So it didn't didn't never affected me, but it certainly
wouldn't affect you Jason. Jason's not that type of type of
guys he'd have either. Just got on with it.
To get the cars ready for the night race, quite a lot of
changes were made to the cars. Andrew G coming back to you
obviously mentioned this was your second time in the Fiesta
that year. Were there also changes made to
your Fiesta for the night racing as well?
I'm trying to think back. The car was prepared by Colin
Stancombe Engineering, which was, you know, the Fiesta team
of the time. So if there was a trip to be
had, they would have, they would have found it.
Yeah. I don't remember too many
specific changes being made. I mean, obviously, I guess we
made sure the lights worked. I certainly didn't have a little
red light inside, but I don't even remember.
Perhaps the rear screen was tinted.
I'm not 100% certain about that. But you.
Didn't have six headlights, then I didn't get 6.
Headlights the rally car. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
Big hella hella light bar on the bonnet.
Yeah, no, I didn't get any of that.
So. But I think, you know, racing in
a pack, you know, much like touring cars, you know, we were
all nosed to tail on the fiestas, so we've got lots of
each other's light around us to. Help.
Not just, not just our own. So in actual fact, it was
pretty, yeah. I don't remember the dark being
any kind of inhibitor at all at any point.
Had it rained, I think that would have been different.
But it was. It was totally fine.
When I went to the Formula Four festival year before last, and
in the back of a tent I found Colin Stancom still there, still
wearing his pink hat. Oh.
Yeah. How long have you been?
There, probably since the last time I remember being Formula
Four in the mid 80s, everything was always pink with Colin,
wasn't it? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I think he did clears as well, didn't he?
But Fiestas is what I was associated to with.
Yeah, he. Was a he was a porn man.
Yeah. As to feature a started under
the floodlights, Leslie made a better start than Aiello to lead
his Nissan teammate into riches with the Honda's hot in pursuit.
Then on the second lap at Sears, Aiello made a mistake and
Thompson moved up to second. Now the drag up the pit
straight, look at those pits, bright lights and look ahead of
them into the darkness. James Thompson, 3rd place, a
pair of Nissan's ahead of him, the dark part of the second.
Big puff of smoke there from a yellow that's a little bit
untidy. Yeah, he locked up a rear brake
as he went in Teresa's corner. And of course, you're going from
the bright lights into the darkness.
And he's through. He's through.
Thompson's launched up the inside, but he's run a little
bit wide in the attempt. These are all due to night time
racing. Everybody's a little bit
apprehensive and cautious. Nobody wants to go right on the
limit this early in the long race.
Andrew C in the press box. It must have been quite a weird
feeling seeing these BTCC cars at night.
Well, to be honest, I didn't spend a lot of time in the press
box. There were two reasons.
Firstly, Andrew G will concur that Snetterton has one of the
smallest, most cramped press boxes on the entire BTCC
schedule. I think the only one that comes
close is Croft these days. And in those days the Croft
press box was a marquee and that's a totally different
story. But and of course it's even
worse these days because you've got so even the photographers
take a load of laptops and stuff with them and it's full of
website jockeys trying to do their stuff.
But also in those days you didn't have to be in the press
box, You didn't have to be ready to post your copy on the website
the moment the race finished and try and beat everyone else.
And usually there weren't live TV monitors in the box either to
to follow the race on. So, and particularly for me at
this stage, I was by that time writing features which I could
write in the days following. So I spent rather more time
getting out, getting the experience of cars racing in the
track. And I do remember standing by
the trackside to see this surreal mix of blinding
headlights, titanium sparks and coming past me lap after lap.
And yes, that was seriously surreal, but seriously good too.
Behind the Nissans and Hondas, it was carnage as Menu, Rydell,
Miller and Plato were all locked in a characteristically physical
battle. After a tap from Plato coming
out of the bomb hole, Ivan Miller pulled off one of the
most outrageous saves ever seen in a touring car.
Just a blind of lights for Jason Plato is still holding off Ivan
Muller through the left hand of the right-hander.
Muller sparks in his room, believable pullers duck down the
inside and Plano's tag did menu tries to find their way through.
It's not racing, it's Skittles. Unbelievably, if my wallet did
not fall off, that is the save of the season.
Degree of difficulty 9.5. Adam as a driver that what she
think of, I mean we touched on maybe it was his ice racing
skills that helped that one, but how about that catch from the
van? Yeah, there's a it's a big goal
moment, wasn't it? You don't get many as big as
that about beauty of it eases in a front wheel drive car.
So, you know, for anyone that's driven a front wheel drive car
in anger around the circuit, first thing you do is keep your
foot to the floor absolutely hammering it.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it would mean nothing to
him. It'd been nothing to him at the
time. Just at the time, the
adrenaline's going, you know what you got to do.
And he'd probably thought, shit, that was a that was a big one.
But then, like you said, just carried on and, you know,
business as usual. But yeah, his Andros Trophy
experience would have come in very handy there.
More drama occurred when, on his outlap, Thompson spun at the
esses and continued with only three wheels on his accord.
A loose wheel from his stop would come off and he would lose
the lap. Returning to the pits and
getting the problem sorted. Alex, I feel like this is
normally it's the Patrick Watts sympathy corner.
Today it's the James Thompson sympathy corner that we're
headed to here. I mean, your luck's really not
out when you go out onto the track and one of the wheels
falls off. I mean, you'll excuse the cheesy
pun, but this was when the wheels really fell off
Thompson's title a bit. Oh, Alex, you, you went there.
You went. I did.
I did, yeah. As Andrew said earlier, it
wasn't, it wasn't looking so great for Thompson anyway.
But this was, yeah, this was the the real final nail in the
coffin. It was just an awful, awful
weekend. And it was to continue because
for the for the next few races, by the time they got to knock
it, I think it was four or five meetings and he scored like 10
points. It was it was just an awful,
awful mid season for Jimmy. And he alluded to it in in our
podcast with him a couple of episodes ago.
Didn't he, you know, he he felt had a bit of luck, bit more luck
being on his side. He could have won 99, but a.
Bit of luck, yeah, we only scored that amount of, but yeah,
I know. But that amount of points like
you said over that many races. Yeah, it was.
It was just failures, crashes, it was just bad, bad luck and I
felt for the Honda guys on the pits as well because obviously
that wouldn't have felt nice for the pit crew because you know,
he's come out the pits and his his real wheel was was loose.
What I was impressed with actually was how quickly he was
able to determine because first of all he called it as a
puncture and then on the next radio call he's like no, no rear
wheels coming off rear wheels coming off.
And that was quite impressive how he was able to that quickly
determine it's not just a puncture and then.
The next corner was right-hander, and of course that
was where it went round and round.
You know in NASCAR these days that if a will falls off after a
pit stop, you get penalty and B several members of your team get
banned from the next meeting. Do they actually?
That's a piece of useless. Information for you.
Wow, that's, that's brutal. Yeah.
Well, I cut the season ago. They went from 5:00 Will nuts or
lag nuts as they called it out, the one central one like most
proper race. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there were several incidences of these not being
done up properly, the cars powering out the pits and off
goes the wheel. That'll introduces his penalty.
I think it's two lap penalty for the driver and then two or three
of his team like the car chief who's a bit like them race
engineer being back in the next meeting.
Wow, OK. But yeah, I did feel for the the
Honda pit crew because that wouldn't have been a nice thing.
Happening. No, no, no, not at all.
Not with the abysmal look that he's been having already.
And then that's just like he said and all in his it's just
like he well, they have got any worse.
That's what they felt at the time.
Well, they. 'D have spent a few hours trying
to unbend his Honda back into a normal Accord shape as well.
So yeah, yeah, accordion. Try and make it look like a
Honda again. I like it.
I only jumped his teammate
Leslie in the pits and would have taken the lead but for a
failed bonnet pin which popped up a lap later.
With his vision impaired, Ayala had to pit for a second time and
came out back in 13th. Andrew cheered.
Another pit stop mistake on the grid in that night race and it's
all falling into Leslie's lap for this meeting, isn't it?
Very much he's He's qualified twice on the front row.
He's won the first race, now he's winning the second race.
Definitely one of David Leslie's strongest weekends ever.
I think he'd not won a double touring car event, you know,
winning both races previously and, and, and this is now a
really good shot at that. With less than five laps to go
and under 15 minutes before the midnight hour struck, Leslie's
car developed a suspension issue, a result of him hammering
a curb at the chicane. Suddenly, smoke was coming from
the right front reel. Something on the suspension
collapsed robberly due to a heavy hit on the curb, explained
a grim faced Ray Malik after the race.
Adam, it was on the repo and the grand Sander coverage of the
race, it was a heavy hit on the kerb.
It was. It was no wonder really that it
caused the problem, and probably lucky it didn't cause a bigger
problem for for Leslie. That's it.
And I think it just shows you how hard the hit was because you
think it's all in car racing generally and it's still the
same now where you're always going over kerbs and you know,
we'll take a bit of grass and a bit of mud with us at the same
time. So they they're designed to take
hammering all the time. But I think it just you probably
appreciate just how hard the hit was because for it to break the
way it did and and you know, all of a sudden he's out the race.
It just shows you just, you know, whether it just be that
the angle that he hit it or whatever, you know, he's been
done lap after lap after lap, but then all of a sudden gives
it a right good smack. And yeah, there's something
that's designed to take a regular punishment.
I think it, yeah, just shows you how hard it was hit.
It I noticed when I was watching back the this this footage, it
was such a hard hit that if you look at the on call on board
camera, it actually moves down slightly as, as the car lands.
So that sort of shows what how hard the hit was on the landing
from the, the, the, the from the curb.
So yeah, the the IT wasn't, it wasn't a slight tap.
The jubilant Peter Cox took the lead as they went down the back
straight for the penultimate time, which allowed him to take
an overdue and unexpected victory on what was a difficult
weekend for Honda. But back at the front, it's
Peter Cox, the last two corners. And Peter Cox in the Honda is
poised to win his first touring car race.
And make history by being the first judgement to win the
British Touring Car run come. On That's been a long time.
Man. Well done.
Yeah it was a long time but it was worth the wait mate.
Great drive from Peter Cox. He's won many races abroad but
has never bagged a PTCC win before.
I saw a lot of smoking ahead and didn't realise it was his car
being the Dutchman. Then when I did find out I was
very happy he tried to defend a bet but I knew he wanted the
points. Andrew C.
Peter Cox is a bit of an enigma, especially in the BCCC.
Wasn't he a clearly fast and talented driver?
But especially on British shores, it never seemed to fully
come together for him, did it? Yeah, I've never really been
able to put my finger on why it never really worked for him in
the BTCC. I first saw him in 95 when I
went to a couple of rounds of the German STW Cup, and I went
to a couple more the following two seasons and at that time the
STW Cup was every bit as competitive as the BTCC.
Huge fields, huge manufacturers and in 95 he was second in the
championship over there. You wonder if he was a man that
was better in rear wheel drive cars.
But then in 2000 when he was basically a lonely 13th in what
was a less competitive BTCC, he was also second in the European
Touring Car Championship, basically in the same car.
So I don't know, perhaps perhaps it was he one of those who just
didn't gel with the somewhat aggressive nature of typical
BTCC race. He was quick because he did a
few races for BMW in the back end of 96 have to be in their
test driver. And obviously there's that
incident with Menu that where he he he tries Rivalia tries to
block him and Cox nearly grabs the race win.
But he had the record at Brands, so he's clearly quick.
But yeah, just never seemed to. Well that was in rear would
drive cars so you didn't. Yeah, of course.
Yeah. Drive not sued him, but as I
say, you know, he certainly made the Honda work in Europe.
And he had a very long GT racing career after Turin cars, didn't
he? Where he?
I think he was racing a Lamborghini for a long time.
Yeah, he was. Yeah.
Yeah, but yeah, clearly a quick guy.
But you're right. Andre just never seemed to come
together. And he was and he could be quite
bad tempered as well, very happy, never seemed, never
seemed very content. And you know, that was
definitely I worked with some Dutch people and they can be a
bit like that. But he was definitely, he was
definitely a, you know, blast half full kind of guy.
But. What a result for Honda, though,
would like talk about needing it with the misfortunes that Tomo
had had and the lack of points, like, you know, the misfortune
and everything that had gone wrong with him over the over the
races and obviously that race that was snetzing that we're
talking about now. But for them to have a victory,
I mean, bloody hell. Yeah, there's, there's, I think
just before he passes Leslie, there's a clip where his pit
board guy is hanging out the pit board and you can really see
he's like, come on, come on. And you can see the the, the,
the, yeah, the real, real desire for him to want to win that, win
that race it Yeah. It just shows how much he meant
to them. Whilst the fans enjoyed the
fireworks in the sky, there were also fireworks at the post race
press conference as Peter Cox shot a Barber of Van Miller who
had finished third in the second race by suggesting that the lead
battle was clean because he wasn't involved in it.
This led to the Frenchman swearing at him and suggested
that he wasn't as intelligent as his team mate Thompson.
Everyone at the front race of respect, but if some people
looking at Mueller had been involved it would have been
nasty. Cox said in the press
conference. Mueller interrupted Cox in
return by twice swearing at him hitting back by talking about
his collision with Thompson in the Sprint race.
I'm very sorry that it was James that I hit.
If it was Cox then I wouldn't have cared.
I've spoken with James and it is OK.
You can do that with him because he is intelligent.
Alex, That's even by Van Miller. Sanders quite an extraordinary
out first in the first race press conference, isn't it?
Yeah. So he certainly mellowed over
the years. Didn't he?
Yeah, isn't it? I just, yeah.
I mean I'm trying to think of a similar incident in motorsport.
Certainly nothing I can think of like that in BTCC apart from
maybe menu hitting my values Bonnie play. 7 nail.
Play 2A Kneel. But yeah, read and write down.
I mean, there were there were certain flash points.
But when it's all calmed down a bit and they're in the press
conference, you think? Right, OK, here we go.
But no, it's, I mean, Andrew, I guess you were there.
Well, maybe both of you were there.
I don't know, you know, was it as bad as it sounded?
Did they have any previous prior to?
Yes, yes, yeah, they didn't. Yeah, then.
So to me it's like they didn't like each other full stop.
There's a prior to there. There's a few flash points in 98
with when Muller was in the Audi with with Cox but yeah it
extraordinary. Yeah, I would have been there.
I must admit to, although this particular incident would have
been memorable, I don't remember it.
But then again, I'm old. So such comments coming from
Mueller don't surprise me as because I do remember he could
be difficult to deal with at certain times.
In most days, press conferences, they could quite often throw up
Nuggets like this, even though I don't think by this time Mark
Fogerty was still hosting them because back in the days with
Mark Fogerty hosted them, as I've told you before, they were,
they were sometimes more entertaining than the races.
I think it's a shame we don't have these press conferences
today, but I also think that the drivers are more TV savvy these
days, sort of, you know, moulding into being better
behaved. Absolutely.
Unless you're in, unless you're in NASCAR and you don't give one
and you're just going. To punish, yeah.
Yeah. Do you?
Remember, did you go to that conference?
No, I must have been. I don't know.
In the queue to get. Out.
Yeah. I didn't go to the press
conference. I wish I had, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, we'd love to be there for
that. But no, missed it.
I've got the, there's a, there's a small piece about it in auto
sport for after the after the meeting with which I've got here
now. And there's a wonderful quote
from Alan Gow who says I didn't hear it, but I'm not too worried
about swear words to an Australian.
They're second nature anyway. A bit of banter is better than
some of the boring corporate speak they come up with anyway.
I thought I quite like that. Yeah, I quite like that from
Gao, David. Leslie lesnetted him by closing
the points gap between him and teammate Lauren Aiello to 12
points. It was very much game on going
into the remaining rounds of the season.
And we're now at that time of the show where we head over to
producer Dan for our question game to see if we've been paying
attention to the events of the 1999 senester meeting.
So Passover to Producer Dan now, please let us know what your
question for today is. Andrew G This is where us
supposedly knowledgeable touring card journalists get made to
look idiots. Basically I.
Was on the weekend off so that's.
Well, hello everybody. Another great question lined up
for you. Nothing like a bit of self
praise there, Dan. You'll you'll like this one.
OK, so in the BTC CS history, including this round, there have
been a total of five different night races over 1999, two
thousand and 2001. There were three drivers who
competed in all of those. I'll give you them that, Jason
Plato, Evan Muller and James Thompson.
Of those three drivers, which one of them has been the most
successful over all of those? Oh, so, so Plato Thompson.
Thompson and Muller Muller. Yeah, because I retired at the
end of 2000 for the first time. Mueller.
Well, there's. Yeah, I would say Mueller, but
he had the more competitive package across the three years.
Mueller. Mueller.
No Mueller. In 2000 he got wiped out in the
race. One with menu at the first
corner and went flying through the the crops.
Yeah. Oh, I don't know.
Well, we've had Muller, we've had Muller from the guest and
we've had Muller from one of the presenters.
Shall we take that as your answer, or do you wish to have
another moment to think about? It No, no, no.
Let me think. Do you?
Think play do you Think play do you?
Think this now JP, did JP win it in I I'm going to go with Plato
and I'll go with. The guests said Muller and the
host said Plato and the host of right it is Jason Plato.
Over the course of those in 1999, none of them had
particularly yet successful race weekends.
Obviously Muller with that podium, but Placer got 4th and a
6th, Thompson with a ninth and a 15th.
Get to 2000 where things start changing.
At Stetterton, Plato got the win and 2nd place, Thompson got one
third place and Nirvana got one fourth place.
At Silverstone Plato got one second and then there was 1/3
for Thompson. Plato then won in 2001 at
Silverstone both of the races and there was second and third
at the Snetterton round. One win a piece for Molly and
Thompson. So with three wins, 3 second
places and one third place, Plato is the person that got
that. Well done JP.
Yeah. OK, brilliant.
No, it's a good question that Dan.
Yeah. See.
The British Touring Car Championships first of the night
race, with a roaring success of a crowd of over 30,000 watching
the night's action play out. A repeat of the event in the
following season's calendar was confirmed less than a week after
the meeting. The drivers loved it, the
spectators loved it, and Toca loved it.
So much so they'd introduce a second night race at the
Silverstone finale for the 2000 season.
As always, we'd like to thank our guests for this evening, so
Andrew Charman and Andrew Golby. We thank you both for taking
time to join us to look back at this event this evening.
You're welcome, it was good fun. Yeah, as you know, I totally
enjoy these evenings freshing up the grave matter or trying to
rediscover the grave matter. It's hard, but yeah, more of the
same in future. And our thanks, as ever, go to
you guys for listening to the show.
And if you enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to
give us a review, five star rating and subscribe to the
podcast feed on your podcast app of choice.
You can also submit your questions to our panel for our
season finale Q&A with Greg Haynes.
So if you have a question or thought about the Super Touring
era of touring car racing, don't forget to e-mail them to us
using POD at 1990 btcc.com. We've already had some great
questions in for that, by the way.
So keep them coming because, yeah, the more the merrier and
the more outlandish, even better, the more what would have
happened if this had happened and what would have happened if
that happened. It's brilliant.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Outlandish, I think would be a great thing.
For that, yeah, yeah. Can I send them something?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
I'll have to come out this evening.
Actually, no. I've got about four student
names. I'll use one alone.
You can also use that address to send us a comment about today's
episode, the podcast in general, or if you had a question or
suggestion for a future episode. And in the meantime, we'll see
you next week. Goodbye.