National Hot Rods, Stock Cars & Spedeworth Fabrications - BILLY WOOD

In this episode of the Stock Car Podcast, we chat to one of oval racing's most experienced drivers, who has raced a huge variety of formulas throughout his career. As the son of a well-known promoter, he shares what it was like growing up in the sport, reflects on his racing journey, and opens up about one of the most terrifying moments of his career after being involved in a serious fire.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Robert, welcome back to another episode of the Stock Cover podcast. Today, we have got a former world champion in the national hot rods. We've also got a man here that has raced pretty much about everything and the speed worth, and we'll get into whatever else he's raced as well. We've got Mr. Billy Wood. Come on. Right, we've had Deanwood on, and he's told us his story, and now it's time for you to come on and tell us from your perspective. He did obviously mention you a few times, but from the earliest, I'll tell you what I know about you actually. From the earliest I can remember is the yellow starlet at Wimbledon in the 1300s. Um, when I went to go watch dad, it was bright yellow, and uh, and then more onto the newer side when I started racing 1300s, I noticed you in the two-lit saloons. And I remember a really good battle when we was on with you at some point here with you and George Morphe, and you two were just ballistic compared to everyone else, ballistic. You would come through from the back, but then also you both really tactical with how you'd go past each other, and it was just to watch, it was really, really good. And then obviously, once I started racing and more paying for stuff myself, I'd end up seeing you a bit more often at the shop, got to know you a bit better, and then obviously you went into National Hot Rods and and won the world final. So that's that's pretty much what I know about you. So then we'll take it back now, back to the beginning. What you first remember with short oval racing, whether it's from your dad or yourself. Probably trying to ask for money at Alder Shot Rest Stadium.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Can I go to a fruit machine or get some sweets or drinks? I just obviously mainly Alder Shot. I was still a little bit young, but you do remember the old Alder Shot Stadium. Used to mainly be in the bar with a few old faces, watch a bit of racing. Obviously, dad doing everything they did at the time: stock cars, bangers, super stocks, and anything else in between. And then our main racing thing you can remember really was probably Arena Essex for a fair while because he had a couple of years stint at Arena.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

And then just never really was into it myself for a fair while, like would go, but obviously that was mum and dad's life. I wasn't really into watching it until we hit about 11 when I wanted to have a go. Yeah, and then did you start with the minis? Yeah, we went um went down Tonga Motor Club in a product or a junior at the time. That's where we met a few of the good lads like Luke Stoness and everyone else. We ended up starting down there. I was learning to drive round our scrapyard at the back. Yeah. Rit off one of Gary Reynolds's bangers that he had stripped out ready to build. I think he was going to Coventry one night and he had like a Chevette and I hit it over a boulder and ripped the thing off.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

What, just messing about in the yard?

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Just yeah, learning to drive around. We had a part of the scrapyard down the other end of this lane as it goes. Right. At the time it was like sectioned into three bits, but we was in a third of it, and the other bit was just like a load of hardcore and stuff. We were learning to drive around there and down the lane.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Right. It's always best bet to start learning rather than on the road. Well, yeah. Do you remember anything major about your dad's racing then from a young age?

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah, obviously he was a big name back in the day, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

So in everything.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

It helped everywhere you went, someone knew who I was as such, so there was never nearly no fear at a race meeting of everyone knew Dina Janetwood's son. So he was always getting someone spoke to a bit like it now, but I don't recognise a lot of the people now. Right. There's a lot of new blood, obviously, coming to the sport. Yeah. But yeah, dad was banned from here, then off to there, and off somewhere else, and life was just constantly going racing.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah, always. Well, from what he said, it was flat out. And like he said, if when when the stock cars slowed up, he was like, right, I need something else, and he bangers. And you was just dragged along with him all the time. You were always there.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah, so I remember some of the stories they used to tell me that they used to wedge me in between the seats and the lorry, and every now and again he'd smack me, smack me in the head when he's changing gear and waking up as a baby. But I can't remember that one, but that was his stories. I always remember the cargo we still got now. As a kid, I used to sleep in the footwell on all the chains and that coming back from a meeting. Oh wow. Especially arena, like again, that was sort of arena rearer. Yeah. You'd lay down by the vent where the heater was, keep warmer, lay on the chains, and go to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

That's mental, isn't it? When you think about it now, stuff like that, it's crazy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Yeah, would you get away with it now? Not really, but lorries are much better as well now, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah, yeah, that's true. There's a bit more comf comf comfortability in a lorry nowadays, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Yeah, look at the banger pits for a start. The speck of the high lorries now. Well, at one stage, uh an old cargo was like special, now it's just scrap.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

That's nothing compared to some of them motors that the lorry boys, the banger boys do turn up, is just ridiculous. So then, 11 years old, you actually started to wanting to race, went down to Tongham. Was what was Dean like? What was your old man like with that? Was he did did he put some time into you, or was it just literally here's a car? Because you listened to Frankie Wayman, Andy Smith, and stuff like that, who have done well like yourself, and it was more their dad just bought him a car and could just race it sort of when they had time. There was never oh I'm putting all everything into you. No, dad was dad was dad was hard, but dad was good.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Like he would go mad. I try not to do it with my own kids, but we still do, so I do take it after a bit that way. But he sacrificed, he gave up Speedworth and Arena at the time. He came and got um he got a starlet off of Steve Jones. He went down and raced into Prop B's, and I had the the Mini Junior. So right, so he did change stuff in the yeah. He did change, yeah. No, he did. Every week we were going on the Iab lorry with a starlet and a mini on the back, so he sacrificed a few fair few years of racing to come with me. Yeah. But to be fair, back then, then Tongham was busy. Like he was doing the Pro B's, Mark Bolden then went down there into Prod B's, Lee Bolden was prod C's, they were 40 car grids, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

You had to qualify for the final, it was still good racing, yeah. It was still like almost nearly national level just at a club. Yeah, 45 minutes away. Well, not even that. So cushy. And what did you take to it naturally, or was it more of your dad shouting and screaming at you till you till you got it? You know, because you look at some drivers now, you put a kid in it and you can see straight away, but then you get other drivers that you know it could take a couple years before they start getting to the right speed, really.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

A bit of both. I did roll over in the second meeting, went in a bit quick, half spun, and then got T-bone and rolled over, but loaded up went home, damaged. But I did end up with a trophy because they stopped the race for it and give me the trophy. So oh nice. Weren't too bad. No, we I was always competitive. Luckily, I was picking it up, but also at the same time, yes, like Avell Kids, we made stupid mistakes. We would come home in tears, we would have rows, and a bit like everything back there. There was there was more cheating, but probably not so known about. Right. So you would always have people that were up to little tricks with minis, and when we went mini stocks and went back to the grass, you learnt so much from mini stocks, what everyone was up to that you you took a mini back to downtown. I mean, it was like rapid, right? Yeah. So you went into the mini stocks then, speed buff. Yeah, I went speed of mini stocks, I think about 14. I went into speed of mini stocks for a little while. Who did you race with Nat? Uh Marky Sanders, uh Bob Farrington, Adrian Clifton at the time. I'd done the junior bangers just before that first. That was when I first started.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

They had junior bangers then.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I thought they was more of a newer, newer thing, junior bangers.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

No, they were nap youth rookie bangers at the time. Right. So they were 14 to 17, and they were, I think, maybe 1300, so like Triumph Reclaims, Sunny's. Right. They were probably in a bit like they are now, they are smashing each other up in the micros.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

But yeah, no, that's what we were then. Oh, nice. And then obviously moving up, then you've done a right in the mini stocks, done a right in everything you've done as a junior, really.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Yeah, we've always, I would say always won something on every class we've done. Right. Like whatever we've stuck to, we've won in managed to win in 1300s, won in lightning rods. Maybe never put enough effort fully into some of it and chucking it together.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah. So moving on then, well, obviously growing up up to 16 into the adult formulas, then was you working on the cars yourself, then at that point? Because obviously you were in the scrapyard with your dad. Yeah. And then who was who was doing the work on the cars? Was it was it Dean? Was it you? No, I had to do it, so you did.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

When I started at 11, again, this is where daddy's strict, but it is the right reasons. Yeah. 11 years old, I had to work every Saturday in a scrapyard, every school holiday. He would fund or racing, do whatever we had to do, but I had to work. Yeah. Six weeks school week holiday, I was working four out of six weeks. Right. I was driving the machines by 11 years old, doing the higher blurry, driving a forklift. So it learned me good life skills. Yeah, of course. Say that all that worked.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Can you get away with it now, Valphon safety? Probably not. No, but back then, as you say, and it's it's all about building your skills up. And obviously, if you're there doing that, you're you're around adults, you're around people that are going to teach you what you need to do. And obviously, now, obviously, with your successful business, it's it's obviously worked, your dad doing that to you, and obviously, you know that the value of money, you know what you've got to do to earn it, and obviously, it's gonna be the same with racing. If you want to go racing, you want to do the best, you're gonna have to work on your cars rather than you know sitting back and your dad doing it or whatever. So, obviously, you was making your work, but he was working on the cars as well. There was you know, he showed you how to do it, and that was that.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah, sometimes he got a few people to repair the damage, which obviously would go out. But again, every race meeting, I had to have it nut and bolted, I had to nutbolt his, we had to touch the paint up. Again, it went pristine, but if it wasn't done, we weren't going. Right. He would leave me at home. If I hadn't done the prep work, he would go race and leave me at home. So, again, that's where we were strict, but you appreciated what you had by doing it.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah, definitely, 100%. So then moving into the adult formulas, then at 16. I mean, you've you've done pretty much everything, ain't ya? So talk us through from 16. 16.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

I I went straight down to Fleet Motor Club. We jumped straight out of a minium, jumped in a 2.1 Starlet, which was one of Dad's uh super sloughs back there. So I wanted to go real wheel drive. Yeah, I think we won the final in our first meeting, so that was quite nice. Right. So we managed to adapt straight to real wheel drive easy, which did out missing around. And I did borrow Terry Norris's 1300 shot car. Ah did a meeting there. That's when I wanted to go 1300. Yeah, he got banned for the big following of Banger World final night. He followed in Richard Austin twice, and there was the big pictures of it, they were up airborne, they come back down, I went down the back straight, followed in again, airborne, and Terry was on a three-month holiday. So Terry at the time was with us in the scrapyard doing the load, doing a lot of fabricating for dad and stuff. And he said, Go on and take it. Nice. So we had a few wars at the time.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

I was a little wiped up, and I got picked on by a few. I bet a hundred percent. If if it weren't you the making the war, it's probably your dad that's uh made some enemies and put it down to you. Yeah, that's where most of my wars come from. I would expect so. Yeah, and then what how what year was that? 13900 you first died. I was 85. How old are you? Yeah, around about the 2000s, I'd say. 2000s. That's what we'll say. I remember watching dad from 2002 to 2008, and it was the Yellow Starlet, I remember.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

So 1300s, then did you stick with it by your own car? Yeah, so we stuck to that.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

I bought we had a new car of Terry Norris, which was an Alan Dent car. And at the time, it goes round in circles. Dad had three-course built a 1300 stock car many years ago, and then he got banned and kicked out of the formula because of warring with Mancini's and Mark Smith and Walker. And he moved on and went wherever he went at the time, and he I think he pretty much gived a brand new 1300 to Darren Gowdy. Right. So after I'd done a couple of meetings in Terry's car, we went and brought that car back off Darren Gowdy. So we end up with the car that Dad Three Court has built. Right, got ya.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

With loads and loads of spares, and that was it then. Nice. So obviously, your dad was still racing at this time all the way.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Yeah, at the time he had his Nova two-lit stock, uh, two-litre hot rod, yeah, and he had the superstock.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Right. Now this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's still busy flat-out racing. Yeah, and you've come in and had to obviously do what you needed to do to race yourself as well, with him racing two formulas already.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Again, he was funding the fair bit at the time. Then I was earning my bit of wages, and then he did get me a recovery truck at the time, and it was like, once you're 17 push your tests, there's your truck and off you go. So and before that stage, Gav had a little Mark II transit for a while. Gav took me everywhere, and if he didn't, there was a bloke called Basher that still hangs drivers now. He took me everywhere, so right. So he was always looked after then in that respect. I was looked after, but dad was sort of right, now it's time to stay on your feet. If you want to race, you will get your way there, you will do your car, and you'll go racing. Yeah, and if you're not, you'll stay at home because I'm going racing. He sabsidized four or five years for me, and it was he wanted to get back to being serious again.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Right, fair enough. Well, let's say he's done what he can for you, and now obviously he's he's done enough for you to get the bug and be like, no, this is what I want to do, so I'm gonna do whatever I need to do now to carry on racing. So, because you get a lot of people where the dads will then give up and let the boys race, but where you've got someone like Dean Wood, who's flat out wants to race still, you know, he's not done, does what he can for you and then says, Right, go on in crack on. Yeah, I'm surprised he still doesn't want to race now, to be honest. Yeah, I'm quite surprised actually, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Yeah, I'll still surprise he ain't got a classic hot rod or something, he just maybe I'm jumps in that again, but I'm surprised he still ain't got the urge.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

He jumped in at NASCAR in America and he was like, Oh, I could do a bit of this. It's too tight. Yeah, mate, it's a price, you got no chances. Yeah, yeah. No, so right, 1300s them. You done well in them. You had but obviously most of the time you were probably warring. Yes, yes, some of the big names.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Uh, one of my little wars was with Sam Holland, because around that sort of time, dad didn't get on with Gordon Cole and Steve Ovet, so I was against Sam Holland's little lot, all the uh Brighton Bashers against Mancini's, so Titch and Joe, yeah, and then obviously there was Diggy and the Morphys. Well, so was that like each that was the groups that were all at each other? No, they were all against me, pretty much. Oh yeah, they were the right of each other as me. Ah, right, fair enough. I know the Howards were having a bit of a war at the time with the Smiths, but I still say to some people now, like I'd go to Swatham, there was Diggy Smith, Julius Smith, Cole Smith, uh, I think it was John Smith at the time, not the one to do Super Twos, there's another John Smith. Oh, another one. There was like George Morphe, Luke Morphe, I think it's Biff Morphe. You turn up and there was like nine of them, and you're thinking, oh this car ain't coming back in my page. I remember and it was a Swatham. I think I spun one out every lap, and every time you spun one, there was another one, and it was coming back on, and you're just thinking, I'm gonna get smashed up in a minute.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

You just gotta keep going. Just keep going. As long as the car's going, I'm going.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Yeah, hit as many as I could.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, definitely. But I mean, 1300s then that sounds like proper. Do you know what I mean? That's you know, obviously, for you, uh you were probably on your own most of it, when you're out there. Yeah, pretty much so.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Obviously, like I say, you did have the hours having a bit of a war with a Smith, but there was that was a bit handy for you. There was three of the Howards, obviously, at the time of Lee Pierce. Yeah, but oh, in general, I was on my own. Yeah, so it was a you inherit a few wars because of your daddies. But we did hold our own, and yes, they got the better of me at times, and there was times I did get the better of them. Yeah, well that's that's that's stock car racing.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, definitely. So what back then then, your 1300s, what was your sort of weekly schedule? Obviously, was you working at scrapyard full-time then? Yeah, full-time in the scrapyard, and then every evening, every evening, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

There was obviously back then, obviously the fuel prices weren't so dear, and there was a lot more meetings on as such, because there weren't as many formulas. So you could be Wednesday at Eastbourne, you could be Saturday at Ipswich, and at the time there was an average of two meetings a week, and you only got the best point scoring meeting of the week. So that's what people don't see. So if you had a good Eastbourne Wednesday, there was no point going to Ipswich Saturday. Ah, right, but if you got rubbish at Eastbourne, then you need to go to Ipswich to get the points.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Ah, that's that's how many meetings you had. You literally they done it by whatever was best. Yeah, that was it. Oh, I didn't know that. But obviously, you say there was a lot less formulas back then. Yeah, there was. And there was 40 plus 1300.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

So 40 plus starlets flying around. Yeah, and it was reliable, crashing. Yeah. I remember filling up dad's back garden once. I think I had five built 1300 stock cars on another 14 starlets sat there and shed loads of bits because we were also exporting starlets at the time. Ah so when starlets were coming in, I was I'm having one and everything.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

We had starlets everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Well, you were keen then, yeah. Well, when you got bloody six or seven of them out there, you need a few starlets, wouldn't you? And what was the team like back then? If I mean for you to be going racing twice a week most times, and obviously going being in crashing most of the time, you're gonna have there's gonna have to be a couple of you at least, in there?

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Yeah, we had a couple of young lads with us, obviously Gary not now, who's helping like the grises, he was local to us and kept working at scrapyard. That's where to be honest, he was learning to do a lot of his welding. He was quite a good welder and he was helping me put a corner on putting your corners on that same other idea. But yeah, one week you would have this bloke, next week'd have that bloke. I was going to a lot of meetings on my own. Right. Oh, fair enough. But you always had help at the track, like Steve Odell was around at the time, he would help you as best he could. There was there was a lot of good people back then.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Not saying there isn't now. No, I was gonna say there is still now, even when you go to meetings, there's always people, there's teams that have got ample numbers that won't mind helping you out. Do you know what I mean? So it is it is still about now, but back then it's probably I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

The spares were cheaper, like you say, the bits were around. Where do you find now a course of sea beside the road, for instance? Yeah, you wouldn't when you were racing stylets, they were still everywhere, everyone had starlets.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, and like I remember dad saying back in the day as well, like with the Novas, they would just be on the side of the road because you wouldn't get no money for scrapping them, so they would just leave, take plates off and leave them, and you get people from racing. There's Nova there, yeah, pick it up or a stylet or whatever. Used to see if you go missing after one with a nine A3, there's always a car going missing, even outside the stadium. Oh yeah, but yeah, so 1300s then, and then I remember obviously seeing you you've been in lightning rods, um, two little hot rods more noticeably as well, recently more recently. When when when did you sort of think oh 1300s? I've had enough of them.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Wednesday started going more front wheel drive. Ah, when the Novas started coming in, yeah. Um JD Bryant obviously came out and won the world in a Nova. I think Simon Berry then won a weld. And Starlet's were still better for a crash, but you just wasn't quite competing at some of the meetings with the front wheel drive. And were they were they that much quicker then, were they? They were starting to get there, like they started to get the handling a bit better, and where a starlet was trying to keep the front in line and the back in line, a nova would just sail on through.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yeah, and obviously, once a nova touches you, you're normally round, didn't you? Where where you're both rear wheel drive normally in Starlet, you bounce off each other and ride sideways together, whereas a Nova hit you, and they can just drive off of the front wheels and you're you're left stranded, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 19:01

And it was, and I just got to that stage where I was getting a little bit bored. Some of the people dropped out of the 14 or 1300s back then. Your walls started dying off, you didn't have as many people. And I'd been doing them a fair while, so at the same time, I I normally I'm surprised I've been in nationals as long as I have as well. Yeah, normally I've done four or five years in something and then moved on.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

I get bored. Right, fair enough. Yeah, any massive things you remember in 1300s before we move on from 1300s, or a couple of the best bits or worst bits? Got to be a couple of the worst bits.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Uh me and Luke Stone has come back from Wilmington one night, we had Eastbourne the next day, and we're going down the road and our spares fell off the lorry and we lost the wheel down the motorway. Oh no that was a close one, it nearly come off the ogs back then back onto the A3. We ran off to go and get the wheel, and police come flying past like there was a fight in Farnham, otherwise we could have been nicked. Oh wow. I was just mad for it back then. I remember like one Easter, I did Friday National Ringwood, I did Saturday night at Swatham in the 1300, I did Sunday at Wimbledon and a larder banger, and then I was back to Endersford on Monday in the National. Oh wow. Oh, you done nationals back then as well? Done a few meetings, yeah. We had the Mitsubishi cult back then, so right. Done a few meetings in them, done a few outlaw meetings, a few national meetings. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Nice. So we're then after them 1300s, then what what did you go to? I went lightning rods for a while. I what was that like, um, from the contact to non-contact? They was almost contact, wasn't it? They were there, mate. To be fair, yeah. The the lightning rods are the best non-contact form that it was on the short ovals. They was brilliant about that.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Back then, again, 40 odd cars, most meetings. If you didn't ring up Monday morning and bookings open, you didn't get a booking. Right. I would go and do the Yarmouth, so you had a bit of priority over when an Ipswich came, you should get a booking. Because you just didn't get bookings. We were still getting 20 odd car grids at Yarmouth on a Sunday night, which no form of really gets uh they were brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

They were they they were every time we we've watched them, we've always been like Wimbledon, always quality, always someone hanging off a post as well. Um, but no, they were really good to watch, and you you enjoyed them. No, I did enjoy them.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Gavin, my brother obviously went lightning rods because that's when he moved from the grass, he went the lightning rods, right? He really enjoyed them. I ended up having a deal with someone, I swapped the Kirky lightweight seat for pretty much complete lightning rod, and all that do is put an engine in it. And at the time, Mark Fuller was sponsoring me, the engines.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Right, ring them up. I've got a lightning rod here.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

I had a lightning rod that owed me like 600 quid. I need an engine, and then I end up selling that to Elmo, a little Wayne Wright. Yeah, he lost it in a fire, and then so I didn't have a lightning rough while so I gathered two. He had put a brand new one. I ended up with a new one. He lent me it until we sold it. Right. But it didn't look so new afterwards. No, I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

So, how did you get on with him? Quick, no, I did uh second in the British at Arena. I won the Loman Jones series. Were they together? Because obviously, when I started, they were at Arena and they were they were pretty big then. Were they always the same rules? You could always speed wife and go to arena, arena. Go speed with, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

No, there was especially for like say the major championships, they were you were at both, right? It was obviously in crace at the time. So a bit like then, because we had the scrapyard and we all had to run it. I would do speed weekend. Gavin would miss the first few races speed weekend or try and be put into split grid races and turn up late, and then he would do national weekend, and I'd have to stay at the yard. Ah so he we all had to sacrifice dad would go with him for national weekend because he was in the national at the time. Yeah. So they would go off, and then I would do speed weekend.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Fair enough. We always got someone's got to go work. Yeah. Someone's got to go to work. That's the problem with a family business, isn't it? That's it. And it's just the same now. Everyone's got to go to work. Yeah. So then lightning rod, then into two-lit stock cars. Right. The speedweather. So that's where I remember you the most, speed roof. And one thing I do remember on Facebook, I don't know if the formula was dying off or you was just doing a nice thing, but I remember you put on Facebook saying, any whites or yellows that are struggling, come to me, I'll set your car up, you know, to get the numbers out there. And it was just, I don't think you were charging, you were charging him.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

You just thought we were literally doing it for free, yeah. Just to get the numbers, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

And obviously help the whites and yellows be like, oh right, well, if I do go there, Billy Billy's gonna help me, and I'll be able to get my car out there then. But yeah, well, that that's one thing that had stuck me. That was years ago now, but that's one thing that stuck in my head. I remember reading that and be like, fair play. Fair few of us did to be fair.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Me, George Morphe, I know Colin Farley did it. I can't remember if Shane Davis did, but possibly at the time, Ash Reds were winning every week, and lower graders are downgraded. We wouldn't take our prize money. Or the prize pot set was an offer, there was the Weldon series. We would actually give it to whoever was the first white or yellow top home, took our prize pot. Right. So if we won the final, I won the final, and the white top was fifth. He got like the £100 prior to the price part.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

So is that is that what you boys all just agreed, or did you just start doing it? No, we just started doing it between us, and then we made a thing of it to try and encourage people to come. Yeah, because obviously you boys loved the two-lit stock cars, and numbers, numbers. I remember seeing at one point numbers were really good, and then all of a sudden they just died off, didn't they?

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Saloons were obviously picking back up. Saloons died off for a little while, getting a bit dear, everyone went, our two litter stock cars. Then you started getting a few go back. The downside I always see with a lot of racing is one of our two little stock cars, 1500 quid two grand. It helped at first. But if a bloke's got a 1500 pound two grand race car in his backyard and he's not too fussed if he misses next week. Yeah. If you've got an 8,000 pound saloon stock car, you're racing it. Yeah. You're not leaving your eight grand car at home. It's just sitting there depreciating it without you even racing it, isn't it? And that is I think sometimes formulas can be too cheap for their own good. Because if someone's willing to commit to go into that formula, he's gonna race it.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Yeah, as you say, you've put that much money in, you're gonna race it. And if you if you're not racing, your missus is gonna tell you to sell it. Yeah, yeah, pretty much it is, isn't it? So if it's a cheap formula, it doesn't bother you if it sits there.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Right, yeah, I never thought about that, actually. Never really thought about that. And that's what saloons now have got a good grid, aren't they? They're the guys that are doing them are committed. Oh, yeah, they're the travelling they do, and you've got to take your out of them.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

100%, 100%. But them them two little stock cars were really good for a while, weren't they? Very good. Really good. Yeah, they were very good. You know, as you say, they were a lot more popular than normal saloons for a while.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

It was a shame that the formula went, it got to a stage. That was the reason why I quit at the end of it. We were going to meetings, you were trying to help people, I was lending people my spares, and you go to a meeting, someone breaks a dizzy, so you give them a dizzy. You go to the next meeting, you don't turn up. You go three minutes later, he sold his car, and you know, at the time, Dizzy's were starting to be 50 quid, 60 quid, whatever, and I got just got fed up with lending everyone pits and losing money.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

I was like, Yeah, you'd you're trying to do right by the formula, but then in the end it's more sucking sucking it out of you than giving you the enjoyment. It was you know, if you were getting it back and the grids were then booming again, you'd be like, oh, you know what, you know, it's it's brilliant. But as you say, if you if you put in extra in than what you would normally do, which is a lot anyway, for a race to go racing, and you're not getting the return of car numbers or people giving stuff back, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

That's it, it would get to a point when it's yeah, it was that was why I give up when in the end has formed start dwindling, but that's why I said, Joey, well I want to help people, but I can't keep giving all my bits away. No, that's right. And you go on a meeting and you need your distribute and you ain't got one, and then oh, where's this? Where's that? Where's an exhaust manifold? Where's that? Yeah, exactly. That stressed me out in the end.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Exactly. Any bit big moments in the two little saloons? Because they didn't have like proper championships, did they? It was more like the English, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

We had the English and the Supreme, they were the two big ones. Managed to win a few of them, which helped. But so we had a good, you had some good drivers in them. Obviously, Shane Davis was up there at the time, competitive, went on to win in saloons. Colin Farley, who's obviously a name of years, yeah, George Morphe, Diggy Smith. So you had breeds in them. Mo Croson was in them. There was there was big names, Paul Lickrish. So there was just as competitive as any other formula. Definitely, but obviously very cheap and big grids. Obviously, Murray and Todd Jones. I think Webster's done a couple of meetings.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Oh, geez, so there's a lot of coming and going.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Ah, again, it we it was more of a south formula, a bit like saloons are more of an East Anglian formula.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Definitely. So the Southern drivers, you know, if you were from Eastbourne, you got to race two little stock cars on your on your doorstep, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Yeah, Steve Housecomers, like you say, there's another name straight away.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

He was good in the formula, definitely. Good people in it. Nice. So then after two little stock cars, didn't we weren't internationals from then, was it? Pretty much so, yeah. It was.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Yeah, pretty much into the national with uh I borrowed Andy Lane's Tigra, and then we end up with another Tigra that we built.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

And so what what made you think, you know what, a national hot rod full time is a bit of me, considering you've been 1300 real drive style, you know, gone into the lightning rods, then into two little salute stock cars, and then a national hot rod full-time. I know you said you had to go before, but what sort of speed and the buzz to get in a national everything else feels slow.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Oh yeah, I can imagine. I've always been a driver of you've got certain drivers that are good in a formula, and that's not being bad. There is drivers that only do hot rods, there's drivers that can only do stock cars. Yeah, Diggy was one that can drive everything. How much we battled in the year, you've got to give him respect. Dad was another one that could be in a hot rod one week, a banger the next week, and a stock car. And do well and all the things. And do well, yeah, and win. You know, where that was my next thing. I that's what you could get in a lightning rod and win, and I could get in a stock car and win. I could crash, I could hot rod. Whether people disagree with that.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

But nationals. So it's more of for you a point to prove that you are an all-rounded driver, and obviously a national is the highest level of non-contact short oval.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Dad was going to give me a two-litre hot rod at the time Franz Jobert came over and done a two-lit hot rod world. It's a brand new car, and as it goes, it was yellow and red in my colours. And dad said, You want it? And I said, No, two-litre hot rods didn't really give me the big buzz or an interest. Yeah. Not saying they're a bad formula, because they are a good formula, but I just, if I wanted to do a hot rod, it was a national. Right. So George Tricky ended up with that car, and dad said, Well, if you want to do a national, I'll fund it. Because I couldn't afford it. Got again young kids trying to pay for a house. Yeah. Which he was doing for a while. Obviously, now I've got to pay for it, which I've been lumbering in. It's the time's the term, but I don't like to ask for it. But that was a step why we went national.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Right. So obviously, yeah, Dean said, if you want to do it, I'll fund it. I'll start funding it for you.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

And then and he hadn't long, obviously, took over, which turned into then speed with fabrications, yeah. Or into the speedruth motorsport.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Yeah, we're getting to that then. So we're getting to that just after this, then. So national hot rod. Your dad gets you the first one, and you get a package, obviously, get going in it. What was what was your first year like? Different.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yeah, it was different. Um, I struggled the first couple of meetings back then. You had to do the first three meetings off the back as a they classed you as a rookie if you were new to the formula. I was learning. Terry George was coming with me, obviously was good with brisker and stuff. Again, he worked here at the time, but we were like buffing the tires down, taking a little bit of trade-off. Come a third meeting, I never had no tires left, they were bald because we were taking a bit of trade-off cleaning them, and we were scrapped, to be honest. But come the end of the year, I was battling for the top of the points by the end of the first year.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

It's only that we broke down the order shot. I was actually fourth going into the last round, after them three off the back. Right. Had a point to prove everyone said to me, What's your hopes of qualifying? Do you want to qualify? I said, if I don't, I'm gonna win the points. Simple as that. I'm not going to qualify for the world. If I can't qualify the world, I'm not good enough. That's just was my standard, and we went there. And you done it. Yeah, we literally finished sixth in the end, but a battery broke down in practice. So I literally like broke down first race, broke down second race, and that was it. Then you were wrecked. Yeah dropped me out, and again, that was group stages, and it was like groups one, two, three, and four. Fair enough. But we were we were close. And then moving into the second year, uh up and down, had a few good meetings, a few bad meetings, a bit of learning. But we've always been close. I've had a few fair few years where I'm second in the points. I've won the points a couple of times, and we've had a few years where we've got bands, so we've missed out.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Whether it's in a hot rod or a stock car, there's there's always gonna be bands about with a second name wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Yeah, a couple have been like tire numbers or no, yeah, there was one or two. That cost me the points. But getting every I do, I have to be competitive. Yeah, of course. I don't, I I ain't doing it.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

It's yeah, it's it's very, very rare that somebody that's good in everything is not highly competitive. They're going in there and they're going to win. As you said, you're going in there and they're like, Oh, would you like to qualify for the world? No, I want to win. Yeah, that's it. There's no, you know, and you're gonna do whatever you can, you know, you're gonna get whatever you're on board that you can that that you need to win, and that's that's that's who you are. That's what again it was putting time and commitment.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

I lost a load of my mechanics because they only want to do stock cars. So claim them, they all cleared off. It was like I say, it was a stock car mechanic, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

I I'm not working on that, mate. You know, you you do something wrong to that, and it it's a lot of money. That is what they said, that's why they put it off.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Mick Wooderson and Grimbo, Mick Woodison now outs Bradley Bolden, but it was. They said if we make a mistake with that suspension, you crash it a fence, it's expensive. We do something wrong with the engine, it's expensive.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Yeah, you don't do something up and it goes wrong, you get out. Who done that? Oh, it's me. Well, that's just cost me 10 grand or whatever, and you're like, oh mate. The responsibility, and they they dropped out, like you say, it's not they said hands up, I don't want to do that, and but then you pick up some new people, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

You know, no, I've got some good crew now, Jamie. That's very good. Yeah, Leonette are very committed, not good on a setup, but they're very committed. And you do sometimes just need it just to lift the body on, take the bumpers off.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Just anything, clean the tires, anything, you just get people coming and do you know any job. Oh no, is it that hot in here? I don't know. We'll take the charger out because it'll be fully charged. We've got to do the device overheated, guys. It is 33 degrees, and we are in a workshop with no air con. We have no air con. Dean, what's going on? It's too tight. We need the rates lowered. We've got no aircon. It's been all at the football club. Yeah, exactly. Technical difficulties, guys, it's too hot. And it is too hot. Who would have thought we'd say that in England? No, I don't. But then we'd be crying if it's raining all the time. That's a property. As long as we're both in it. It's all about the sound. Right, so we're into the first two years of National, we're back. We've got a camera overheated because we're in the middle of a heat wave at the minute. Um, first two years of nationals, we've moved back now to the shop. The shop that we've got, obviously, just over there. How did that come about? Because obviously, your dad sold up the scrapyard, bought Speedworth, and then you was was it straight in here, Speedworth? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Well, he brought Speedworth, so he brought Mark Eaton up first of all, brought Speedworth Southern. That's it, yeah. So there was a little portal cabin in our scrapyard. Yeah, it was it was literally an upstairs block, Ray Wood, and that was all around at the time. So that was in the scrapyard upstairs. Obviously, not as professional as it is now, but it's obviously grown. So he took over that, running it out of the scrapyard.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Yeah, so you were running the was you running the scrapyard pretty much, or you just working there or a bit of both.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

So Gab was running like the scrap side. Yeah, one minute I was the machine driver, one minute I was running the car spares, and then I was doing something else, then I was loading containers for export. So Gab was the main manager of the yard because obviously he was nine years older. Yeah, dad would still be working, but did focus a bit more on speed worth once he took over.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Right, and then you were just doing every job that he needed to do.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, there was a lot of good guys around with us. Some of the staff, still from the scrapyard, work now, still at the track. So good some of the lads have been to us.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah. Fair play. So then he's taken over South in the port cabin. Yeah, and then then I think it was maybe three or four years later, brought Roy Eaton out and took over the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Got the whole lot. And then when did you move into it? So we had an office building built down in the scrapyard, which turned into a tyre bay, part one tire shop, and then they put offices upstairs and there, they had air conditioning. So they had uh the offices upstairs, which was there for a little while. Yeah, I can't remember what year it would have been now, but then obviously when he did sell the scrapyard, this actual yard came for sale as a recovery company, so we sold the scrapyard itself, but we didn't own the land, and then dad brought this little place to own it out.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Yeah, yeah. Cool, and then this was built, but did was this built with the original offices?

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Yeah, this was all Litchie, McAllister's recovery. This was obviously the workshop for all their recovery lorries, right? So if you this was already here. This was already here in this building, yeah. It helps, so we literally moved everything 300 yards down the road.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Nice, Christy. So that was easy. So then where does it once you sold that yard then? What was you doing job-wise?

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Was you working for Speedworth? No, me and Gavin stayed on in the scrapyard. We had to stay running the yard for so long. Yeah. Uh Gavin then left and ended up coming working for Speedworth. We'd still obviously work at weekends at the race meetings, but working on the street.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Still helping out, yeah. But you you two had to stay there for a certain amount of time. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Yeah. Gav come across first of all. Then I ended up leaving the scrapyard. I went self-employed for a little while, doing a bit of gardening, groundworks, a bit of scrap, bit of whatever. Just wanted a year or two to jink around. Then I was doing a bit of the track maintenance around. Obviously, I pulled Wimbledon Stadium down, which is a sad memory. Pulled all done a load of prep work at Aldershot Track. And Richard Polter was running the fabrication shop at the time.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Yeah, because your dad started it up and had Richard Porter here running it.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Yeah, so Richard originally worked for Ludlow when it was in Aldershot. Then it went to Haven't when Mark Paffy took over or bought shares of it. Then it went from there to Ian Funes' place in Chichester, and then eventually Dad took the majority of it and it came here, which is where Richard and it all come with it. Right, okay. So they was here, but then Richard in 2017 got a new partner and was moving to Hartley pool to A1's. Right. Dad was either selling the shop because he had no time for it, or I wanted to take it over and run it. Didn't have the experience of the part shop, but we we give it a go.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

But you said to him, Oh he said, Oh, we we get rid of it, we sell it. And you was like, hang on a minute, I want to I wanna have a tick out of that.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yeah, I wanted to give it a go. So I ran it for three years, met some of the contacts that I have done now in the States, and then I brought it in 2020. Right. Just as COVID hit, just just what you want. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't at first, yeah. So no. Literally brought that, brought it in January, signed a deal with dad on January the 1st, and then come, what is it, March? COVID came along, we all had to shut. So I thought, what business failure.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Well, it clearly isn't because you you stayed open and obviously well it is now. So out of that shop, then what did it just start as just a part shop, or did you take over all of the fabricating and everything else you do?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah, it took over all of everything, everything, yeah. Everything speed with fabrications are took over the whole.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Right. So that includes then you've got your your shop there, which sells every single bit of race part that you could want for all of the formulas. And then in the workshop here, what what what do you actually do? What do you what do you build? Because I don't actually know myself.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

I know you obviously you look after cars and you we were fabricating a few of the chassis, like we've built all the Mazdas actually here and else.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

We do so that's all all the role, the whole space frame plus the fibroglass panels, yeah, engine not engines, engines, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:55

No, I'm not going to that. I don't know if I want that headache. Sometimes we thought about it, but I don't know if I want that headache. Like the weekend when a few people go wrong, you don't get time. But yeah, build the space frames, got the paint shop here, do all the fibreglass panels here, right? Assembly build, a bit like the starlight behind you, in for a bit of prep work, bit of setup work. So pretty much a bit of anything. Obviously, SHP does most of our chassis work at the moment, which he's very good at his job, and like he's second to none pretty much, so it's just easier at times to let him do the fabricating. You can't get no good fabricators to want to work these days for for the little pace price that people want to pay for their hobby. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's the downside, but we pretty much do everything we can. Try to keep the sport alive and keep cars on track.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Yeah, and obviously, you've got tires sell with tires, tyre buffing, um your fibreglass panels, like you say, for all different types of formulas. Try and keep it, try and keep as much in-house for racing.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

Yeah. Uh don't worry, it's not the raining, it's just the heat of the building. Yeah, it's insulated, it crackles a lot. Everyone gets worried it's raining. I wouldn't mind it raining to be fair now. Uh pretty much, yeah, pretty much everything we can do. Um, like you say, yeah. For knuckle bolt, wheel studs, steering wheels, bosses, harnesses.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

So looking after people's cars, you know, they come in, you set it up, you know, do any work that he's doing, any adjustments, and then send them on their way.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Yeah, take them up sometimes up to track practising, right? Driver coaching, if need be, like some are struggling, bit of whatever we can do, what's motorsport role orientated, and try and push what we can.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

And nice, and obviously, since COVID, since you took over and COVID, is very successful.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

Yeah, and when COVID happened, it went quiet, like really quite. We all shut for a couple of weeks, yeah. Be fair, but getting furlough money and government grants, and the plus that I had, which was a bit of luck, which at first I panted about, I'd just brought a load of stock. Like when I went to America in December for the PRI show, I'd spent under a grand committed to a load of contracts, and we shut, and I was like, now I'm into debt up in my eyeballs. But come, I think it was April, May when people started getting the grants. Yeah, people wanted cars built. People still had money, but they got grants, and they're like, What can I do with this extra few thousand pounds? People weren't going racing, were they? So instead of you spending a thousand pounds a month on tires and diesel and whatever you had to do to repair your car, yeah. You were now having upgrades, everyone had a new car built.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Well, same as us, that's what that's what me and Dad done. We built our car and thing, and obviously we'd have rung you up and been like, This is what we need. Like, yeah, no worries, post it out, ain't got no contact. And as you say, we'd done the same. We built a new car, and obviously that was all new bits. So I was lucky, most of my competitors at the time didn't have the stock.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Oh, you just nabbed it at the right time. I just nabbed it, so yeah, there was a lot of them actually ringing me up. Can I supply them with the parts as well? So which got me in while we supply quite a few of the car builders now. I sort of come on the scene, wet behind ears, and then we supplied like Luke Wrench and RCE and KMR.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

Nice, it actually worked out in your favour in the end. Yeah, didn't we have that scare with a hundred grand build to actually actually no? This is working, and then coming out of COVID, it probably just went strength to strength because obviously racing came back, and all anyone wanted to do was just go racing. Race, and to be fair, it's been busy ever since, isn't it? Yeah, car numbers have been busy every meeting, crowds have been pretty good. And 100%. Every when I spoke to everyone, everyone's like, it's on the up still, you know. It definitely didn't do any bad COVID, really. It came back and it seems to be bigger than ever, really.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

I think people because they got stuck at home, couldn't do nothing. They actually started realising what they had.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

When you're going every week, you get border racing. When you're sat home for a month and you can't do nothing, can you're not going out and actually I really wish I was going racing again, and I think it did change a lot of people and it for the right reason.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, definitely did for us. We come back and we all we wanted to do was race. We'd go to Kings Lynn with Speedworth, weren't racing. We was going up to Kings Lynn like three meetings in a row where we just wanted to go back racing because you couldn't. Yeah. So no, it's good, it's good. Right, and moving back on to your national then, back on after your second year, we're now on your third year. Can't remember much. You can't remember. What was what was the year you won won the world then? Um 2018. How many years in was that? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

I think it was about four or five years ago. Was it fourth, four or fifth year in, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Eight years ago now. Yeah, it feels a long time ago. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Yeah. Luckily, there's only been three winners since, so it don't feel so bad.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Exactly, yeah. The um that year then, let's say the fourth or fifth year, what what was different? What what was different that year that you managed because that race ain't easy, obviously the qualifying, and then you got your hot laps where you need to be absolutely on it that day. You know, what was different that year that that got you that?

SPEAKER_02 43:45

And what was that year like? Things click. I won the points that year. I ended up winning the points, I think. So you're very consistent anyway. In the twelve months campaign, yeah. I don't think there was a final, I didn't finish in top three. Wow, it was like we were so Competitive winning off the reds, getting the top three. Obviously, you qualified for your grid in the final, which helped, but we just had a very good strong year.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Oh is that what they do in in the heats for domestic? Then yeah, then heats off grade and then finals, the points accumulated.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Yeah. Ah, so now it's back to uh your grid, you only qualify in your grade. So you go to the front of the grade. If you had two good eats, you were near the front, so a good good final away you go. Which suits me because I obviously like traffic. But everything just clicked that year. I was putting good time and effort into the car.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Was you putting more in and ever then? Or because obviously we do say that that results in better results. Sometimes, not always, but was it that year for you you did put that extra bit in?

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Yeah, I put the good bit in. I didn't do the 2017 world. I'd give the car away to Jason Loosmore. So I was a little bit less. If I race, I race, if I don't, I don't, but when I want to race again, I want to put the time in. And we just we just had a year where everything clicked. It just we went to meetings winning, we went in the wet, we won, we went in the dry, we won, we were in Greece, we won, or or we were there. Everything just worked. That was the year 2018. For the first time for the world final, everyone was on H10 tyres. No one was allowed any other tyres. You were only allowed to buy four H10s from H10. What was people on different tyres before then? We were on a H12 just before that, a slightly harder compound. Right. So for the 18 world, we went onto the tyre. We're on now the H10, which was a softer compound. But there was a big thing of no one's allowed more than four tires. So if you want to go testing, you had to use your ace tires.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

So everyone turned up to Speed Weekend to do the practice Saturday morning. Was the first run that anyone had done on H10 tyres. Oh wow. Um no one knew how they were gonna work. Why did they do that for the day before the world final then? People wanted a softer tyre. The H12 was harder. Yeah, but why do it before the world final? Because you start round one again straight after the world. Ah, okay. And of course they needed to get the container normally comes from Hoosia just before the world. They have to get a container in to allocate for a world final and then start doing the first couple of rounds. So right, so they had to really they had to do it then. You had to commit, or you could have been mixed season. Yeah. But guys were at H12, you were almost throwing away like half tread. It was so hard, they would just you would lose pace. But people going, the tyres are not worn out. I don't want to throw away a tyre that's not worn out, but I'm not on pace if I use it after the half-worn. Right. So that's why they went to the H10, speed the formula up, make it a bit faster, and once the tyres done a few meetings, it is throw in the bin, it is rubbish. Yeah, but it's gone down to where it should then. You're not throwing away a half-tread tire. No, no, which some of it was a better thing. Now drivers are semi-wishing the H12 back because you're never gonna win with that, though, yeah. You put a new tire on and you can lose two temps by the next meeting. Right. There was the margin on a H12 was very close.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

H10 is massive. Right, okay. Got ya. So obviously, you favoured them ties then from the get-go, from that first weekend.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

I liked um Glenn Bell was obviously gone, off and gone in the race. I was fourth on the grid for the world. There was a crash literally on lap one or lap two. Gary Woolsey hit Terry Ann's car, almost rolled over. I went across the shale, done the first half a lap across the shale sideways. They restarted the race. But we obviously had a nice gap inside, so as soon as they dropped the green, I was on the inside. Glenn went running off, but I no one knew what the tyres were gonna do, so we all backed off a little bit. You backed off. We cruised, like none of us went hammer and tongue at it apart from Glenn, he was like gone. Yeah, the rest of us sort of controlled the race and kept our tires for the end. And Glenn went off at the end of it. There was rumours of throttle jamming and all these issues. Still don't 100% believe it, but right.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Because I remember he had a big old lead. Did he not break down?

SPEAKER_02 47:58

There was rumours of his throttle jam, but I still say this day. He's just burst his tires. Glenn never nearly went near the fence, so I don't care what driver you are. If you're throttle jams, you're going in the fence. Yeah. Glenn never especially in a national hot rod. Yeah, yeah, you ain't got time. Don't matter how good of a driver myself or anyone, you're going in the fence. And Glenn didn't miss a corner. But wherever he had issues, I think there was, he did burn the tires up because they do drop off.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Well, you know now, obviously, you probably didn't know then. No. But you know now how much they do actually drop off.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Glenn did prove well this obviously last week he could keep the tires on. Most people have now worked their car and keep tires on, but back then Robert McDonald was one of the only people who could keep tires on for 75 laps, which is why he's won so many world finals. Right. But everyone's catching up again now. We're all back to a level pace. Yeah, and closer. Till something get changed again. Well, this weekend obviously there was four, five, six lap records. Right. That's like nationals have got quicker. Robert broke the lap record last year. Yeah. And this year, Robert broke it, then someone else broke it, then Glenn broke it, then Hayden broke it. So the tracker had a bit of fresh tarmac down, and the other trackers were being broke broke this speed weekend. Right, I've got ya. Rules haven't changed, just everyone's putting time, effort, money in. And if you want to run at the front of the game, you've got to work on them cars. Well, I mean silly amounts.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

I've I've heard stories of some of the top boys, um, what they're you know, the top national hot rod boys, they're mental some of the stories I've heard about what they're doing week in, week out, to try and stay at the front. It's crazy, it's absolute crazy.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Robert's team, Robert Ataliya, and again, I'll give him full credit, he's driving up and down the country from Scotland every week. Yeah, what's his closest track? Five hours, and he's like seven, eight hours for which I'm shot away because you think you're not even racing for an hour, you're driving seven hours to race an hour and then going home again. Race for 20 minutes for you boys, probably. Yeah, and they're spending four nights a week on the car. Got a good committed team, they're spending four nights a week on it, and there is guys now.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

Is that is that a full nut and bolt rebuild every every meeting then?

SPEAKER_02 50:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Carl comes home, comes back, stripped apart, everything's checked.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

He can race on a Sunday at Order Shot and he's texting me Monday night. We're like, we have good bantle on each other up Monday night. He's texting me a picture, he's got no shell on, he's got no suspension on because I beat him. Like that's how compared to me and him have a good battle. We spurred each other on for a few years, that's why it's always me and him first and second for a few years. Yeah, I've lost that bit of competitive edge lately. Work's got busy, kids now racing. Yeah, and I'm not putting the effort in. No, which my results are showing from the same reason.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

Well, there you go. So from that world final, then moving on the year after, what was that year like being world champion? Uh I had a good year, went on to win national weekend, which is the second biggest weekend, really, in the minute.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

And I did win that one. I led that one, I qualified. I set the fast lap Friday, put it on pole, qualified poll, and then led the flag-to-flag victory. So that was quite nice to say. Okay, you're saying I didn't win the world, it was by luck I did win national 100% outright.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

But that's it was always a thing, innit? You always get your set drivers, you know, your car body at that era where he won four or five, you know, and then you've got Robert Macdonald. But you know, for that year that you won the world, and that you was just dominating. It always seems to be they have this people drivers have their stint, don't they? Yeah, they just have their stint where everything works, you've got the right team, you've got the right car. You know, that that year for you was just crazy.

SPEAKER_02 51:31

With the right mindset, you're a bit more fresh. Like you say, you you can get in one of these now, and that your team's done a good job on the car. Yeah, you ain't got that in the back of your head, I suppose. And that does put some people off. I'm the same with the track now, which is the downside. I get off the track even at World Final, the boys crash his superstock, I'm trying to put a front corner in, weld it, and I've got people coming. Have you got a steering ramp? Have you got this? Have you got that? And well, most of them guys are going off and chilling out at the back of the truck working on the car, and you ain't getting that no more. That's the downside of having the shop. It has wrecked my race in the last couple of years. But because of how busy you are, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Yeah, I suppose, as you say, it's a good sign in the fact that your workshop's here, your work's there, you know, this is your job, and you can work on the cars, you know, as much as you want to, really, if you did. I don't get time to work on it during the day, right? But then obviously, you say the downside, you've got at a meeting, you're just swarmed by people wanting stuff and you're trying to do I mean with the kids as well now.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

The funny bit you get with this with this game, and it is, it does make me and Gavin laugh. We will get told like word for one, oh you were testing a week. You were testing a week, and our answer back is you rang up on Wednesday order bits, and you rung the landline. I'm here Friday with your bits. So, how did I how was I testing? I was in the shop talking your stuff out, and it's like, oh yeah, you was, wasn't you? But people have just got it in their mindset that me and Gavin are always testing, always went on a car at works time. You're gonna get that no matter what. And we're not, and it does show we go probably testing the least. What our most of the nationals, yeah, yeah, oh does it, and he's the same with a two-litre. He don't go testing. He took his new two-litre the other week, it was brand new friend of sood. He went up the track Saturday morning, literally the bed the brakes in. I went with him, we had an arch shaft leak, brand new bearing was leaking. I come back here, grab my lorry. I went off to the SHP to pick up the two new chassis, one up there, which is sold, and one out the front, which is sold. So it was a three-hour trip from here to Sunny's. Load up two chassis, hour and 20 minutes trap from Sunny's to Ipswich. Raced the Thunder 500, got damaged, drove home. Next morning, kids racing order shop. So we were turning up, and you're like getting home at midnight and you're back up for order shop, got to come back, unload all the motors again to load back up Sunday morning.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Oh mate. You do do I do think sometimes I'd be good to have a job in this sort of game, but then as you say, like it doesn't stop, does it? You know, yeah, it doesn't stop. And you got kids' cars, customers' cars, then it's like, oh well, I'm actually racing next week, so I need to crack on at some point.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

I need to do better for national weekend. One for the Mazda, two for the company because ginitas are winning at the minute. But Eastbourne last night with the boy, getting back at midnight. I'm Eastbourne next Wednesday with a daughter. The we got the following weekend off, the following Saturday, both kids are racing at Ipswich on the Saturday night, Sunday. Superstocks are all the shots, so the boy's racing his superstar, we've got to put an engine in it. So between now and national weekend, I've actually got five kids' meetings before we think about racing the national.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

And when you think about that, and then you think about as you say, like Rob McDonald, who every single day that you're working, not working on it, they're working on their car. Yeah, you're gonna struggle.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

But there is guys now, and it's nothing against them. Perry Cook, Haylan Ballard, and so they've got full-time members of staff now. That's how professional National Hot Rods are got. They have got someone that works in a car that is their full-time job. They get a set salary, you look after that car every day. Every day. The companies are earning more money that they can, it's cheaper for them to do it and fair play to them, but that is that is what National Hot Rods is becoming.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

So then that must put for you to be like, well, I don't want to do that, I can't afford to do that.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

Yeah, can't afford it, can't commit to it. National Hot Rod is Curtin, it's not the right. I look at it both ways. Do you want the sport because it's meant to be a working man's sport over racing to be two dear? But it's a national hot rod which you know is the pinnacle supposedly of overracing, especially non-contact.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

You've got to be a rich man to do the sport.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

You can't change the formula or the sport because I can't afford it. No. Like we're saying with saloons. So the guys that are going to do national hot rods are putting big money in and they're committed, they're going to race every week. What is the fine line? Where where is the the limit, is my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Well, the limit is when they die.

SPEAKER_02 56:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

That's when the limit, and you when they start dying, you've got ten people out there that are absolutely minted, but there's only ten of them. And because they're the only lot that can afford to do what they what they're doing, which is almost like a British touring car team now, you know, with the with the mount they're going testing beforehand, before meetings, you know, booking the whole days out at certain tracks before day, before things, you know, then just to for outsiders looking in, they go, oh, they just drive around in circles, you know. It's far more than that, yeah. It is far more than that.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

But it is like you say National Banger scene. How many people on Facebook say National Bangers are dead or rubbish now, or they're finished? They're the biggest formula out there.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

Yeah, by far.

SPEAKER_02 56:42

They're the most expensive they've ever been. The biggest they've ever been. The guys that are doing it are committed. I think, and that's the stage where the formula, which I can't keep committing to, I'm gonna drop into superstocks in a minute with the boy. Yeah, I fancy a bit of open wheel racing. I think in a few years I'll go shale F2 because I've never really committed to shale racing. No, you haven't, have you, really? Done the grass theme, but I've done a couple of meetings but never committed, and I just want to do something different.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

You've never really raced shale, have you? Because when the the formulas you done, the saloons and the 1300s, the speedref didn't have any shale tracks, did they?

SPEAKER_02 57:18

No, we've done a couple of meetings on the mini stocks. Rye house went shale for a little while. Yeah. So I'd done a couple of mini stock meetings and junior bangers on shale.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

So to me, then it looks like you want another challenge, and the challenge would be shale. Not necessarily the formula, but I miss contact racing.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

You do, especially now I'm off pace. Now I'm off pace.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

I could have just wiped him out straight away. Robert McDonald straight in the fence.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Yeah, I did last meeting actually. I did laugh. We spin each other out if I nearly spin each other out, round each other on warm up laps. He ran me wide a little bit, we laughed with each other, so I just fired him off in the last race and waved him as I went past. But you're not meant to be doing that. Me and him do we don't take that seriously. We laugh with each other. We he nearly spun me out after the race, I spin him out. People are starting, what's that about? Well, you fell out. No, we're laughing. Yeah, yeah, we are having a good crack, but you shouldn't be doing that. But as you know yourself in a 1300, if you're slightly off pace, you can still be in a race by just keep lunging every bend far and off. Yeah, definitely. If you're on pace on one ease, it's not very fun.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

I can't I can't imagine. I you're just getting battered, you know, and there's nothing you can really do about it. You sit on the inside line, but you're just getting every time down the straight, and then somebody's trying to fly around the outside, and when they do you, you think, What am I doing?

SPEAKER_02 58:36

Break a bumper in this, it's 480 pounds. Do a bumper in a 1300 stock car, it's a bit of steel and a bit of welding one night. And yeah, so you've got to give credit, I say, to people like Brett Collison, your model, and it's not in a disrespectful way to them, guys. Them guys will turn up every week happy just to race. Just to be in a national rod. They might get lapped once, twice, three times in a race. They just want to race an ash rock rod. They're not spending as much time as we are, they're not spending as much money as we are, they're going home happy. Yeah. And I said, Who's got it right? Who's got it wrong? Yeah. If I lose, I got third, I'm not happy. Ron McDonald's going home, not happy.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

Stripped his car Monday morning. Just the amount of money you've spent and you you've not got what you wanted. Who's got it right?

SPEAKER_04 59:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

But people shouldn't be there. But I I say them guys have got the formula right to a degree. Yeah, but you're not wired like that. That's the thing. There's many people like you, you're not wired like that. You you couldn't, but you wouldn't be happy with that.

SPEAKER_00 59:31

Bad loser.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Maybe, maybe, but just very competitive.

SPEAKER_02 59:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:35

So we're talking about then moving moving on. The national hot road, is this going to be your last year? Because wouldn't the points finish now, though?

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Yeah, so it'd be a new point series. New point series, which obviously after the world was a new thing they've just done this year, the super rounds. They cast it, so it's everyone's round one. So obviously, we did do round one. I banked a tire from it to be honest, in case I go and do the British. I'm not giving up nationals, but like I said, I missed four meetings this year in the points. I just like kids racing one day. Yeah. I'm just gonna race it when I can race it. If I can if I have you just got the one now, is it just this one? Or you got two still? No, I've got a tigre over there. I had an injured shoe with that the other week, so that's that's abandoned that shed. I've got a broken down superstock over that shed with no engine in that blew up. I've got the national over there, the tigre, and I got me and Mark Free Cortina, which is stripped in bits for the road one day. Right. But like National Wear, and you normally should have a few weeks to prep the car. I want to just turn up at events when I've committed and done the car and hopefully be back on pace. As opposed to just doing it to do it. Just to do it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

Yeah, you want to you want to put the time in that you should and just do fewer meetings.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

It's no good as a you're not enjoying the racing, and it's no good as a businessman if I'm turning up getting six or sevenths.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

Yeah, that's what I was gonna get on to as well. Without doing the nationals, is business gonna do as well? Because a big part of your thing is these Mazdas. I think sometimes you need someone out there winning for you to sell cars. I'm selling more two litres.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:03

My two-litre scene is busy like, yeah, well I gav. There's two two-litre chassis there, like I say, sold. I've got another few inquiries. Sometimes you still have that mentality in this game that people don't want to buy from you because you're racing against them.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

Right, so there's the other end of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

There is people that brought from Cole Broadly. Yes, their car is now winning, but they would buy from Cole Broadly because he's not racing them. Yeah, he's gonna tell us everything he knows to make us win. You're not gonna tell us everything you know, Billy, because we're racing against you. So I do think there is a side that am I better off than being upside on it? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:37

Are you better off getting a couple of good drivers in your cars and let them do the winning, helping them to then sell your cars, like you've got the two litres, which you're obviously doing well. But as you say, if you're up against another top driver that's in one of your cars, he's not gonna send his car to you when he knows that he may possibly beat you.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:58

Yeah, there is there is that downside. I'm very open to the guys, and they will tell you the ones I'm doing, okay. Look, come and strip my car, come and check it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

I won't hide it, but you still have people that doubt it. Yeah, you're gonna, because it's so competitive. Yeah, you know, and if somebody who is a competitive person is not doing too well for the next two meetings and you've done something to their car, you know, you've you've worked on their car, they're gonna first thing they're gonna do is blame you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

The silly bit, Tabs, is sometimes, and it it sounds really stupid, but I get people ring up sometimes that wants set up advice. My car's not handling, what do you think I should do? Okay, right. So you'd ask the question, what diff are you running? Are you running a plated diff and ATB or I don't want to tell you that you're like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

I'll put the phone down, then okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

What shocks are you running? What springs are you running? I don't want to tell you that. You're asking for my advice, so how can I give you my advice? So you're stuck in a bit of a like if someone wants advice, but you you they won't still won't tell you. Even if you're beating them and I'd go, like, there's my car mate jacket up, you can feel what diff I've got. Like this we I've got an ATB in, go and feel the car, but you do get that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:01

People won't tell you it. Right. So you you're not worried then if you get out of national hot rods that you're not gonna do as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

No, no, fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

Let's say it you know, it could go either way, couldn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

I do say at the same time, I've always loved my racing, and I won't give up racing because of work. I'm not gonna lose work over the racing, but at the same time, I wouldn't give up racing because I'm worried about what people are thinking. Yeah, we can go and get a job for motorsport and get a job anywhere else if I need to, and probably earn better money than doing the shop without sounding rude. So national artists, finish quitting national artists if I finish wouldn't, I don't think, overly affect us. Right. Because even if it did, you would go selling stock cars, brisk rift twos. Yeah, there's four or more drivers in them other sport formulas.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:50

Yes, that's right, that are still willing to spend money. Yeah, you know. So hot rod, then you're just gonna do sort of as and when spend more time prepping the car than racing every week to try and hopefully get the results. You know, it's it's probably a good idea, especially with the kids racing. Obviously, you've got your boy racing in superstocks, and you want to come out of him as well. Yeah, so that's gonna be this year.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

Yeah, I'm gonna come out soon when you get that car. There's an empty space actually where that chassis was, it was the cut superstar I built in 2015. I'll see it in here when I come before that. Yeah, so I built that obviously before I took over the shop. We Terry George and it had quit at the time here from dad, and there was still the chassis jigs here. So I built my own superstar off the jigs. Oh, thank you, buddy. I'll jump on that. Uh I used it once at Wimbledon before it shut. Right. Had issues that night, but I was working at Ipswich all the two weeks well because we had issues with the grandstands when there was a big shutdown, and so I lived in the sprinter van up there for two weeks. Sorting that out. Was that the fire? No, they had all the health and safety with the handrails and the ground there, the concrete were under the ground. Right, yeah. There was a big write-up in it when Dad got done for HSE. And uh right. So I literally was, yeah, leave the kids at home, living out the sprinter van with the welder and I was welding six o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock at night. I come back Friday night and race a superstock at Woman and on the Sunday, so didn't have a good meeting. No, but you didn't work on the car. Parked it up, then they done the Mildenal superstock meeting a year later. Right, yeah, yeah, I remember that. So I did. You raced that, did you? I raced that one. Ah. And it rained and rained and rained and rained. Dad had just put a nice new banking in and all grass, and I was the first superstock that just cleared the banking and landed on top of the grass. So black flag. Um and then it sat for another year, and then Jamie Oakes, my mechanic, that was in 2018 when I was world champion. Jamie wanted to have a go in it, so we used it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

So we had a go that night, and again it rained and rained, and we hardly had any superstocks and they never done shale again then.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:47

No, I did speak to him back, and he said, No, they all moaned, no, I'm not doing it again. Yeah. But you say you've had two bad meetings with it, with bad rain.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:55

Yeah, they were both like November, December, so I think they'd better have a June or July, well, and it was going to be the European, and everyone moaned because it was a European, they shouldn't be dracing on the shale.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

So that's what that's what the third that's the difference between 1300s and supers. Like 1300 would love that. Like drivers, if you do something out of the ordinary, right? This championship, you know, began the left left way round a track. Everyone would be like buzzing. You know, you do it to something like the supers, and they'll be like, No, no, no, no, no, we ain't doing that. You know, it's a different mindset, innit? But obviously, the money's a lot more inexpens in the super.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:29

Yeah, but at the time, he that was his words to the guys. I could put an F2 meeting on and have a minimum of 40-50 cars. If I put a superstop meeting on, you'd be lucky if you're getting 20 and you're all moaning. Yeah. I'd rather put F2s on them. Yeah, exactly. And they've been good to watch on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:43

Yeah, definitely. So, kids-wise them. We've got two cars here, but two that got wood on, but not your name. So, you got two boys, a boy and a girl racing.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:53

Yeah, boy and a girl. I've got my oldest boy, 18, he's into boxing. Yeah, doesn't even want to watch racing. Don't go. He'd rather sit over watch us, won't do nothing. He's completely that'd a change.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:04

Yeah, that'd click at some point in his life, you'd be like, you know what? Do you not? I can't argue with him because he's a lot bigger than me.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

It smacked me one. He needs to go and be my bouncer a bit more. But then I got the middle boy who's 16. Just gone into the adults. Literally was 16 in June, so he's racing the super there. And again, he didn't. It was he would turn 14, and all some on Sunday said, I want to race a super too. So he wasn't interested before that, then. Not interested, they would go racing, they would sit in the lorry and they'd play computers, wouldn't even come out of the lorry to watch a race. Oh wow. One day he What do you do, you kids then? You can't force them, can you? They they would have to come with us because we couldn't leave them at home, but yeah, they literally wouldn't force them to race. He rode his pushbike one day to an ultra eye factor, rode out with his mates on his push bikes in the woods. Yeah. Come back. He went to see his nan because he wanted a drink. And actually watched the Super Twos and come back one day and said, I want to race Super Two. Oh wow. So that was John Smith Conley let us that car was Brown Spain Kindle, never been on the track. Graham Cooper when I picked it up for us. Johnson said, borrow that car, car into all the shot with it when the season started back in April. Yeah. Grant Cooper picked it up for me, he dropped off to an Ipsich one night. And the boy done two and it done all the shot, and then we did Skegness. And I said, Well, he wants it. But so he's been in that flat out and he'd done well. He was the first ever Scottish champion. He won his first race. Nice. Uh there was qualified for your grid to be fair, and he didn't finish one of the races, so he did come through from eighth or ninth and win it past the champions, which was good, quite an achievement for him. I didn't think he would do it, but he did it. He's only one running race since, so, because it's hard off the back and he's got a few competitive drivers. I can imagine. The daughter decided March Ray Previous year, she wanted another go. Everyone was saying to her, Ever go, ever go, ever go. She was nope, nope. And as it was, we took the kids. Lee Mund that comes with us, who's got the two-litre rotter, these kids got adult super two, junior super two. His daughters wanted to have a go. And I had to go off to London for a big meeting to do with Inferno Armour. And next meet I've got some pictures through, the wife's got the daughter in the car because I'd cleared off, she had a go, and that was it. She wanted to the next meeting. So she wouldn't do it when I was there, but too much pressure. And to be fair, she's took a little. She's had uh quite a few podiums already and four meetings, so she's now up to a yellow top. Nice. So then watching your kids race, does that give you that same enjoyment? Or when they're doing well, yes. When they're doing no, I can see why dad shouted at me. Now you understand. I'd never say that to people now. I ought to be like my dad in a way, but but come on, but your ideas are competitive. Yeah, you tell them hold tight to the curve and they miss the corner and they miss the corner, but frustrating because you know they can do it, and all of a sudden they do a couple of laps and they do it well. So you see your you see your dad in you now. Yeah, more than I want to, but no it is good, but I do say it is hard. Some people can just quit and watch the son race or daughter race, and fair play to them, I've not got that in me yet.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

No, no, and as you say, your dad didn't when you started, and that's the thing. He didn't, and you think, Why didn't you just let me race? But now you're in it and you're like, Well, no, I'm not done yet. Yeah, I'm not done yet.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:22

And he did do the adult super two meeting the other week, and I did do the meeting. I said, Right, that was the night after Ipswich, so yeah, I borrowed a car to do the first meeting with him. Right. He won the first race, so I'll come near the back. Well, I got you crashed last corner, so he told me he lapped me, so right, I didn't finish. He's kicking your ass already. Yeah, so no, he done well, but he's he's just had a couple of three bad meetings, he's had the crash in the soupstore.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

He did alright on his first go, but eastbourne he clipped the wall a couple of times, didn't he? And I think the last time he clipped it, he ended up straight on the infield. I thought, oh, that was one too penny. Yeah, he locked the wheels up, went in the fence, and then panicked across the middle. But he found the same bit of arm going off practice at all three races. Yeah, definitely. I sat down from the infield and watched him hit every time in the same spot. So he's using his loaf.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:07

He's I've told him like if you'd be in lap, just pull over, let everyone through. But yeah, you know switch the other day, and he's born. You go offline, you're in the dust.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:15

Yeah, and you're you're you're so slow out there, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:17

Yeah, it's just but yeah, he'll get there. Yeah, he's off the front for the next order shot. Oh, yeah, because of the tyres, that's why he's off the back because of the tires in it as well. Yeah, he's done a couple of two off the back because I didn't put four new tires on him. Right. Obviously, he picked a couple new tires up from the European. Yep. So with their tire Alexis for he's not allowed a new one at all the shop, but he's obviously had two from the European and two from the Eastbourne.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:40

So he has got four good tires to go off the front at all the shop with. Right, so he's ready now. Hopefully, but I need to take him testing. And again, it's we ain't got the time. So I want to go testing with that for national weekend. Will you go all the shot to test for that then? I will, yeah. I do want to try and get up all the shot. Yeah. But I kept saying that before world final, and I went Wednesday night. So and then a diff packed up for me and the stub axle broken. Oh mate. So that was that was our testing session for world final. Oh dear.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

So I skipped past this before, but one of the things I want to talk about, there's a picture that I remember of you, and it's the picture of you on fire. Do you talk us through that? Because that is what ultimately changed the rules when it so everyone had to wear gloves. Yeah, it was a bit warmer than today. It was, yeah. Only just yeah, because like that picture is horrific. Like, that's you know, you're very lucky to still be here, really, isn't you? Very lucky, mate. Yeah, yeah. Talk us through that because I've I've not heard, I've I've seen the picture, but I've never heard of the story.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:40

Uh so what was that again? 2004. I was doing the 1300 stock cars. Opportunity came up to race in South Africa on the hot rod tour. Yeah. So we took the opportunity again. Luckily, there, we was in the scrapyard and we had three weeks off back then. I think it's three weeks, three and a half weeks, so long time off work. Luckily, full pay. Um, went on a race to Hot Rod tour. Dave Longhust was there, but at the time they were shipping their cars over. Oh, so they were the actually the English National Hot Rods. They were the actual English National Hot Rod. Right. Dave Longhus took his colt, Dick Hillard, I think, took his 206. Dave Hitchin went. They literally would ship the car over for a month, then raced a month, and then they were lucky to get their cars back in time, ready for race season. Um, I was offered a South African car at the time with a rotary in, and we took the opportunity. Had a couple of good meetings out there, but it was on a bit of old school, it's still on like Martin Fiesta rear brakes on the rear. And with a rotary, obviously, there's not the engine brakes, so you're relying on a lot more rear brakes, and they were glowing every meeting on every race. We were cherry red. So we went to May M4 Champions of Champions. Dave Longest was up and gone like he did everywhere he raced, he just left us all behind. Uh Dick Hillard was second, I was battling for third. And about five laps to go. I looked in the old mirror and the brakes were on fire. So the rear brakes were glowing, caught fire. And the marshal on the middle had a fire extinction ready. So I just went to pull off as normal. I thought, right, I'm over. And as we pulled on the grass and touched the brakes slow down, it spun out. Like pulling the handbrake up because it was just no grip on the grass. Yeah. And then we know the fuel line had split. There was like a pinhole in the fuel line or welding spark could put a pinhole in, and with the injection fuel pump, it was just obviously you can't see just spraying petrol all over down by your feet and filled the carpet petrol. So as we hit the grass and spun, the petrol then hit the brake disc, which ignited the whole car. So that was it. We were in a ball of smoke. The marshal couldn't get in. The fire extinction didn't go off, which to a degree, how long I was in there for was not a bad thing, they actually said, because the powder could have affected my lungs and the powder get in the hands and kill the oxygen. Right. So we could have lost hands or fingers as well as my life. Um, but he couldn't get in then, because again, the window nets in for there were attached to the chicken bars, not the door. So they couldn't get into the window net to open the window net to get in the car. They were ripping the door off. We had a tight kirky seat like what we're running now, where you were tucked in, which I loved, but it was the old stitched-together harness with the single buckle.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:26

Well, the like turney buckle thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:28

No, it was the uh aeroplane clip one, just like the road car buckle, but the the shoulder straps and the lap straps used to be stitched together. Oh. So of course, you couldn't actually slide out the harness. So before I would race, Pete Wallace with me, Ashley Wallace dad now ex rookie manager champ, um, I used to have to undo the top seat belt, sort of slide my arms in to get in the seat and then put them over my shoulder to do them up. Right. So when we caught fire, I couldn't get out. We were trapped in. Which was I think it was something like 15 seconds, but a long 15 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:02

Bloody lifetime, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:04

Yeah, it was just sheer panic. You do it first, you're like trying to get out, and it sounds bad. I accepted I was gonna die. After a little while I couldn't get out, I just accepted it. It was I'm gonna die. What went through your head, which sounds sad, is obviously my parents were watching the stadium, it was packed. I would say it's probably four or five thousand people there watching me, and was packed back, especially them days. And again, good family friend, it's a long time and it brings back memories. People Mark Bolden hadn't long died for a fire, which I grew up with as a kid. He sponsored me minis, he was in the scrapyard, literally next door. And Mallory and Helen were there, they came out of my car under on the Grand Parade. There's pictures on Mallory was a baby and Helen. So Mallory had never met a dad, died of a fire, and there I was gonna die on a fire.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:01

So you are thinking of them poor people that have lost someone through it. All that stuff going through your head and then say them 15 seconds about how much went through your head in that time. Yeah, and it was, like I say, it was literally like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:14

That was the things you're thinking of. Like, it didn't scare you in the end. You were like, it's over. It wasn't painful, the adrenaline's running, you wasn't in pain. Yeah, you didn't feel nothing, you didn't feel it, so and I'm not a religious person, but still to this day there is photos of it. A curtain opened. The fire died down, and like I said, there is pictures, people may say it to me. The passenger side window opened up, and as the passenger side curtain opened up, it gave you a I've got to go. Didn't think about the seatbelts, so I shot myself out of the window. As it goes at the same time, the harness had melted. The harness had melted on that shoulder, so I managed to climb out. You didn't even know that, you just went for the window. Because it was just a sign of going. As I was halfway out of the car, Dave Itchin was on the middle, he dragged me out of the car, and we were obviously not burning. Luckily, all the fireproof gear that was on worked. But they tried to cut my crash, take my crash off. I'm sure it was really my bad at the time. They went to grab my crash helmet off me and it burned their hands, it was that hot. Like it was they had to cut the strap and trickly knock my crash helmet off. Yeah, and I just remember we didn't wear gloves back then. No, this hand is the worst one. The skin was peeling off like a snake. Literally, the skin was just peeling off my hand on the middle.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:36

You just see it.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:37

Yeah, it was just hanging there. Only people didn't know I'd got out. On the commentary, it still said I was in the car. Yeah, you couldn't see anything. People were smoking, panicking, and the amount of people around like they didn't they realise I'd actually climbed out. So there was still frantic time for a lot of people who couldn't do nothing. My trainers were still in the car, they stayed in the car like they'd slipped off my feet. The steering wheel was still on it, never see it ever again. But like there was meant to be a hand print on my hand in the steering wheel where the alley had got so hot it bent around my hand, and obviously we were rushed off to the hospital. So it was a close call, but a warning for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:17

Yeah, definitely. And obviously, what happened to your body after that?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:23

Strangely enough, going to the hospital in the back of the ambulance, my knee was hurting the most. But that was because it was an exhaust burn. Where you'd climbed over the exhaust and heat shield, my knee was burning because that was still raw. Where technically everything on my hands had died. Right. So you couldn't feel that. All I kept saying was my knees hurting, my knees hurting. I remember that. Your hands are hanging off, but your knees hurting. Yeah, my knee was hurting because it was an exhaust burn. Obviously, went to hospital in there for well, that was a Saturday night. We were flying home on the Tuesday. The guys were all coming to see me in the hospital, but again, when you're in the hospital next morning, they were on about chopping my hand off, chopping some fingers off, chopping my little finger off, nearly, and we kept everything. But we had to fly back to again. Luckily, Dad had money, not so he's really rich, but had to pay for a doctor to fly back with me and keep injecting me with morphine to be on the plane. He actually flew with me. I got picked out at the airport and took straight to Grinstead to the band unit. So there was a lot, a lot to it. And then I spent, I think, about 10 days, two weeks, and he's Grinstead. But I couldn't use my hands, I was all in blimps and couldn't couldn't wipe my own backside, and you had to sleep with your leg up in the air, your hands up in the air, like tied up, couldn't do nothing. This or my leg was obviously all the skin graft, so I couldn't move my leg. A lot of people come and see me, which was nice, and feeding me and drinking, give me drinks, and but luckily I was always headstrong that I would take the mick out of the fire, I'd laugh about it, I would joke about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:59

I'm out the other side, you know. It could have what could have been didn't, and I'm here.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:04

I think three weeks within three weeks I was back at work, and a month I was back racing. I wasn't allowed to race unless I was at work, so I had to be at work. I couldn't ride properly or nothing, but I had to go to work. Good old Dean. Yeah. But um, I think within four weeks I was back in the 1300. Wow. And it was the time I was wearing with Diggy and everyone else. Yeah. I used to have to wrap the guys that knew me. I had like inch thick or two-inch sponge taped to my leg under my ovals. Because I couldn't let my leg touch the seat because it was so raw. Ah. And then I had to wear like we called them Michael Jackson gloves at the time. I had to wear like gloves that zipped on, and I used to have to wear these like Michael Jackson gloves on underneath my race calves. Right, just because of obviously how burnt they was. Yeah, and to keep tight the skin together, stop them getting dirty and yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. And every night I still had to go home and wear these plimps for a while to keep my hands from moving.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

But you could straight away, almost straight away, you could still use them, and you know, they would they weren't boy, I don't like to say it, but you'd say you nearly lost them, but then and they did say I wouldn't use like my little finger, they would say I'd lose most of the use, and to be fair, I got nearly all of it. But I was very, very, very lucky then.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:21

What people don't see, and this is a story where why me and the Inferno Armour thing is such a big push. I can yeah, I see you do push that quite a bit. Like my skin there, I do have to physically rip the skin off, bite the skin, or cut it with sandy blades, because where it builds up the scar tissue, it will hold my finger tight. Right. So I will also see me biting my skin on my hands, and it's not because it's I can feel my finger tight enough and I have to rip the skin off to allow the flex. But they just cut easy now.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

Yeah, but it's mad, isn't it? It's just one of them things in life, and obviously we've we've all learnt from it from the fact that now the rules are you know you have to wear gloves as well as every other bit of a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:05

I believe it happens for a reason, cut.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:06

It does.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:07

It's I won't look on the bad side, I will say it happened to the promoter's son. So there needs to be change. It changed the rules in South Africa, they ban window nets because they say there's less chance of your arm falling out, your arm falling out the window and getting chopped off than it is trying to get someone out the window. Yeah, they changed that, they changed the harness rule again, balaclava and stuff. It changed harness rules in the UK, balaclava's coming, gloves come in at nearly everywhere. So it did the whole sport some good. Yeah. It did do the sport some good.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:42

You know, and you we've obviously still got you here, so it everything worked out. Yeah. You know, and hopefully you you've hopefully saved other people's lives by saved.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:53

I would say more, and it's it's hard to say because of what happened back in the past. Cole Sloan had the same sort of fire, I think approximately two years ago now. Luckily, now PPE was so much better. The window net rule was gone. Cole Sloan blew up in flames in South Africa and managed to get out of the window. He was in and out of that car. Yeah, no injuries, very close call, no injuries. So even now, me and Cole had our bit in the past we get on now, but it saved say it could have saved him from having the same injuries. Whether it's one person or not, it done its job. Definitely, definitely, very good. It's good obviously that he made it out as well. Very good. Yeah, no, very good. He was lucky and plus side as well. Scrutiny is as a driver, you never think it's gonna happen to you. No, you don't. I mean, you and I scrutiny guys, and people's got holes in their overalls, and I've had one before where he's there's no arse left in his ovals. Backside, that won't happen to me, mate. I've sat in my bum, and I go, if you're knocked out in that chair that's on fire in a banger, you're gonna get burnt, aren't you? That won't happen to me. I used to get the phones out and go, I used to think that too. And then they start to think twice and go and get a pair of ovals. Yeah, so it does, you can use it to the right effect.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:12

Yeah, definitely, definitely. And it's a good thing they say you can joke about it now as well, and stuff like that. Well, I'm glad I got out because I never heard your side of the story. I've never heard they the story of it, I just see the picture, so yeah, yeah, but yeah, hopefully that's a lesson to everyone as well that's listening. Hope so, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

Like I say, and it does, and like I said, that is a big push while I'm in Fernalman. That's not trying to make loads of money, it has saved people in America. I don't want to see people going through what I ever went through. No, whether it's motorsport, whether it's anything, it is when I told the guys a story the same thing, it was they told me there you're gonna be our UK agent. Your story can tell a thousand words, so you need to be our UK agent. And ever since then, me and Kevin Senior, Kevin Jr. Thomas have always had a good relationship. Nice, you use a story all around the world, can't you? Which is a plus side. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:07

Definitely right, moving on now. We did mention it a little bit, but future then. We've got a little bit in this, as and when you did mention something on shale. Where's where are we gonna go with that? F2, I think. Yeah, depending on what the boy wants to do. Obviously, now you're gonna want to race with him, yeah. So you're both gonna do it together. If he wants to, he doesn't want to get he's not in the shale F2, no, but I mean racing together anyway. No matter what you're gonna do in the future, you you want to be racing with him.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:32

I want to race with him, and then obviously in a couple of years, the daughter will be deciding she wants to go adult classes. I want to take a little step back. And how many years have I got left for contact racing?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:44

Some of you guys you've been at a game a little while now, you might not have any left.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:48

And it does, and it does take its toll on you, and that's what I say. I did enjoy the brisk graph one, and I thought, oh, is that gonna wrap more? And it did, and we did it, and I enjoyed it. I still love my contact racing.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:59

I I am surprised as well how long you've stayed in these and stayed away from contact. Yeah, growing up watching you, you was contact, and that was that. And then in the national order, you're like Billywood in the national rod. I don't know about that, but obviously you stuck it world champion. But now you're saying you are missing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:15

Missing it, I am missing it. I like I say, the nationals are so serious that if you're not on pace, it's not fun. I want to, and that's what I think doing what I'm gonna do with the boy, even if I don't win in a super stock, I'm gonna have fun as a family again. Yeah, I haven't got to every meeting, I can just flutter around, I jump in that super two and have a good laugh. All my mates are local, we all go as a team, we all take the mick out of each other. I get out of did Skegness the other week in Rob Speak race on Easter weekend. Yes. I got out on that with a more of a smile than I did on that on the Friday and the Monday. Because that took so much time, effort, pressure, didn't have a very good meeting, spent probably £2,000 on national. Didn't cost me £50 to race that because I was there. It's it's one of them, isn't it? Who's who's winning at that stage? And I had fun, innit? It's a good, it's I not in a rude way, I don't take it serious. The guys do, and which everyone's gonna, I get in there and have fun. Go and knock a few people around, they knock me around, I get out and have a laugh. It's nothing, there's no war, there's no nothing serious. It's enjoyable.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:21

Thank you very much for doing that, Bill. It took us a while to get you on, but we got you there in the end. Yeah, that's right. And we will see Billy Wood, hopefully, in something contact very soon. Thank you soon. Coming soon. Thank you everyone for listening. We'll see you in the next one. See ya.