Stories from Super Touring. Mansel
Mania descended onto Darlington Park for rounds
11 and 12 of the British Touring Car Championship in
1998. As the 1992 Formula One World
Champion made his highly anticipated debut in the
Championship. Nobody quite knew what to expect,
but what the viewers got was possibly the greatest
touring car race of all time. Welcome
to the latest episode of Stories from Super Touring.
I'm Levi Riley and as this is
such a big episode, Alex Adam and myself are joined
by two guests for this week episode. Making
his first appearance of series four is touring car
journalist Andrew Charman. Whilst
it's a stories from Super Touring debut for Eurorsport
commentator Greg Haynes. Thanks
for joining us everyone. How
are we all this evening? Very
well, thank you. Yeah, very excited to finally
look back at this race. And
I say finally because I felt we needed to go in a
few series before we actually started looking at
this one because it's a cracker. Certainly
is. Yeah. Still for me, it's the
best touring car race, maybe even motorsport race
I've ever seen. Me too. I
agree. And I can't believe that I can
actually see all of your faces and not just voices
after listening to all these podcasts back to
back. It's a bit like Christmas for
you as well though, Greg, really. When
we see you on Superbikes. Yeah,
I suppose it's got a face for radio, but I can't
believe my first stories from Super Touring is
Donnington 98. Incredible. Fantastic. And
now Greg, coming to you first, as Adam has
mentioned, you work and commentate in the world of
Superbikes in your career. So
where does Super Touring fit into your life then?
Basically, Levi, it's how it all
started. I started playing in the
games on the computer, the Codemasters games, the
Legendary games, which of course you mentioned on the
show before. And then from there, I started
watching the actual BTCC on the Tele, and that was the
year 2000. The BTCC and Touring cars is
to thank for my whole life, my whole interest in
motorsport, my career so far, if you can call it
that. It's just how it all started,
and it was amazing to go from watching, playing the
games to seeing it in real life and then going to my
first race meetings at Donnington and then
Silverstone in the year 2000. However,
I then started going back through the videos and
watching them. And 98 is my favorite season.
There's no doubt about it. And
as Alex has already said, Donnington round 12 in
particular, 98 is my favorite ever motor race
because it had everything, the nostalgia, super
touring, Tokutu, and it was just a crazy race. We've
obviously had some man -somania and just carnage,
but incredible. Do you know, it's funny you
say that about you were playing the games first and
then became a fan. Today, this morning, I shared a
video of Donnington 98 as a clip and saying, yeah,
we're recording this episode this evening. And
one of the comments underneath it was, wait,
this wasn't just a game. Welcome
to the party 25 years late. But
you know, I remember like getting Tokutu on the
because obviously that was based on the 98 season. So
it must have been Christmas 99. I
just turned 10 years of age. And
my brother and I getting all excited because the
Renault is green. You know, we were used to a
yellow Renault. And Ravisic, Ravisic isn't in
the, oh, we're always in the Peugeot. And
that's how I was getting to learn about the BTCC
through the game. Yeah. But do you find that when
you, I know you said you're watching some of the
footage back and do you find that, but she just
all comes back to you straight away. There
are certain moments like in time. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a bloody long time ago,
but I just find that when like watching this race
back, I've just thought, God, yeah, I remember that.
I remember that. I
remember that. But like just like it was
yesterday, it's amazing what you store and what you
remember because it was an iconic race out of the
complete, you know, all the eras of touring car racing.
And like I'll said, of, you
know, motorsport generally, it's got to be up there
as one of the best ever. Yeah,
definitely. And I think the fact it was,
the coverage was so good as well. Those
recorded highlights by BHP, it's preserved it in time.
It's like good music, I guess
it doesn't age. Does it? I
know this was a live round, which is another
thing that made it so special. There
weren't so many live rounds, whether as we know,
you've spoken with Barry Nutley and people before on
the show, but I just incredible. I
often spend in my free time, I'll just put it on
in the background season of these, and particularly
Donington, 98. And I think we'll stick with
you, Greg, for our usual opening question. You've
already sort of touched on all the different bits that
came together in this event, but what is sort of
the first thing you think comes to mind about this
race at Donington? Probably because I always want to
do a commentator. It's the commentary from Charlie
Cox and John Watson and the absolute excitement and
disbelief. They're even struggling to get
their words out, weren't they, at some points. Reed
spinning off is the image I think of immediately. And
he didn't just spin off, he went spectacularly often,
he signed into the wall, the bumping and barging up
to Coffees with Manson and Cleland and Leslie, great
names, and then they all just disappear into the
Dunlop Bridge. What about Muller as well? I
was watching that back earlier. If
you watch Muller, he's on the inside into Goddards
and somehow comes out of there in third and ends up
in the lead. So those are the images that
come into my head. And obviously Manson and Cleland
shoving each other off, coming out of Redgate too.
Those are the first things I
think of. But yeah, it's the commentary,
to be honest. That's the thing I most remember.
Andrew, coming to you now, you
were actually working at the meeting at Donington in
1998. What are your first memories? Is
it maybe something in the press box or around the
circuit? What is it? Yeah,
I mean, I listened to you all and you would say, and
I was 10 and I was 12 and I was in my first
meeting. How old were you? Let
me think, was it 98? Minus 61 from 98? Mid
-30s. Well, obviously, as I've said
once or twice before, Super Touring Era was definitely
the most evocative time of my entire career. And
when people mention Super Touring to me, some
memories come straight into my head, obviously the 92
finale, the whole year of 95 when I was doing Super
Touring magazine. But always this one, this
particular meeting comes straight into the head. And
the one image I always get, which I'll talk about
in a bit more detail later, is what was going
on in the press box, in the media centre, in the
second half of that second race. It
was seared itself into my brain. It's
been there ever since. I can imagine. I
think we'll definitely touch on that view that none of
us would have had definitely later in the
episode. Adam, coming to you next,
Donnington 98, first thoughts for you? I
think Alan, you guys are probably going to know what
I'm first going to say. My hero, my nige, my nige,
Mansell Mania. Again, these are all great ones
to cover what we're doing. But
obviously, soon as I knew this was the one where
Nigel was in it. And yeah, again, just floating
back, Mansell Mania, Nigel, he was my hero growing up.
Still, he's absolutely legend of
the sport and what he did for the UK motorsport
generally. And he created Mansell Mania.
Look what he did. So,
I think the sort of almost like a transition, you
think of obviously F1 fans. But
I think he bought F1 fans into touring cars. You
can normally a single seat or F1 fan or you're a
touring car fan. But I think there's a synergy
there where he bought a lot of fans to the
championship. But I just remember Nigel, a
wet meeting, safety cars and just pure excitement
that weekend for me. And like I said earlier, when
I watched this footage back, so much of it come
flooding back that you do forget, but it's amazing
how well you remember those moments. And
it was a long time ago. But
yeah, it was just pure excitement that weekend for
me. And finally, coming to you out,
what are your memories of this memorable race from
1998? Well, I dried off yesterday. So
it was wet. It was soaking wet. I
was lucky enough to be there. And
just what a wonderful, wonderful experience because
as I said at the start of the show, one of the best
touring car, the best touring car race I've ever
seen. And yeah, it was just, it just
had everything, the race that had everything,
especially the feature race. I
love the extra story that the pit stops brought into
the race. It told a nice little story,
whereas I don't think you get that in more modern
touring car races where they're just sprints. I
love the Mansell cameo. And yep, that's me on record
saying something nice about Nigel. I
know. Come on, go on, Alex. I
know you're a secret fan. It's
fine. You can let it out. Just
block the therapy session. Hey,
you can do it. Yeah. It was just the perfect
race. The buzz in the paddock, the
buzz in the crowds, the pit lane walkabout. I
mean, Nigel couldn't go anywhere. He
was absolutely swamped. I remember seeing a six foot
cardboard cutout of Nigel Mansell, complete with
Moustache, because obviously he'd lost the Moustache for
98, hadn't he? But that somebody had got
signed by him and was just carrying around with him
for the rest of the week. Which
probably got a bit damp, actually. But
yeah, it was just... I was about to get it in
the car in the car park. Just
carrying around with this six foot Mansell at the
result. But yeah, if you're listening
now, I hope that it dried and I hope it's still...
Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah.
Please show us. It's still a picture. Yeah,
it's still a picture. But yeah, it was just... I
think the media attention as well was amazing because
I know you've talked about Noel's house party, haven't
you, on a previous episode I've been to here. Nigel
was on Noel's house party on the run -up to
Dunnington 98 with the overalls on and they even
did the launch for Ford in that very BBC studio. Yeah,
they did, yeah. Didn't they? I
was at that launch. Were you? So
you were in the Noel's house party studio? I'd
completely forgotten about it until you mentioned it
and I thought, yeah, I remember being there. Was
Mr Blobby there or...? Don't
think he made an appearance, but if he did,
I certainly banished it from my mind. I'm
sure he remembers that one. It
was such a carnage wasn't it? I
mean, how can we put that into perspective now for
anyone who can't remember Noel's house party? It's
like a current... It's like a retired F1 driver
going and racing in the B2CC now and making an
appearance on Anton Deck Saturday night takeaway
before having to promote it. It
almost seems impossible now. As
ever, we have asked our faithful listeners what they
thought of this race meeting as well through our
social media channels. Kicking
things off, Daniel Francis just says that he also
remembers, like Alex, how wet it was that day. Well,
Spenley says he remembers his dad going on a golfing
day instead of taking him to Donington and that might
be the saddest story I've heard for the week. Some
of the drivers had sad stories that weekend, but
then I think that might be the most heart breaking of
all of them. Jonathan Zifovich, I hope I've got
that right for you there. He
says that his one memory of this meeting is much
like Greg, the commentary, and he can hear John
Watson shouting, British touring cars, a certain
near -clipped anything we have ever seen even now.
Barry Pierce, he got in touch to
say his memories are of Clelland and Mantle's fight
for the win. And John Corley added that he
was gutted when Anthony Reid spun off in the
feature race, wondering how the race would have
unfolded had he not gone off and continued. Certainly
an interesting thought there. How
quick those Nissan's were that weekend. Yeah,
they were. Yeah, they were. Andy
Taylor, he got in touch to say it was the hope that
Mantle could actually win in a touring car and that
he certainly showed his elbow's outstyle in
abundance, whilst Andy Hopley remembers Rob Gravitt
and Riccardo Adele both facing the wrong way up
the pit straight. And I think we'll probably get
into the 800 point turns that they both had to pull
mid -race on the pit straight. Yeah,
the steering lock on those things are clearly not
great at all. No, no. Mike
Fisher said that it was the last time he's ever
shouted at his TV. Of course, as Greg's mentioned,
this was one of the live races that GranStand
broadcasted in 1998. Whilst Gary Bonsall says that he
remembers it because it was his first ever British
touring car race to attend. And
you know, what a race to start with, probably the
best one ever. Well, all of them. Aaron
Collins, he says his first memory of this race is the
image of Tim Harvey, Anthony Reid and Wilhoi,
all looking a bit annoyed and glam, missing all the
fun at McClain's corner after they'd all bind it
themselves. And Mark Sullivan, he's got in
touch with an interesting one. So
he's a good job that Mansell didn't run the
whole season before, or he thinks he'd have run away
with the season. I remember the first of those
live races, the previous season. And
of course, none of us were standing on the grid on
our then brand new mobile phones, phoning home and
saying, can you see me on the telly? Didn't
do that at all. Not at all, honest. That's
an interesting one from Mark there. I
mean, I know I'm not Nigel's biggest supporter,
but I can't imagine he'd have run away with it
personally. Now I have more to say on
that subject a little bit later. That's
one of the biggest fans known to man, you know,
let's have the balance. Yeah,
it would have absolutely ronked it lads, let's be
honest. Of course, you wouldn't. You've
got too many experienced BCCC drivers like top end
drivers that he was never going to, you know, I know
it's wishful thinking and, you know, I'm sure Mark,
that's what he wanted to have happened. And
that's an ideal world, Mansell Maynion, what we're
all live for. But that would never have
happened at the condition suited and with Helts Nigel
that weekend, the fact that it brings everything more
to a level playing field. And
but saying that, the lack of experience that he had
in the tin top, he did brilliant. Yeah,
I think, you know, you look at the dry races he
did at Silverstone and Brands Hatch and that's
more of your level that he was at realistically because
you look at it and even his teammate Will Hoy, one
of the most experienced touring car racers out
there at the time, you know, he wasn't able to
get much out of the Mondeo in the dry. So
it wasn't a competitive car. Nigel
Mansell would not have been able to to romp it. But
I think even if he was, you know, a pole position
car, a winning car, I don't think he would have
because all the different circuits, they know, them
cars are way more complicated than any of the
current cars now. And to go from such a
different discipline of going from single seaters,
different suspension brakes, everything to something
that's so alien compared to that, to just go in there
and expect to, you know, everyone would have wished
for it. I would have wished for it
obviously at the time, but you know, there's a big
ask when you're up against the likes of Muller,
Clelland, exactly, you know, Menu, Rydel, Harvey, they're
all, you know, these guys have, that's they've been
their life and they knew them cars better than
anybody. So for Nigel to come in and
wipe the floor with them, that wasn't really going to
happen. Yeah, I think his ability to
adapt to circumstances show, didn't it? As
we've seen in F1 and seen in, you know, the junior
Formula E and then over in America as well. But
ultimately, lack of experience did cost him,
didn't it? I don't think he changed the
brake bias as he should have done. I
think Clelland said once, which is why he locked up
again, didn't he, down into Goddard as he'd done in
the first race and gone off at Coppers. But
his pure talent just came through, didn't it? And
the fact it was Nigel Mansell, you know, Mary
Walker always said there was always drama where
Nigel was. And there was, it couldn't have
been any better. And I guess the fact it wasn't
a front -running car, that season, made it even more
special. But he was lucky that Ford had
done a lot of wet weather testing, hadn't they, pre
-season, I believe, which obviously played into his
hands at Donnington, but just goes down in motor
racing folklore, doesn't it? What
an incredible set of circumstances. I
said in our Brands Hatch 98 episode back in Series
1 that that race meeting we saw the very best of
Nigel Mansell. Yeah. You know, this was the
complete opposite. Nigel was incredible all weekend.
There's no other way of wording
it. Especially bearing in mind, he had,
you know, stuffed it into the tyre wall in a fairly
big accident in the first race. It
had a bit of a stiff neck, he said, didn't he?
Yeah, well, there was an incident
with, we'll talk about it later on, but he had a
bit of an incident with Lemmer in the pre -race
test. And the car had to be sent
back to West Surrey to be to basically have a new
back end put on it. So yeah, in the wars, as
always with Nigel. Heading into the weekend and
unsurprisingly, everyone was talking about Nigel Mansell.
Donnington Park was to be the first
of three appearances in the BTCC for Ford, replacing
Craig Baird in the second one day at Donnington, the
August Bank holiday meeting at Grands Hatch and the
Silverstone season finale. The
fact that the 1992 F1 World Champion was taking
part in the BTCC meant that the focus on the
championship was at the highest level ever. BBC
Grandstand's Pitlane reporter Mark Fogarty wrote in an
autosport column, Nigel's entry into the series will
bring interest in the BTCC from the Fleet Street Fish
Wrappers, which normally treat the series as some
sort of dog and pony show. From
now until Monday, tin tops will be the tassel of the
tabloids and the babble of the broadsheets. Andrew,
as a journalist in the media, scrum around the
series at the time. Do you know how it was a
fair assessment of the increased interest in the
series because of Nigel's entry? Scrub?
We were far more posh than scrum. Well,
firstly, mentioning Mark Fogarty, I mean, that
brings back some very special memories because
he's an Australian journalist and he was a
lot more than the BBC's Pitlane reporter because in
those days we used to get post -race press conferences
with the top three finishers and the total Cup
independence winner after each race. And
Mark hosted them. He was never subtle with his
grilling of the drivers. He called them out, but he
thought they were at fault and the sparring between
him and certain drivers, did anyone say Cleland? It
was something we all always looked forward to. I
mean, the post -race press conferences were
entertainment in their own right. They
were great and it's yet another thing we don't get
today. To be honest, I think the
Mansell Mania bit had more traction outside the BTCC
than within it. And again, this is where I'm
going to be the latest to come up against Adam here.
It was a very easy story for
the Fleet Street tabloids because obviously, you know,
our nige. Those of us in the, shall we
say, serious BTCC media pack who, especially those
of us who had been at Niger's previous flirtation
with the series in the 93 Tokyo shootout, and we
remember these big accident and the way he never
stopped blaming the totally innocent Tiffany Dale. We
were probably a bit cynical about his comeback, to be
honest, especially as this time he hadn't been doing
a lot, whereas in 93 he just won the F1 title and
the IndyCar championship in successive years. So
yeah, there was a lot of hype, but most of it was
outside the series and not really affecting those that
were in the middle of it. Those
of us that were in the middle of it. That's
an interesting column from Mark Fogarty. I
don't know, it just seems rather scathing and
obviously that ties in with what Andrew was saying
about his post -Post -Race press conferences that he
didn't hold back. Manson and Fogarty knew each other
pretty well because I think Mark used to do F1 press
conferences as well, especially in Australia.
Mark was quite well known. I've
heard and till at least recent years that he was
doing the same thing in V8 Supercars, but I don't know
if that's still the case. But
yes, he was a heck of a character, definite
character. From what I can gather, he is
in Australia doing pretty much what you said with
V8s. Manson spoke about his reasons for
taking part in the Free Race meetings for Ford in
the Pre -Race Press Conference. Let's
hear now what he had to say. I
think the big question everybody is wondering is
having conquered the world of Formula One and Indy
cars, had to go to saloon, why after a five -year
break come back? That's a good question. It
seemed a good idea at the time, but seriously
everybody. We've come on board with Ford
Motor Company. They've obviously not as competitive
as they wish to have been in the last couple of
years. They asked whether I'd come on
board to consult, to help develop, to test, and to
do three races for them. It
was actually my idea to do the three races as well
because it doesn't until you get in the thick of
it the weekend that you see how everything operates.
We've been working there for a
good period of time behind the scenes. With
excitement building for Nidale's debut at Dyington,
talks of another XF1 star joining him on the grid
with Gathering Pace. 1979 F1 world champion Jody
Shepter was being touted for a drive with either
Nissan, Renault or Honda. He
was rumoured to have been penciled in to race at the
same three meetings that Mansell was contesting. In
May, BTCC boss Alan Gow claimed an 80 % chance of
the deal happening, whilst Jody wanted a deal done by
the end of May. A decision is going to be
made either way by Friday. Last
week I was going to say no, but something came up
which could be interesting. If
they can do it with everything being right, I
will race. If it isn't decided by the
end of the week, it will be too late. It
already is really, but that is half the fun of it.
Whilst we now know that the deal
never took place and Shepter never made the
grid, how do you guys think he would have got on
compared to Mansell and the rest of the grid that
weekend? Depends on what the last time he
actually drove something competitive prior to that
meeting. I know Nidale hadn't done a
lot prior to that compared to obviously when he got
thrown in at the Tuckershoots out in 1993,
F1 World Champion 1992, Indy Car 93, let's just
throw in the touring car race at the same time. A
million dollar question is that we can all say he
could have wiped the floor with everyone at the same
time. He could have been twiddling
around at the back. That's one of the reasons I love
doing this podcast because I had completely forgotten
about this until I saw the script and then suddenly
came back to me. We can only speculate. He
could have been great. He could have been rubbish and
if he had been rubbish, it wouldn't have been that
surprising. Many a leading F1 driver was
brought down a few notches by no holds barred racing
we saw in the BTCC and I think a prime example at
the time was Derrick Warwick who never really
looked comfortable in the tin top. But
then there was other single -seater hot shoes who
totally adapted to touring cars extremely well. I
mean, the two obvious ones are Alan Mignou and Rick
Hardly -Dale who both had very good single -seater
careers and they were climbing rapidly and could
possibly have made F1, especially Ryder, if their
career hadn't turned left into cars with roofs. So
yeah, it's really some F1 drivers adapt very well to
tin tops, others don't. The only way we could have
found out is once checked, was in the car. I
think anyone being thrown in at the deep end amongst
this talented field of drivers would have struggled
in a car that they probably weren't going to
be testing either very much or if at all. No
matter who they are, I think they were going to
struggle. So yeah, I can't see him
getting to the front of the grid. I
wouldn't have envisaged that but maybe he would have
surprised. Who knows? That's
the beauty of podcasts like this, isn't it? You
know, you can have a look and think maybe he would
have done but nobody really knows. But
for me, he probably would have struggled and would
have been towards the rear. Yeah,
I think I have to agree whether it would have been
a Nissan Renault or a Honda, all competitive
packages in 1998. But I mean, Jody wouldn't have
known Donnington that well, would he? Let's
be honest, starting there. Did
he have any tin top experience, as anybody would
know? I can't think of him doing
anything on a regular basis. Maybe
a few guest races. They did an F1 race at the
Nurburgring, didn't they? They
reopened in 1985, well, with F1 drivers in Mercedes
saloon cars. And I'm pretty sure Jody was
in that. But I think we'd be... I
can't see him making a big impression, if I'm honest.
Unless something happened like Rain
and he could have done what Nigel did, but you
have to feel it would have been a struggle. Nothing
against Jody Schechter but I think he would have been
a struggle. Nigel, meanwhile, was in good
spirits ahead of the meeting and was confident
of a good showing at Donnington Park. He
did over 250 miles of testing at Pembray prior to
the meeting at Donnington, with team boss Dick
Bennett's very pleas of his progress. Nigel's
feeling part of the car now. He's
tried several things, but we mainly ran him with a
known quantity to allow him to get some miles. He
really impressed me through the fast corners. Team
mate Will Hoy was equally impressed. He
was committed and close enough to me to be a pain
in the ass. We'll be pleased if it is wet.
Adam, 250 miles before your first
race, that's not the worst testing schedule in the
world, is it? Damn, it's a lot better than any
testing schedule I've ever had in my whole career. I
was always like throwing in the deep end, you know,
straight into practice on the Saturday. I'd
never got to do any of that. But
this is Nigel and he would have known the pressures in
terms of spotlight on him. So
he would have wanted to have come in and made sure
there was a proper testing schedule there for him,
knowing that he's got to come in, find his feet,
learn as much about that car as possible because you
would not want to go in there with minimal amount
thrown in the deep end, all the spotlights, all the
cameras, the whole world looking at you. So
he would have wanted, as a professional, you know, he
would say, I think that's sort of where we're going
with Jody. You know, he's like, the
decision of history has been made, but we need
another couple of days and that's it because you've
got a factor in testing. You
can't just jump in the car and understand and how it
works. Now it's going to handle and
how, you know, you've got to adapt. It's
such a different environment. So
250 miles. And the fact that Willard
mentioned that they'd be pleased if it was wet just
makes it sound that the time they did spend at
Pembroke is very wet. So I imagine the predominant
very likely. Yeah. Well, the fact that it's
in Wales and it's very green, there's a reason why
it's green. But the fact that he made that
comment made it sound that he's done more wet testing
than he did dry. So it all works out in his
favour. Let's hear what Nigel had to say
about testing prior to the weekend and the Nigel
Mansell's touring car year program. Oh,
here we are. I mean, getting some open
practice here on Monday and you can see the weather
is, it's actually quite good. It's
raining a lot harder earlier. We're
actually going very well today. The
car is very competitive in these type of conditions.
As you know, the team did a
great job earlier in the year with Will winning at
Silverstone and secretly in a way, we're sort of
hoping that it might be a bit damp the weekend. But
very encouraged. We've done some good times on
within upwards of half a second of Will's time and,
you know, we're getting there and he's got some
development bits on his car, which will be on my
car, hopefully for the practice on Thursday. And
I think that relates to about three tenths of a
second lap. So we're greatly encouraged and
really looking forward to this coming weekend.
Elsewhere in the paddock, there were
rumors of reshuffling starting to happen at
Honda. Jason Plato had been linked with
Taken over the second Honda alongside James Thompson for
1999. Whilst there were also strong
rumors that Pro Drive had lost the deal to run the
Hondas for 99 with Vostek a rumoured outfit ready to
take over. Greg, to bring you in here, are
you surprised like teams like Honda were sniffing
around Plato at this time during his second season in
the series? It seems strange thinking back
now because you always think of Plato and a
Renault Laguna, don't you until he went to Voxel.
But no, I can't say I'm
surprised because he'd come in so strongly the year
before, hadn't he? Probably should have finished second
in the championship. But then you put the Mandas on
him in that last round, that last meeting at
Silverstone through the island Chican and Frank
Beeler ended up taking his second in the championship.
But he'd won three races at
this point in time, hadn't he? He'd
won at Alton Park just before Donnington 98 and
his 297 wins as well. It's Netton and then the last
race at Silverstone. So no, I'm not surprised and
obviously he didn't quite know what was happening.
Alex has told me he had an
option, I think, on his Renault contract. Daniel
Renault had the option for a third year, but Plato
didn't necessarily know what was going to happen there.
So he'd have to be looking
around and who wouldn't want to speak to Plato and
why would Plato not want to speak to certain teams?
But FosTech, interestingly, was
run by James Thompson's dad, was it not? And
they got on well, didn't they? Unless
it was brand 97, they normally got on well. So
yeah, you could see that happening, I suppose. Yeah,
and Al, sort of on the subject of FosTech, what
were your thoughts on the rumors of pro -drive and
Honda splitting at the end of 98? I
mean, it's not a major surprise that Honda were
looking elsewhere because I thought personally, under
the pro -drive program, the Hondas had underperformed
since pro -drive became involved with them at the
start of 97. And if you believe the rumors
at the time, the split from pro -drive had already
happened effectively, but just hadn't been announced.
And as we all know now, it
eventually went to West Surrey Racing for 1999. But
I can see why FosTech were linked because, as Greg
just said, David Thompson was the owner of FosTech,
who was James Thompson's dad. They
were already building the cars of pro -drive. So
yeah, it's an obvious link to make. But
just after this race, David Thompson came out and said
that they were not interested in the running
of the team. And as we know, as I just
said, it went to West Surrey Racing eventually.
And FosTech still had that
relationship with West Surrey. So
even after pro -drive moved on. So
yeah, it wasn't a surprise to me because Honda had,
they hadn't won at all in 1998 up until this point.
They'd only taken a winner piece
with Thompson and Tarqueen in 97. So
when MSD had the program in 96, Honda took four
wins with David Leslie. So yeah, I can see why Honda
were looking elsewhere for 99. Yeah.
And also the fact Peter Cox had been struggling so
far. And he's obviously much better
than he showed in the BTCC. So
you only have the one winded near Snepperton in
the night race in 99. But he had been struggling. So
there would be rumors about people maybe replacing him
and others in the field. And
you never know, maybe it was something to do with
Peter and his management as well wanting to spread a
few rumors around. Because I know drivers and riders
do this to just send a bit of a warning shot to
Renault who probably would have wanted to keep him
and we know they did in the end, get a few rumors
spreading around, perhaps, you know, I might be off
somewhere else. They do do that sometimes. Yeah.
Yeah. Cox was quick. He
just, he seemed to struggle. He
was very quick in this BMW when he was racing a Super
Touring BMW. So yeah, it was a shame it
didn't really work out for him at Honda. For
this series of stories from Super Touring, we are
delighted to be teaming up with Brands Hatch to give
away two tickets to Super Touring Power Two, which is
being held at the famous circuit on the 29th and
30th of June, 2024. The award -nominated event was a
smash hit last year when its debut edition
transported fans back to the 90s. And
this year's event will once again celebrate one of
touring car racing's most fondly remembered eras. To
enter the competition, just answer the following
question. Who was the first ever guest
to star on stories from Super Touring? Send
your answers to podd at 1990sbtcc .com and we'll
announce the winner on a later episode this series.
Meanwhile, let's get back to the
episode. Qualifying would be an interesting
affair, with everyone's eyes on how Mansell would do.
After an incident in the Thursday
test session with Mark Lemmer, Mansell was
complaining about pain in his neck. Let's
hear now from Nigel about that. I've
only done two laps this morning. It
was an unfortunate situation where I was coming down
the straight and the car behind lost control and hit
me rather hard while I was going and turning into the
chicane. So obviously being quite a lot
of damage done to his car and a significant amount of
damage done to mine whereby it's got to go back to
the workshops tonight to have a complete new back
end. That is a fire again at
Donnington. You seem to always provide
something special for the media in particular. Well
no, it's not me. I think I just paint a
bullseye on the back of the car. I
think. What did you say to Mark Lemmer
that you mentioned? Well I asked him if he was all
right. I said you're a splendid
fellow. Give me a bit of a neck, eh?
Everyone's focus soon changed to
Anthony Reid, however, as the Nissan driver was in
stunning form and grabbed both pole positions in the
damp conditions. He would be joined on the
front row in the sprint race by championship leader
Richard Riedel with Paul Radisic in third until Toca
threw out the Kiwi for dumping oil on the track
during the session. Pertre Posse -McLinford was furious.
We are feeling very aggrieved
about this decision and it is hardly the way to keep
a manufacturer in the championship, he said after
the session. Andrew, there were a lot of
arguments about cars leaking oil throughout the 1998
season. Do you think this was an
unfair decision by the Toca stewards or overall
punishment fit the crime? Punishment
absolutely fit the crime. If
you can't stop your car spewing oil all over the
place and it shouldn't be on the circuit, officials
don't tend to make up such things as that and cars
leaking oil do tend to have pretty damning evidence
on their rear end. So, you know, bang to rights.
But what did occasionally
happen, it probably still happens today, was giving
the teams and the team bosses reason to be annoyed
was inconsistency in the officiating and the
penalties. It was over this year or the
year after I was watching ride height tests in
qualifying at Stettaton and the car drives up onto the
flat pad, they do the ride height test and off it
goes again. And they did one of the
nissans and I happened to notice that it was sort of
parked sort of half on and half off the pad and they
still did the test and it failed. And
so it's time for thrown out. And
I've made the mistake of subsequently mentioning this
to RML Botheray Malek in the panic. About
20 minutes later, I'm find myself as RML star witness
as they appear to get disqualification of their
times and I'm sitting in this tiny room alongside
Ray Malek facing Bob Kettleborough who was the
clerk of the course and the BTCC's chief scrutiny
of Peter Richie's, both of them looking at me as if
they wanted basically to turn me into a small pile
of dust. And yes, RML lost the appeal
and I remember as we exited Richie's, who I'd
known for years at that point, that walked past me
and muttered bloody journalists shouldn't get
involved in such things as this and carried on. So
yeah, there was some inconsistencies. But
yeah, I mean, if you spew oil, you should expect to
lose out. I thought that was quite an
interesting comment from Mick Linford though. I
felt that that showed the pressure he was possibly
under. He was by then. By
saying, you know, but this is hardly the way to keep
a manufacturer in the championship. I
mean, that's quite a big thing to say, I think. Did
he know there were things about leaving by that
point? Possibly. The results weren't showing
were they? It was a tough year. The
engines kept breaking in the 406s. So
did he feel that, yeah, his possible chance of
going to Persia and saying, look, look, this is
progress. We're making progress here. And
it's been taken away from him. So
I just get that. Well, not only that being thrown
out, being thrown out, being disqualified from even
a qualifying session is not the kind of publicity that
the bean counters are going to want to see, is it?
That decision by the stewards
promoted Nigel Mansell into third place on the grid
for the first race. For me, the weekend has already
been made worthwhile, he said. Third,
that's pretty hard, the grid, really. I
think an awful lot of people will be queuing up
behind me in the race. Adam,
after all the hype and build up, that's not a bad
first showing from the former world champion, is
it? No, completely. Like
I said before, you know, he's got such the
disciplines from what he'd been used to racing in
single seats. So this was huge. So
to be like P3 on the grid, like, yeah,
completely. And obviously, you play it down
a little bit saying there's going to be a queue behind
him and what have you. We'll
just lay that out there, just so people aren't
expecting two great things, expecting me to be the
first corner first. But you'll always play it down
that way. But yeah, really good. Really
good. He'd have been really pleased
with that, I think. After the session, Anthony Reid
attributed his 0 .6 second gap for feature race poll
on his tyre choice. I went out first on the
intermediates, and I saw there was a fine scotch
mist ascending on my windscreen. So
I dived into the pits, changed his slicks and
bagged the time. Great. First of all, that's one
of the most Anthony Reid style Anthony Reid quotes I
think I've ever read out there. The
scotch mist ascending. But that's some performance,
isn't it? To get you first two British
touring card pole positions in that style is pretty
impressive for Anthony, isn't it? And
bearing in mind, let's be honest, he was under some
pressure, wasn't he? Because at this point in the
season, we'd had 10 races, only Rydel, Menuhin,
Anthony's teammate David Lezzi had won more than
one. He still hadn't won a BTCC
race, had he, until round 11 at Donington on this
very weekend. He'd nearly won at Brans, he, I
remember, the end of the previous year, but Rydel
had got past it. And of course, he came with a
massive reputation, didn't he? He'd
done a Tokyo shootout or two in the past at
Donington, I remember, with some of the other British
drivers. But he'd been very quick in
Japan, he'd been quick in South Africa. But
the pressure was on there. He
was behind David Lezzi in the championship, wasn't he?
So he needed to start, I
remember John Watson actually on the, on the
season review saying Anthony must have been feeling,
when am I ever going to win a race? And
of course, part of that he's taking the pole
position. So yeah, tremendous stuff. I
suppose let's be honest, the sixth tense was tire
choice and also the fact all that oil had been
dropped by the Peugeot probably helped a little
bit as well for everybody else's headshot showdown
performances. But yeah, Reed showed his past,
didn't he? But he did need to because he
was under pressure. And they'd under delivered a
little bit, hadn't they? So far that year. Yeah,
yeah. Yeah, but he changed the slicks
and bagged the time. Got to miss this ending.
Championship leader, Richard Rydel would
find himself back in 16th for the feature race.
Whilst reigning champion Alema knew
had a miserable day as well, the Swiss driver
qualifying 10th for race one and being sent to the
back of the grid for race two for a failing a ride
height test. Alex, that's pretty tough
qualifying session for two major championship
protagonists there. Yeah, it was tough, especially
with Reed taking both poles or although as I say that
the funny thing at that point of the season, as
Greg just said, is that we didn't actually know Reed
was going to be the one that Rydel that ran Rydel
the closest at the end of the season. He
was struggling at the start of the season. It
was Leslie that was leading the Nissan charge. He
took two victories at the start of the season. And
in the first victories for the P11 version of the
Primera. And it was only actually after
this meeting that Reed gained the momentum and
went on to push. If you remember after this
race meeting, he won pretty much I think six or seven
sprint races in a row. Yeah.
And went on this wonderful charge to be able to
challenge Ricard right at the end. And
but yeah, it's a very tough qualifying session,
very tough year for our menu so far this season up
until Donnington. So yeah, but would make it
very interesting for the races. Race
day dawned and it was wet. As
the crowns were pouring into the circuit, there was
already drama unfolding. In the pre race warm up,
Mansel and Clellan to clash coming through the crane of
curves. The Vauxhall and the Ford
briefly touching wing mirrors, which left Mansel
furious. Andrew, only the morning warm up
and already is kicking off. Could
you sense from that it was going to potentially be
quite a dramatic day? Not especially no. Obviously,
you know, you went into a BTCC weekend, you never
knew what you were going to get. As
I've said, Mansel had a bit of a reputation for
his moaning. So we probably weren't that
surprised that he was moaning. And
if anyone's going to be, you know, if you're going
to like anyone's touch paper, it's going to be
Mr. Clellan. So yeah, it was fairly par
for the course. We certainly had no inkling
what was to come later that day. So,
you know, it was at that point a reasonably typical
BTCC weekend with some F1 guy in it. Adam,
that was just an interesting welcome to
touring cars for Mansel from Clellan there. I'm
just wondering, did you have a similar welcome when
you joined the series and what are your thoughts on
that incident in particular? Well,
the incident, it was just Clellan, if anyone's going
to say, I'm John Clellan, welcome to BTCC. Don't
think you're going to have an effing easy ride here.
Like, this is how it is. You
know, and then it's how it is. You
know, that wouldn't be anything untoward to any
touring car, current touring car drive. It's
just one of the things that you carry on. But
the fact that it's happened to Nigel, he's probably had
this bit of a bosh down the side, lost his mirror
and what have you, and then it's the end of the
world. But yeah, listen, like it was
nothing really. But in terms of me having that
experience, no, the first year I did it, when I was
in the Lexus, the Lexus was that slow, I couldn't
even keep up with the pack anyway. So
there was no, there was nobody that I could get
anywhere near other than the start of like the
first two laps. And then I'd, you know, the
four or five cars, I'd get it done the start that
ended up coming back past me anyway. But
it was only the second year when we had the
Toledo that I just knew all about the championship.
And I just knew with my sort
of personality, karting, and that type of environment,
close racing and growing up through the ranks, you, I
was fully aware of what touring car was all about.
So you just got to give as
good as you get. I think it's great. It's
great drama, isn't it? And it's probably exactly the
reaction JC wanted from Nigel. Having
said that, in Nigel's defence, Adam, had that
happened to you in a warmup, wouldn't you have
been annoyed with the other driver in a warmup or a
practice session? Yeah, you'd probably be annoyed,
but he's Nigel Mansel. He probably wouldn't have
happened to me, but he's Nigel Mansel. If
anyone was going to do it, who better than John to do
it? That's true. He's
a Scotsman that's just going to, you know, we
haven't formally introduced ourselves, but we have now.
We have now. You
know, that sort of how it goes, but it's just
something that Nigel has never been used to, and
John would have been fully aware that it would have
angered Nigel. Oh yeah. Just
to wind him up. Which does make it hilarious,
that's for your own good. Yeah,
he does. It's remonstrated with Clelland
in the paddock after the warmup, but it was soon
time for the race. Race one started in wet
conditions with Reid taking the lead from pole
position. Clelland made the best start,
jumping from fifth to second, edging Mansel onto
the grass in the process, dropping him from third to
eighth. The lights are green and
they're away. Struggling for traction in the wet
conditions look like a flying start from Reid.
Yes, a great start from Anthony
Reid. They're flying down there now.
Mansel's got away. Okay.
It's Reid on the left, right behind him. A
storming start as well, but John Clell an absolute
flyer through the field. Salam
on the inside. Leslie is run wide. That's
Leslie on the left hand side of the screen, flying
down into the crane. It curves now. Mansel
being shuffled back a bit. The
pack seems to have gone through a red gate all
right. The pawling view from the front
of James Thompson's car, you can see the water just
sheathing through and they all look to be away
cleanly. John Clell did an absolutely
wizard start again. Once again, we've seen him do
that before, an absolute cragger. Greg,
a sensible start from everyone considering the
conditions on the trapped here, I think. The
spray was pretty horrendous going down the cranes,
wasn't it? Yeah, obviously the second race
start, there was a bit more drama, wasn't there,
which we'll talk about later. But
I guess Mansel wasn't particularly pleased that he
had another little coming together and was off again.
And of course, there'd be
another one later on in race two. He
was pretty hilarious. But no, yeah, not too bad. Not
too bad. They all got through cleanly and
obviously all the drama would be coming a little
bit later. Reed pulled out a second lead
over Clelland, but it wasn't long before the
safety car came out. Mansel was in the wall at Coppiss
and out of the race. Reed was told over the radio
that the safety car was out, but made the mistake
of backing off before crossing the line. Clelland
challenged him into the chicane, but the two made
contact with the vectors front end getting damaged.
Just as you get in Indy cars,
there was some tactical battling going on before
the line, said Reed after the race. I
eased off going into the chicane, and he made a do
or die move to pass. He nearly ran me off the
circuit. Alex, your view on this, was
that all fair or a little bit too much? Well,
we've often been asked how John Clelland's grill ended
up damaged in both races, actually, because the car
looks pretty much identical at the end of each race.
And now people know, because
annoyingly, this race hardly features on the series
review that was put together and people really
have missed out on a cracker. It's
a 50 -50 incident for me. I
don't think there's anything major in it. It
didn't cost anyone a position. You
know, Reedie was still leading. And
it actually sadly damaged Clelland's car. It
affected the cooling on it, and the engine was
obviously then affected from that. And
that's why John was eventually going to end up
dropping down the field. But
no, nothing in it for me. It's
just, you know, Reed will be fine because he was
leading the race, and he was still leading the race
after the after the incident. So
I'm not sure he nearly ran me off the circuit is a
fair description. However, slight exaggeration, but
then that's that's what they're good at. No.
No. I'm exaggerating. How?
There you are. Once the safety car was in,
Menu started skiving through the field from the back of
the grid, and he was soon up to sixth place, battling
with Derek Warwick and Will Hoy. Menu
shouldered Hoy out of the way at Coppice to take
fifth before Warwick tried getting past two, totally
missing his breaking point and collecting Menu and
James Thompson in the process. Adam,
this was one that Warwick accepted full responsibility
for after the race. Maybe you're about to say he had
no excuse to do that. What are your thoughts on the
incident? It shows how bad it must have
been for Derek just to say, yeah, it was
complaining my fault. I do apologize. You
know, you couldn't you couldn't do the, you know,
the racing drivers thing where you're just trying to
deny all knowledge and try and blame the other person.
I think he knew he was
absolutely banged to rights with this one. But
yeah, he was pretty straight cut, wasn't he?
Poor decision, really. I
think without Menu and Thompson in the way, he
probably would have ended up halfway down the GV
loop the wrong way, wouldn't he? Yeah,
yeah. He would have ended up with
the Melbourne loop. That's why he would have ended
up. I thought Will Hoy was
actually quite lucky to be pushed out of the way
almost. Coming on to the back straight
because it meant he was then out of the way of
this incident. And yeah, because otherwise he
probably would have been caught up in it. I
noticed as well, Warwick then took another chunk out
the back of Menu's Renault as well, because he runs
into the back of him. Menu hits Thompson, he goes off.
Yes. And then Menu struggling
across the grass and Warwick's trying to turn
right to rejoin and clicks the Renault again. So
yeah, that was he got that badly wrong, didn't he?
Yeah, he had a bit of a bad
race there, he did, didn't he? Clemens'
damage voxel slowly started to drop down the field, as
Rydel and Hoy passed to Scott to take second and
third, respectively. Greg, another strong performance
from Will Hoy in the wet in the Ford. He
won at Silverstone in the wet earlier in the season.
Clearly a match that was perfectly
made, as he said in his pre -race comments. Yeah,
and sadly now looking back, little did we know at the
time, in the same way Silverstone proved to be
Will's last ever BTCC win, this would prove to be his
33rd and last ever British Touring Car Championship
podium. Bless him. But
yeah, that car, as we said earlier on, they had so
much testing in the wet, didn't they, pre -season?
Yeah. Because of circumstances, I
think more than anything else. It
was particularly good, wasn't it? I
think you guys, I said before, I haven't knew that
the V6 was pretty heavy and put a lot of stress
through the front tires. Yes.
Yeah. Which caused a lot of trouble in
dry conditions in particular. But
we said this before, and when it comes down to ride
a feel, I told you I was going to do that, it comes
down to drive a feel in the wet. We
know what you mean. Yeah. Pretty much. But
yeah, it comes down to drive a feel in the wet,
doesn't it? And Will was particularly good,
wasn't he? And had the experience, he knew
the Donnington National Circuit particularly well as
well. And as we've heard already, he
was lucky in some ways to not get wiped out by
Warwick, but you've got to be in it to win it. And
he wasn't too far off, even being second, he was
just behind reading Ryderl, wasn't he at the finish?
So nice to see a different
driver up there again, because one thing 98
definitely had was variety. We
had a lot of different drivers, winning races. Even
the first five races was five manufacturers winning,
wasn't it? So it was great. Yeah,
it was great to see a Ford up there, but it's
just sad looking about that it proved to be Will's ass
never podium. Those conditions just absolutely
suited. It was what Ford needed,
wasn't it? They weren't quick enough in the
dry. So as soon as they saw that
weather, they were like, yeah, brilliant. We've
done a load of wet testing at Pembroke. Yeah.
Weather's going to be grim here at Donnington. It's
their best ever chance. Floats
on race day, I think Charlie Cox described.
Floats on race day, yeah. Yeah.
And also, of course, later on in the season, we'd see
Craig Baird having a great run at Lockhill in the
rain as well. So all three Ford drivers did
have the moments of brilliance in wet weather
conditions in 1998. Yeah. Despite all the carnage
around him, Antonin Reed cruised to victory, his
first ever British touring car triumph.
Andrew, he seemed to wait long
enough to take his first win, as we've mentioned
earlier this evening. But surely it was a matter of
time, really, for such a fast and experienced tin
top driver and Anthony Reed. Absolutely.
I mean, you've been saying tonight he was under
pressure. I don't think he actually
waited that long for his first BTC seat win, because
his reputation as an excellent tin top pilot had
been forged, not in the BTC seat, but mainly in
the Japanese series. The biggest four -part we made
in the very first issue of super touring, we had a
piece on Anthony and we titled it An Englishman in
Japan. Mr. Craig would love that one. So
this was only his second season in the BTC seat, if
you know, take out total shootouts. The
97 season was the first of Malachan Nissan, and it
was a development year, clearly, because David
Leslie didn't win that season either. So,
I mean, we all knew Anthony would win a race
sooner rather than later, and once he started
winning, obviously he didn't stop. The
feature race started in slightly drier conditions
than the sprint, but it's still a very slippery
surface, as proved by James Thompson and Tommy Rustad,
who were both broadside coming out of the cranners.
Most of the grid had opted to
go out on slicks for the start of the race. On
lap three, Alameneu went off at Hollywood after
contact with Thompson, which damaged his car. He
was out of the race again and scored zero points for
the weekend. Alex, with the qualifying issues
the day before, a pretty tough weekend for the
reigning champion. Yeah, as I said, not long ago,
it was a pretty tough season so far for Menuhu,
who had been so accustomed to winning in 97. Yeah,
it just everything seemed to be going wrong for him.
At Thruxton in the season
opener, he went off at the Club Chicanes and got
thrown to the back of the grids. Silverstone
then, he got involved in so much. It
seemed as if the Renault dropped in competitiveness
and he suddenly had to start fighting in the field
again. He almost got so used to
coasting out front that he was like, oh, I've got to
race people again this year. Stropi
Alameneu came out. I've talked about my mate Stropi
Alameneu before, he came back in full force in
1998. The Renault, the Laguna was
getting on a bit. It's an interesting thing
actually that even after 97 and the dominance that
Renault had that year, they were still I mean, an hour
in about committing to the championship for 98. So
I don't know how much of an effect that would have
had on the 98 car, but it certainly wasn't as
competitive. And it meant that Alan was
fighting it out and coming off second best a lot of
the time this season. The pit lane opened on lap six
for the drivers to make their mandatory pit stop
with the rain starting to drizzle again. The
Nissan's had stormed off into the distance, as
Charlie Cox said in the commentary. Back
with our leaders now and Reid and Leslie, Nissan
one, Nissan two and Daylight three. Daylighter
is the exactly the wrong word to use because there's
the biggest, filthiest cloud moving overhead about to
drop on this circuit. As Cox commented there, the
light was dropping and the rain was threatening again.
Adam, as a driver, did you
relish these uncertain conditions or are you sat
there thinking this is a bit of a nightmare here in
the cockpit? Absolutely loved it because I was
never in one of the fastest engine cars or the
fastest cars generally really. It
was always in a decent one. Once
I got into the Toledo and then two years in the next
year and a half in the Leon, but I loved it
because although it was in the Leon as a privateer,
we're always just probably one of, I think a lot of
the time we're the slowest on the speed traps. So
whenever rain came, like you look at my results at
Silverstone on the national circuit, I think we had
second overall. I think I did the same at
Donington. In fact, it was a lot wetter
than what this actual 98 race was. Lots
of running water coming across them because it's
quite undulating at Donington. Very
similar to Spa. You get lots of running water
coming across the cranners and it does catch you out,
but your concentration levels just go through the
roof compared to any dry race because you've got so
many things to think about where you've got your brake
balance like before you spoke with Nigel and
adjusting that because the slightest lockup will just
make you go wide. It doesn't have to be a big
lockup. Then you hit the wet grass and
then you make contact with the barrier. So
there's lots going on, but I always knew that I loved
it. I loved racing in the raining
car thing. Always did in single seaters,
touring cars, GTs. I always loved it because it
sort of sort of sorts the men from the boys I find
it because it just levels things out where the
fastest car is no longer the fastest car as such.
The amount of horsepower you've
got doesn't matter as now because you're all getting
on the power at different times. You've
got different lines. It's feeling for the grip
because yes, you go on the outside for a lot of the
corners for the grip, but it wasn't always the case
on every corner, depending on the angle of the corner
and what have you. If you were maybe Anthony Reid
though in that situation being the fastest car
running away with it, do you think then you'd have
had a bit more no it surely can't be happening
again or would you just react to it? One
thing I was going to mention is the hardest
point when the conditions are like that is you don't
want it to be wet because the hardest job is being
at the front because you're so your mindset completely
changes. When you're chasing, you're
always like more relaxed about it slightly. Probably
your heart rate levels aren't, but you're racing
differently. You're looking at it differently.
You're looking where you can have
an advantage over the car that's in front in terms
of grip levels. You can see what line they're
on. When you're the first man,
you're not compared to you can't compare to anything.
So you're trusting your
judgment, the lines that you're making and everything
that you're doing is the right thing. Because
you've got nothing to compare it to. So
it's a harder job in the rain being at the front.
Mansel meanwhile was slowly
fighting his way up the field and was starring in
a great battle with Janie Morbidelli and Matt Neal.
Greg Mansel is giving the crowd
the money's worth on the admission there isn't he in
that battle. It's a quite a fantastic, well
even if it was at the time outside the top 10.
Yeah, tremendous wasn't it. Let's
just remember as well another thing that made
this race so special is the fact that he was
coming from 19th on the grid. You
know, that's another thing that we probably should
have said before when he did take the lead, which
we'll come to in a bit. He
was coming from 19th on the grid. But
yeah, Peter Cox was in that battle as well, wasn't
he? Matt Neal working wonders again
as an independent up there with the factory guys. And
of course, Morbidelli, a fellow F1 driver to Nigel
who had been in F1 the previous season. Good
friend of the pod. Good friend of the pod, exactly.
Yeah. And another one like
Warwick who never really settled, did he? I
think he missed his pasta in his Italian home more
than enjoyed driving that Volvo S40. But
this was great, wasn't it? Live
as we've already said on BBC Grandstand, Mansel
running two fives because of course James Thompson
was the regular number five, if I'm not mistaken,
in 1998, which I always liked because they ran
their finishing position from the last season,
didn't they? But no, it was great. And
it was great. It was all live on the telly.
Everyone in the paddock knew it was
live on the telly. You could follow it as well,
which wasn't always the case in those days on the
screens as we saw in the coverage, didn't we? There
was a lot of Ford people gathered around a tiny
little monitor in the garage, which is quite
funny to look back on now. Especially
looking at the budget they had, how much money they
spent pre -race all on the Nigel, the test in Emily,
and then all of a sudden you've got multi -million
pounds of this operation, but all of a sudden it's
tiny little monitor. Must have gone on the tyre
wheel, Adam, for the Pembury test. Yeah,
at least what Pembury charged them for the second
time. Andrew, I'm keen to know what was
the mood in the media centre at the time. Did
people sort of want Nigel to do well, or were they
thinking this is going to just be a flash in the
pan? He's going to come into that
shortly, actually. Because the media pack then was
very different to the media pack of today. Today
you had lots of youngsters doing websites. Back
then there were a lot of photographers, but there
were far fewer journalists. I
think the core media pack was probably seven or eight
of us. Most of us had been around a
while. We were possibly a bit older.
I was in the mid -30s, which
these days is quite old. I think it was quite sanguine
about Mansell. He was like, how can we
explain this? It sounds derogatory, but it's
not. He was sort of like an extra
to the proper business that was actually going on,
which was the BTCC and the championship. He
wasn't part of that. It was just a little extra
thing for this meeting that we had to be aware of. It
changed a bit later, as we'll talk about shortly.
Meanwhile, further up the field,
Championship leader Richard Rydell was suddenly facing
the wrong way on the pit straight after being punted
by Derek Warwick. Andrew, a busy weekend, I think
probably on land off the track for Warwick, I can
imagine lots of visits to the stewards in the bus.
How we remember the lines of
drivers after each race waiting to see the stewards
in the toka bus going in, disappearing into the depths
of this basic downgrade coach and waiting to find
out what they were going to be handed down. Some
might find this a controversial view, but as
I said earlier, I don't think Derek ever felt truly
comfortable in the touring car. I
think this frustrated him a bit, leading to perhaps
overcompensation and the incidents resulting from
that. He was unlucky. His
first season, he would have come into the touring cars
thinking he was right on because he was in the car
that had been the car that beat the previous season.
When he got in it, it was an
absolute dog. He missed the following year.
He came back in 97 with a
Vectra, the first year of the new setup with
Vauxhall. The car was a dog that year
as well. For someone who, he had been a
top form of the one driver. He
never won a Grand Prix, but he came pretty close.
It was probably quite almost
depressing for him. You do tend to try as hard as
you can and over the limit in such situations, so
perhaps not that surprising. We've
recently been in touch with Derek about him coming on
the podcast for an episode and it would be great, but
sadly he's not that keen because he doesn't fondly
remember his time in touring cars. I
rest my case. In fact, Greg, you did a
little piece with him a few years ago now, didn't
you? What was it he said about
touring cars? I didn't actually really think
about this at the time until I've spoken with you
about this recently, Al. I spoke with him in 2012 for
an interview that was primarily about F1 and they
just started to introduce, as I'm sure you all know,
the driver stewards around that time. Derek
obviously was and still is one of them. I
took in a few Twitter questions when Twitter used
to be more interesting and fun than it seems to be
nowadays, but I threw into there a question about my
favourite ever race, round 12 of the BTCC 1998. To
be fair, he had very fond memories of it, his first
podium, passing mints on the last corner and all
the rest of it. But he did also say, and I
quote, coming from wings and six on an F1 car and
1000 horsepower qualifying engines and all the rest
of it in the 80s, turbos, he had 300 horsepower front
wheel drive, bloody boring, which I have to admit, I
completely disagree with. I think it's anything but,
but yeah, I think as you just said, Andrew, it
wasn't a great time in Derek's life either, was
it? He'd lost his brother in 91.
And I think he was just going
through a difficult time. But
he was a man, I think he saw himself in an F1 car
or having won the Le Mans 24 hours. And
to him, it was a bit below him, I think, which
is a shame because Derek Warwick is one of the
nicest people I have ever met, whether it's car or
bike racing, he's a gentleman. And
it's a shame that he was struggling in that way. I
suppose he had the pressure of running the triple eight
team as well as driving in it, which couldn't make it
easy. But yeah, it's a shame really,
because he doesn't speak fondly of it, despite the
fact he did end up winning a race later that year as
well. Yeah, I just think getting it in
easy goes down in history as a race winner in BTC.
So it's not an easy thing to
do. Yeah, I guess I don't know if
it's fair to say a lot of bits about the approach and
the attitude as well. I mean, like we've said
already earlier in the show, we've had single seat
drivers like Ry Dell, Andrew, you were saying it,
weren't you? And Menya, they've come from
that background, Kelvin, but didn't arrive yet. Morby
Denning. Morby Denning. And
then others like obviously Tar Queenie. And
then you've got the Jonathan Palmer's and Derek
Warwick's of this world. He had a little bit of a
struggle, didn't they? In a tin top. Yeah,
we ought to get net and lingering on. Yeah,
yeah, that was a classic. Ry
Dell was out and on lap 16, the rain started
falling heavily with cars flying off the track
everywhere, including John Clelland, who's trippin' to
the gravel, ripped the front off the voxel again.
Plato was the first of the front
runners into the pits. The Nishans pitted a few laps
later, but with such a strong lead, it didn't make
any difference to the race order. As
soon as Leslie left the pit lane, the safety car
was called, as another car was stranded at the bottom
of the cranners. As the order sorted itself
out, Mansel had found himself in fourth place.
Now, had Mansel's drive gone
under the radar up to this point in the race, and
then was it sort of a bit, how the hell is
Mansel in fourth, suddenly? Yeah,
I think so, because people were concentrating on the
battle at the front, which is generally what people do
in a race anyway. And as Greg said, Nigel started
19th. So you didn't expect him to
be fighting his way up through the field. And
yeah, don't get me wrong, there were a few
retirements, but there was a really quick pit stop by
the West Surrey guys too, which helped. But
yeah, suddenly Nigel's up there and he's in fourth
position. And with a chance, a real
chance of getting, you know, he's got a
competitive forward, because it's raining and it's in
the wet. So yeah, I did think it went
under the radar. And as Clellan said to us
before, you know, he was on the radio asking, he
said, I've got Nigel behind me or in front of me or
whatever it was. We're about to lap him. Yeah.
And he's like, no, no, that's for position. It's
like, what? So yeah, it did go under the
radar to even the people in the race. So
yeah, yeah. As the race restarted, Reed
led from Leslie, Clelland, Mansel and Devan Muller's
Aldi. What happened next could easily
be described as the best couple of laps in touring
car history. Let's let Charlie Cox and John
Watson describe it for us now. We've
got Reed leading Leslie second in the nish on
Clellan in third Nigel Mansel amazingly in fourth
position. Incredible performance for him. Safety
car gets out of the way. Reed,
Leslie, Clellan, Mansel, flat out the race has
resumed. And there he is. Leslie
on the left acting as a tailgarner. He's
protecting the line. Reed's well up in front in the
first of the white cars. The
second of the white cars is and look, Nigel Mansel
is running up the outside. Nigel
Mansel is trying to make a run in the blue for the
outside of John Clellan side by side through red
gate, side by side down the hill towards the green
occurs. We saw Manzal and Clellan do
this this morning in the warm up and then again,
Leslie's holding the back and Mansel wants a piece
of it. Yes, it does. Mansel
did a very sensible thing. He
went the long way around red gate because there's
more grip in these conditions on the outside
of a corner. They're trying to scramble and
fight your way around in the inside. Clellan
meantime is nerfing the back of Leslie's car. He's
literally trying to push him out the hill. Tommy
Rustett's been pundit off. He's
sliding down through the greatest. Look
at the spray everywhere. You
can't see anything. Mansel up the outside. Clellan
on the left. Mansel on the right. Trying
the white line again and it's working. He's
passed Clellan. Unbelievable. Mansel, Mansel, contact with
Leslie. Mansel, Clellan, Leslie, contact up
through the cup of cup of corner. Take
that. Mansel runs around the inside. Get
this boy drive out of my way. Clellan
above the inside of you. He's
passed Leslie. He's up in the third position.
This is amazing. What
a race. Guys, that's quite simply some
breathtaking racing over those few laps. Hopefully
you've all caught your breath after going through
that. I'd love to hear sort of all
your views on what may be the greatest two laps.
They're not just touring carpet,
but maybe motorsport history in general. If
you're having a bad day, stick that on because you
can't watch that and not smile. Can
you? It was just unbelievable the
way they, first of all, Mansel comes down the
outside of red gate, doesn't it? Because
I guess I don't know what people are thinking at the
time, but when the race restarted, did anyone really
think that was going to happen? I
guess a lot of people thinking Mansel was going
to probably get a bit bullied and drop back a
few places instead. He was ready to pounce. He
was ready to say punch us all back up now. It's
like he was thinking, I belong to be at the front
of a motor race. Let's go now. He
goes straight down the outside. Again,
that's his experiences, isn't it? They've
known there was more grip on the outside in
conditions like that. Then he's contacting with
Clendon, which he'd already done earlier in the warm
-up. Yeah. Then everyone's slipping and
siding on. Thompson nearly goes off at the old
hip and Rushdad does go off. I
still don't know to this day whether he lost it or
whether he was hit. I don't think the coverage
ever showed or revealed that. I
suppose as a high chance he was tagged by someone.
But yeah, great save by him,
Rady Cross style on the infield. Then
those next few corners coming up the hill, you've
got Clendon and Laserley. They're
nearly touching, aren't they? All
the way side by side through McLean, Mansel on
the outside again, and then contacting up to Coppice.
The TV direction was tremendous
as well. They didn't miss a single frame
of it, did they? Then Muller's in the mix as
well. Just amazing. It's
got to be some of the best action we have ever
seen. Certainly on live television in
motorsport, ever, I would say. As
we said earlier, the commentary from Coxsey and
Watty just makes it even better. Yeah.
It was brilliant. It was. You
didn't know where to look, did you? Because
it was just so much. Again,
it's just to me, the beauty of the touring cars,
particularly at that time. Anything
could happen at any time. You
could see it happening, but you didn't know what the
end result was going to be. It
was a nightmare trying to write it all down. Yes.
It's that two or three laps. You
just don't know where to look. One
minute, Muller's leading, the next, Reedy's leading,
the next, Mansel's in the lead, the next Reedy's in
the wall. It's just wonderful racing. If
you ever want to introduce touring car racing to
anyone, just show them that three laps. It's
just wonderful. Yeah. Obviously, there's two
Nissans in there, but apart from that, all different
cars, different colours, different, everyone a little
bit stronger than each other person at a different
part of the track. And it was just, you couldn't
make that up. You could write a script and
that would never happen. On lap 24, Mansel is now
challenging Anthony Reeds -Nissan for the lead. Adam,
at this point, has to be considered one of properly
Nigel's most incredible tribes. Yeah.
I think he would have enjoyed every minute of it,
to be honest. Yeah. I just think he wanted to
keep his nose clean. He needed to finish. A
lot of effort had gone into, I'm sure, behind the
scenes that none of us know anything about in
terms of getting in there in the first place. A
lot of deals needed to be done, so they needed him
to finish. But I just think, yeah, I
think he's one of his best drives and I think he's
probably one of the most enjoyable ones that he's
probably ever done. I think it's how wouldn't it
be? He gets to do a bit of panel
bashing, which is something he's not been able to do
before and wet conditions, lots of tyres overheating
and safety cars coming out, cooling down, pit stops,
rain, people going off, avoiding them. I
think he would have really enjoyed it because he's
never been used to that environment of a
championship that has that much variety in one race.
So I think he would have
loved it. Next thing, read the sideways,
swooping across the front of Mansel and into the
tyre barrier. He's in second position. He's
second position. He's pushing in. He's
in third. Nigel Mansel is hit. He's
going off, back into the wall and McLean's
unbelievable stuff and Nigel Mansel leads this race.
Nigel Mansel is leading this
during car race. The guys on the Ford Garage
can't believe it. It's an absolutely astonishing
turn of events. Position 19 up to position one in
the duration of this race. Talk
about Hero. Well, all the cynics that said
Nigel Mansel, what's he doing it for? Not
only is this man a great racing car, he's a great
showman. We thought the tyre choice was
right, but it was super wet around the back of the
circuit and they were all over me like flies, reads
it after the race. This left Mansel in the lead.
Andrew, we've mentioned your role
in the media center on this weekend a couple of
times now. We know all this was going
on. The Nigel Mansel was leading a
British Touring Car Championship race. What
was the atmosphere? As I said at the start, it
was pretty special. In fact, I'd say I won off.
As I said just a little while
ago, the core media pack, we were sensible,
professional journalists who didn't get phased by
anything. But those few laps, part of it
was the fact that we had something we didn't
regularly have in those days, which was we could
follow the whole thing on the TV. Because
you use in the media center now to having all
the TV coverage, whatever you go, but of course, we
didn't in those days because this was one of
the early live races. And the atmosphere in the media
center with all these serious journeys, it was a
bit like an ITV game show in that there was whooping
and hollering every time another move was made. It
was just absolutely crazy. Definitely
one of my top memories of all my time in the BTCC.
It was tremendous fun. We
had contact, but we all respected one another. I
was shitting myself going into every corner, wondering
where the next touch was going to come from. And
whenever it didn't, I went off myself, Mansel said
after the race. Greg, with just that brilliant
few laps of race and an action. What
did you make of that? It doesn't matter how many
times you watch it back. I don't enjoy it any less to
be honest with you, whether you watch it live at the
time or watching it now. In
a way, you almost enjoy it more now, knowing what's
about to happen, don't you? I
think also the absolute shock of everyone, as
Andrew was just saying, in the media tent or in the
other cars around it, we don't have tits. We've
got people roof over our heads. It
was all the idiots like, Alex, we're out in the
wet. I hope you had an umbrella
at least. Did you Al? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, good. Okay.
In the media centre then, in the control room where
Andrew was. But I imagine the feeling of
the drivers around him on the circuit thinking, bloody
hell, Mansel's in the lead. They
must have been thinking, we cannot allow this guy to
come in and beat us. I'm sure Clelland would have
been thinking that. I think he's actually said it
on record somewhere. I bet they just couldn't
believe what they were saying, could they? Mansel
led for six laps with Clelland slowly catching the
Mondeo. On lap 30, Clelland made his
move. Mansel was forced to cover the
inside line into the final chicane, but ran straight
on and fell to second place. Leslie
passed Mansel for second with five laps to go
before Warwick got through on the final lap, taking
his first ever BTCC podium. Alex,
as we've touched on it, wasn't the greatest of
weekends for Derek. However, a strong final result first
podium must have been a lift for him. Yes,
Derek pitted for a second time and got the right
tyres on. And yeah, really, a bit like
his win at Knockill actually, that was similar.
He was able to charge through
the field and admittedly, there wasn't a huge amount
of a field left because they were everywhere all
over the circuit. But yeah, fair play. He
came through and got the podium. I'm
quite surprised he managed to hold on to it after
his incident with Rydel, but fair enough. Yeah,
he finished it and it was his first podium. So
yeah, good result for Derek after what was a tricky
race weekend to be fair. Mansel
ultimately ended fifth after being handed a post race
penalty for overtaking Miller under the safety
car. Let's hear what the drivers had
to say after the race to Steve Ryder. I
had a little bit of a problem with the brakes as
you probably saw, you could catch me under braking and
that and these were fantastic. You
deserve to win. I was holding everyone up,
but I mean, I made fun of it, didn't I? And
I didn't put anyone off. What
we've got to remember here is his first weekend really
and driving the touring car and he did a bloody good
job. I think we're all, I think
it was a great job, mate. Well
done. There was a fair bit of doubt,
a fair bit of pessimism down the pit lane over the
past week about actually what Nigel would achieve,
but he's put all that right. I
mean, when I saw the restart and he was in the
gaggle, and he was in the gaggle, I don't believe
this. How can one man be so lucky?
And then all of a sudden he
leaves the blanking race. I think what is going on
here? Adam, all in all, a successful
weekend for Nigel Mansell, do you think? Yeah,
I think so. I'm probably a massive belief
for Ford and all the press people they've got and all
the publicity surrounding it and the build up to it.
There's a lot of pressure for
everyone involved really. So I think they needed
something to write about as something positive. So
I think that's, I think Nigel, like I said before,
I think he would have been really happy with, of
course he wanted to win it. He
got it at the front of the race. He
would have wanted to have stayed there, but all in
all, I don't think he would have necessarily would
have expected to be fighting at the front. So
I think overall, I think it was really good
successful weekend and obviously keeping Mansell
Mania alive. Andrew, have the media sent a calm
down at this point by the end of the race, because I
can imagine the paddock probably had quite the buzz
following the end of activities on race track
that day. Well, the media sent it would
immediately have emptied of journalists, because today,
as soon as the race is over, most of the
journalists jumpy straight on their laptops trying to
get their race report online before the person
next to him gets their report up. In
those days, it was off to the toka bus for the post
race press conference and the Mark Fogarty show and
then into the paddock to get the quotes from the
drivers and the teams. Our actual reports will be
written much later. The paddock was certainly
buzzing, but I think it's a friend of the podcast,
Peugeot boss, Mick Linford, who gave me my quote of
the weekend and possibly the one that eloquently
shows what the proper BTCC circus fault about it all,
because he simply said to me, thank Christ, Mansell
didn't win. And he was absolutely right,
because if Nigel had won, the hype would have gone
overboard. And I must disagree with one
of our listeners earlier who said had Nigel done
the full season, he would have run away with it.
This was all the right
conditions for him. He had excellent race craft.
These were the conditions for him
to demonstrate it. He was in a car that only
came alive in the wet, but his performances in the
other two meetings that year showed him as the
latest star to discover BTCC was not as easy as
everyone might think. Greg, lots of people put this as
the best touring car race of all time, or at least
in the discussion for that award. I
think you've already probably hinted what you'll
view with it tonight. But is that a statement you
can agree with? Oh, definitely. I
mean, there's a few contenders out there.
Silverstone 92 has got to be won. And
obviously, this is just British touring car
championship races. I'm thinking of here, there's
plenty of others from around the world. It's
my favorite ever motor race of any kind, whether it's
cars or bikes, just for the nostalgia, the fact
that it was touring cars, 98, same as the game and
the way it all started for me. So
definitely yes is my answer to that, for sure. 100%.
That's good. I
mean, that's a big statement considering, we
know how exciting bike racing can be. And
obviously, you've commented on tons of them. I've
watched pretty much every one of them. And
there's some super, super exciting races. So
that is some statement coming out with that from
1998. Yeah, I'm probably going to get
a lot of stick from bike racing colleagues who say
that. But when you're on the bike
racing podcast, you just say that there's a race,
two -wheel race, it was the most exciting one you've
ever seen. You just hope to have listened
to this. Yeah. I just think the whole
thing, the way those circumstances came together,
you could run that race again at Donnington and
that wouldn't happen. It was just such a special,
unique set of circumstances, wasn't it? And
the fact it was live on the telly, and it wasn't
always live those days, makes it even more special,
doesn't it? Absolutely. It's now time for our
question game. But sadly, producer Dan cannot
be with us today. So this week, we have producer
Gary. His name is Gary Gary. He's
feeling a little shy, so I will read out the question
on his behalf. Now, of course, the extra
element today is normally the regulars are more in
number than our guests. It is two regulars versus two
guests today. So we'll see if that changes.
Yeah, but one of them is very
old, the fading memory. I'm not that old, Andrew. I
was going to say that, but very suspicious. What's
Greg there? Come on, we can do this. I'm
actually a bit nervous about this part of the
show because I have no idea what's going on. We
don't know what's coming either. So
the question today is, how many privateers outscored
factory outfits over the course of the weekend? You
are. Oh, wow. Oh,
wow. Not my question. It's
producer Gary's. I should. I
should point out. So we need to add together
the point. The privateers amassed over the
entire race weekend of both races, do we? So
no, you just need to know how many privateer entries
outscored another factory team. Well,
they're only about five or so of them in the BTCC by
this time because it was getting stupidly expensive.
So yeah. Well,
let's just think who they all are. That's
Russ Dadmore and Neil Gravitt. Neil.
Am I missing someone? So there's five. Is
that right? Well, they definitely are five,
but it might be more than five. Might
miss someone. I can't remember which years
the pool to cook was, but I don't think it was
there. No. No, no. So
yeah, so you've only got five, maybe six to play
with. So pick it up. Number.
Right. Repeat the question again, please,
Levi. How many privateer entries
outscored a factory outfit over the weekend? A
factory outfit. Okay. So how many privateer
entries outscored at least one factory team? Well,
Rob, I think Rob Gravitt was quite high in both. I
think Matt and Neil must have done as well because
so many factory teams had difficult weekends, didn't
they? They did. Yeah.
Lemma finished in the gravel in the second race,
didn't he? Moe and went straight down onto
the gravel. I'm saying two. I
would go four. This is difficult. I'm
going to say Matt and Neil would have done. Lemma,
maybe not. Russ Dad, I remember going off
at the crane. I can't even remember if he
got back on and carried. I think he did carry on.
One, two, moment. Oh,
this is so difficult. I'll go three. So
the answer is three. It is two. Matt
and Neil who got sixth in race two with the Nissan,
of course, a sign of things to come and more
success at Donnington in a privateer Nissan. What
about Russ Dad? Russ Dad got eighth in races.
Russ Dad got eighth in race two
and Rob Gravitt got eighth in race one. So
that outscored all of those entries, outscored the
Renault, but the outscored Perth as well. But
the Renault works team who, of course, had a horrible
weekend, just placed his ninth place in race one,
got them points that weekend. So
was it just Roger Moe and Lemma, was it? He
didn't outscore? Yes. Right. Yeah.
Well, I think so. Yeah. Don't. This
race has been dubbed the greatest touring car race
of all time. And it's a pretty hard
statement to argue against as Nigel Mansel's full BTCC
debut at Donnington Park became one of the most
memorable motor races in history. I'd
like to thank Andrew Charmin for joining us once
again to look back at this race. And
we hope we'll see you on stories from super touring
again soon, Andrew. Absolutely.
I mean, it totally hurts my brain and my incredibly
fading memory to try and look back so far, but I'm
totally enjoying it and you know where to find me.
Thank you, Andrew. And
also a very big thank you to Greg Haynes for joining
us for the first time on stories from super touring.
We know that you've already
agreed to come back and do a few more episodes. So
we look forward to hearing from you again soon. You
know, the listeners are going to be switching off
having just heard that. But yeah, thank you very much,
guys. I really appreciate it. I
have a lot just saying this because I'm here, but
I've really loved listening to all your episodes. I've
learned a lot of stuff I didn't know before. And
it's just the nostalgia of the whole thing. So
thank you. And I feel really privileged
that Donnington 98 is my first episode. So
thank you again. Yeah, Greg's agreed to do our
end of season Q &A. Yes. So that'd be great. A
bit nervous about that too, to be honest with you. I
will tell. Our thanks as ever also 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 staff of
choice. You can, as Alex also just
mentioned, submit your questions to our panel for
our season finale, which Greg will be featuring in.
So if you do have a question
or thought about the Super Touring era of Touring Car
Racing, don't forget to email them to us using pod
at 1990sbtcc .com. Cool. That's Ted. Don't
forget that could be anything like what if
scenario is a bit like we mentioned this evening about
Plato and Honda. What would have happened in 1999
had he gone this sort of thing, you know, so how
would he have feared and that? So,
yeah, interesting questions like that would be great.
Absolutely. And you can also use that
address to send us a comment in general about
today's episode, the podcast, or if you have a
question, a suggestion for any future episodes or
races, let us know using that email. In
the meantime, we'll see you next week. Goodbye.