How did you find Brisca F1 Stock Cars?
Tom and Pam Radley, friends of my Mother, took me racing when I was about 10 years old, they went regularly all over the country so when there was a local meeting (i.e. Leicester or Long Eaton) they would take me along. Occasionally I would venture further with them, White City in Manchester seems to stick in my mind a semi final I believe.
What gave you the incentive to race
John “Wally” Davies raced, from Loughborough, where I lived, He had been a Superstar already and was making a comeback. I hadn’t been to watch for some years but went along with him on his coach and thought I can do this (it looks alot easier than it is). John’s Brother Trevor Davies took me under his wing and put the car together for me. My Father had had considerable success as a sportsman, so I saw this as an opportunity to prove that I could do something, which he had desperately wanted all his life, and I was 28 years old by this time. Unfortunately although he very much encouraged me and help fund the project he died in a car crash before I had any major success.
First Car - Built, Bought or Borrowed
First Car Brought was the Lintern built Jayne Bean #309 car which came without an engine and gearbox. The original plan was to find an engine and race this. We looked for an engine and found that #93 Nigel Evison had a car which had gone in hard and had damage but had a good 454 Chevy in it. I bought this car to use the engine and box in the Jayne Bean Car. When we got it home we found it was built by Wilf Warnes and wasn’t that bad, so Trevor Davies and myself decided to repair and do up the Wilf Warnes car to race and put the Jayne Bean car on the back burner as it seemed too good to learn in. So the 309 Lintern built car remains my first purchase but the Wilf Warnes built car was the first one raced. I remember at this time they were building the by pass in Loughborough and my first ever drive in any racecar of any type was down this in the Wilf Warnes car before it opened.
Memory of your first race.
First race was at long Eaton I remember being frightened to death, in fact I was probably more frightened in the consolation race as I really had no idea what to expect in my Heat and found it was worse than expected, I thought it was curtains when Frankie Wainman Jnr hit me, I thought he had hit me really hard, I later watched the video and realized of course he had only tapped me as I was in the way, I was soon to learn what a big hit was.
Best Racing Memory
Best memory in Brisca F1 – the Charlie Finnikin Trophy for white and yellow tops at Long Eaton, my first win and my first championship brilliant, and I loved Long Eaton. Not far behind was my first final at Bolton, the late Mark Duxberry had helped me with tyre choice and set up that day and I can see his face now when I won. Great bloke sadly missed. Best memory in the Superstox has to be the gold roof, but what really sticks in my mind is traveling all the way to Ringwood, I live in Peterborough so it was a long way, I arrived with a repulation and knew the local lads badly wanted to beat me and I won all 3 races, I had not done this before. This was obviously amazing in itself but when I came off for the final my wife Julia was crying with happiness that for me is the best memory. Funniest has to be sitting on the start grid at the front of the whites in my F1 at Coventry, my seat belt wouldn’t fasten properly and I had waved to the marshal so they held up the race for me. My 2 mechanics Martyn and Glen came running down from the terraces to help. The track had been watered and all the crowd had eyes on us, but as 1 mechanic went to jump the ropes the other lifted them up to go through the ropes, when 1 of them went flat on his face in the shale the whole crowd cheered, biggest cheer our team ever got!
Worst Racing Memory
Worst memory – I have 2, Bolton shale track when I got T boned reversing out of the fence, knocked out and spent a couple of nights in Bolton Hospital, I don’t actually remember that much about it but I got out of the car and didn’t know what I was doing and the race was still going, frightening thought. The 2nd was my brand new engine blowing and going up in flames at Arena Essex in my Superstox and the marshals watching it burn until Trev grabbed the extinguisher off them, in hindsight we just tried to get too much out of the engine.
Reason for Retiring
I retired in 1996 from Brisca F1 the first time due to money and lack of it. My car at the time was one of the best chassis wise (built by Nigel Parker) but my engine blew for the 2nd time after I had put all my funds into the car. I retired from Superstox due to my son Harley being born, racing takes over your life and if your family don’t support you its not much fun, my wife Julia always came with me but by this time we had 2 children Heidi and Harley and the time needed to race was just too much when you have young children.
After Retiring - What Then?
I now have a Heritage F1, the ex Graeme Barr/Andy Webb 247, car which I am now successfully racing. Randall Motorsport are building me a Superstox/F2 as well so we will see what the future holds.
