EP8: Goodwood, Gasser Dreams, Fast Renaults, a 24 hour bike race and the “Dukes of Westfield”

Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.

• Goodwood “Revival” vs. “Members Meeting” vs “Festival”
• Aston Martin Kia Sportage, Lamborghini Anus, The Man Whole Had Three Cayenne Turbos
• Selwyn Francis Edge
• “Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing”
• The 200hp Darracq
• J’s Gasser vision – the Hound Dog
• J’s confessional
• A dented Triumph Dolomite
• BTCC vs DTM
• M’s Best Car Park spot
• J en France –
• Traffic calming in French villages
• Paris’ 19mph speed limit
• An Awesome Parisian Cabbie
• 24 hour bike racing at Le Mans, Ozzfest Meets Sportsbikes
• A Typical Le Mans Traffic Jam
• “Wow, that was FAST”
• Historic race – more than a couple of bikes like ones in J’s collection in the field
• A digression on Peage Rest Stops
• A Small Boy Determined to see The Race At Night
• J frustrated by a “green” multi-storey carpark with small spots
• Le Mans in the small hours – Europop Disco and France’s answer to Linkin Park
• “I think I’ve had enough, we can go home and sleep now”
• J’s explores French Garages, dreams of resucing – Renault Safrane Biturbo, 19 16v, Clio 16v, two Mazda Mk2 RX7s
• Old Renault dealer on the main road to Le Mans – pranged Peugeot 206 sw, Megane cabrio, Mk2 Laguna 1.8 16v petrol
• J’s Mk1 Laguna V6
• M’s Mk1 Laguna pool car
• BTCC Renault Laguna, built by Williams
• Salvage Rebuilds UK question if a Renault Laguna Mk1 is a bona fide classic car; we believe so, as endorsed by TOCA Touring cars
• Britain’s unique and awesome club circuits, e.g. Thruxton, Cadwell Park
• Ross Chastain and “Wall-running” in NASCAR; J wants to shake Chastain’s hand
• J’s Fiat 500X rental; an unfair comparison with the Fiesta ST
• J pines for Chop’s Garages Jaguar despite living 6000 miles from it
• App for buying European beaters – Autoscout24
• Renault 19 16v collectibility
• We “can’t bear some sh1tty rental”
• Eulogies on: Fiesta ST, Renault 21 Turbo, Sierra Sapphire Cosworth, Renault 18 Turbo
• The Noble Sacrifice of a Volvo 740 Turbo, in service of Outstanding Bacon Sandwiches
• J’s favourite SUVs: 100k Tahoe PPVs and Mercedes ML63s
• “Dukes of Hazzard” in a Westfield
• Nearly being run over by Bruno Saby’s World Rally Escort Cosworth

[00:00:00] John Summers is the motoring historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and fast, and not much reliable. On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.

Good day, good morning, good afternoon, um. Welcome to the Motoring Historian with, uh, John Summers and Mike Gamme. Um, Mark, it’s episode eight. Man, popular demand keeps us coming back, doesn’t it? It [00:01:00] does, it does. Our needy viewer, or listener, or whatever it is. Well, I, I, uh, I confess it’s been a month or so since I last looked at the stats, but a hundred and twelve episodes have been downloaded the last time I looked.

Probably a hundred of them is me testing, but there’s still 12 there that is, uh, yeah, yeah. Um, all right, well, moving on to our structured talk track, because we are. organized produce. Yeah, yeah. And we’re also, but we also don’t pretend like there’s not a talk track like so many of these other podcasters do.

Cause you know, when the microphone’s in the room, the story that you tell is different, isn’t it? Um, uh, we texted, didn’t we about Goodwood? Um, let’s just talk a [00:02:00] little bit about the experience that you had this last weekend. Um, because you and I went to the revive, went to the festival, is it the one where it’s up East driveway and that’s, that is a good event, but that is not on the same page as the full on.

Balls out racing on the track just like it was in the 1960s and the full Everybody dressed up to get in the paddock Um, I I remember I went to the first couple of those kind of meetings with the early 2000s before I moved. Um, Awesome motoring events. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I saw an ad one of the things they sent out an email Couple days before I said something about it Um, as the sort of the best motoring meeting in the world, and I mentioned that to my boss is Canadian and his son’s a sports journalist, mainly covering hockey because he’s [00:03:00] Canadian ice hockey rather, but some other sports as well and that he’s into his cars and his sim racing and stuff.

And he said, that’s a very American thing to say to sort of brag, but it’s the best of the world. I said, Yeah, that is right. But like the Super Bowl being the world championship for one country, but nonetheless, you know, they are the best of it. Um, and, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s the members meeting, not the revival, so no one’s in period dress, but that’s, and there’s less people there, but the racing is the racing, and you go, you know, you go, it’s, it’s so cool, I mean, you can go there and see the cars being thrashed around, um, and then wander, you know, wander under the tunnel and into the pits and see those cars that were just thrashed around, ticking themselves cool.

With the people still driving around and putting, you know, tires on them and things like that, and you can just walk right up, you know, you could see them go out onto the track and everything. So, um, it’s, after spending the day there, it is difficult to argue. I can’t, I couldn’t, I was trying to think of it the other way around.

What would I [00:04:00] rather, if I could have, go to any other meeting, would I prefer to go to any other meeting, any other days racing? And no, I wouldn’t. I mean, the members meeting is the best. It’s for me, you know, specifically, you know, for what I’m looking for for racing, which is beautiful cars and old cars and interesting cars thrashed about properly with proper competitive racing with a sort of gentlemanly spirit to it.

So it’s, you know, there’s hardly any crashes, you know, there’s oversteering or exuberant driving, but there’s. There’s no real sort of banging of fenders and things like that between the they’re shoving it up the inside when there’s a, you know, cigarette papers gap and things like that still, but uh, very little it all done with a sort of, you know, handshake afterwards, kind of, you know, classic sort of stuff.

Um, so yeah, it is difficult to argue. It is the best. Um, and we, we had a great day full stop. I mean, we went. Um, my wife’s waiting for another operation. She’s got limited mobility at the moment. So, you know, that’ll give her a new lease of life. But so we’re game with strolling in from the car park in the morning and the little two of the horn as I [00:05:00] look in, uh, it was Angie’s getting a stick out of the, at the back seat.

Um, and it’s an old lady, old lady, a mature lady in a, an Aston Martin sportage leaning out the window. So with Goodwood mobility team written on the side saying, would you like a lift? So, Oh, well, thanks very much. Spare us the. I don’t know 800 yard walk or something in which my wife at the moment is a bit of a she’s doing it it’s a bit of a struggle but she wouldn’t miss it for the world um and just whisked in dropped inside separate entrance there you go sir certainly sir can I scan your little your little because of course there’s no ticket the ticket is the little enamel metal badge on a little um on a little piece a bit of a cord and on the back they’ve got the little uh the little code that they just scan you in so you’ve got a nice little memento afterwards nothing so uh Um a foe as a as an actual piece of paper.

I don’t need to bother with that Um, but yeah, so it was amazing. I mean, so the [00:06:00] racing was spectacular When I went to, uh, when I was a docent of the black or I guess a slammer docent at the Black Hawk Museum, but certainly years ago, we used to have a director, Tim McGray, English bloke. Um, and he, uh, would.

Because he was well connected would he did like this speaker series and it was people like how didn’t Ganley you like race Formula One and Can Am or Vic Elford or we had Brian Redmond. So all guys from kind of Tim’s era and a lot of them Englishmen who lived in America because Tim’s an Englishman who lives who lives in America.

He does the M1 concourse. Now I’ll do a. Uh, for anybody listening, it’s worth looking at that con. Anything Tim does is, is really cool and not for nothing. Like me, his first car was a Cortina. His was a 1600E. I think it was somewhat newer than, uh, than [00:07:00] mine was mine were 10 years old when I had them. So, uh, but yeah, I, I, the old, um, uh, Tim, when we had these speakers would always say to them, if you could do you had these questions, if you Campbell, right, if you were going to drive across America.

What would you drive? Would you cannonball? Would you just cruise? And everybody was like cruise and add different ideas about what they’d want to cruise in. Another question was any event that you could go to anywhere in the world, any point in time, what would it be? And I reckon probably half the time people were like.

Goodwood Revival. Yeah. I mean, it’s not, I like members. I see why you like the members meeting though. Because it’s like, you know, you don’t have to bother with the dressing up. It’s just there with the motor racing, so you can just go along and just be you and be [00:08:00] immersed in a world. And, and, you know, for me, right, when I think about what’s special about Goodwood is what’s special about vintage sports car club events as well.

I’m not saying there aren’t events like this in America. I feel, you know, Bonneville’s like this, this, this way you can walk right up to the cars where you can see the cars really closely and where fundamentally, if you want it to be a butt monkey. Steel tools getting guys way ask the driver dickheaded questions You could do all those things but there’s a culture there that you don’t do that and and Yeah, the the events are uh are awesome, uh because of it.

Um, yes About the um, just a bit of sort of a soft stuff around the outside It was just a beautifully good very good wood thing to have happen just to be actually chauffeured in because your wife’s are struggling a bit And, you know, that it’s not just any old car. It’s an Aston Martin, because it’s Goodwood, of [00:09:00] course.

What is this Bortage? It’s a sort of SUV. It’s Aston’s SUV. Oh, really? That’s what it looks like to me. Yeah. Um, I mean, nice enough. I mean, it’s in the back of it for about five minutes. Oh, johnny smith. I had, he had a tweet this week that was like, uh, about the hurricane about how Not the hurricane the iris The anus.

He was like, I couldn’t have an anus in my life. He was like hating on the anus. Right. And, and, you know, there’s been general hating on big SUVs because BMW have done this like 785 horsepower or 738 foot pounds. So some bonkers, stupid. Rivian eating SUV, right? Um, you know, well, you know, I I’m disappointed by BMW’s direction as well.

I’m just going to say, but you know, this is a, uh, a separate, um, point where were we, where was I going before I got [00:10:00] distracted by the Rivians? We were talking about the Aston, the Kia, the Aston Martin Kia, Sportage, um, Sportage, Sportage, Sportage, Shooting Brake. All of these things, they’re bollocks until you lean on them.

And then when you lean on them, you’re like, geez, this thing does it all. It’s easy to hate a Cayenne when like it’s like you’re in your cheap Mondeo looking at some soccer person in their, you know, SUV in it in traffic and you’re thinking, what do you need your Cayenne turbo with 550 horsepower for that?

No, right? What you need the Cayenne turbo for is those, I guess it was, uh, the, the guy was, uh, you ran a green hedge fund when you could make money doing it. Long time ago, met him at a party, colleague, like partner of a colleague and my wife’s, um, he said to me, he’d had [00:11:00] three Cayenne turbos in a row because there was nothing else that fitted in his parking garage, had credibility at the country club and could get to Tahoe and could like climb a hill.

That’s what he said. He can, it can accelerate uphill at Tahoe, which is like in a low pressure Where like the big V8s aren’t that good in the snow, it’s a monster and that kind of guy, you know, but for every one of those, you know, for every one bloke like that, there’s a million of them that are Chelsea tractors and, you know, maybe, maybe the answer is, it ain’t the shoe, it’s how it’s worn, right, that’s that.

As a spec, yeah, and is it the right shoe for that foot, et cetera, but on the journeys that foot’s taking. But I mean, but back to the racing. I mean, the racing was amazing. We watched, we were there on the Sunday. Um, you get, you do obviously Friday, Saturday on Sunday, Saturday is a couple of races, but it’s largely qualifying.

And some of the races are two part races with Saturday, [00:12:00] 40 minutes, and then Sunday, 40 minutes. And it’s often gentleman driver and professional driver with a pit stop, uh, in between in the one race and stuff. So, but yeah, the most trophy stand out moment for that cracking race. Uh, E types and AC Cobras with the Cobra triumphing in the end.

But, um, I can’t remember if it was that one or if it was the previous one, but the previous race, but there was a DB4 coming along the Lavent Stray at one point and its front left tire exploded. Um, completely carcass gone down onto the rim, piercing sparks everywhere and it’s coming towards us. I’m thinking he’s not backing off really.

I’m gonna wonder if he’s gonna spin, you know, that’s the deal. Maybe he’s worried about that. Hmm, didn’t appear that way, and he just carried on in the gas, largely letting off people coming past him, but keeping to one side. And then sort of wove across the grass a bit, onto the tarmac in front of the stand outside Woodcut that we were watching on the outside of the corner on the left.

And then just drifted it past us on three, into the [00:13:00] marshall’s piece, behind the tyre wall. No problem. Five seconds of yellow flags, no stopped racing. Big round of applause from the crowd as the guy gets out and waves to the, waves to the, to the stands. Um, but the best race, if you want to watch one, was, well, for me, the one that I saw that I really enjoyed the most was, where is this?

Um, the Edge, the SF Edge Trophy, which was Hellwin Francis Edge. Yeah, it was a hard fought battle between a Sunbeam Indianapolis. And a rack, 200 horsepower. And it, I mean, to say it went to the wire is understating it. Um, it was decided after the chicane on the last lap. Wow. Um, by N Point it was less, it was like half a second or less.

It was less than half a second. It was like North point naught six or something stupid. Um, but yeah, I, I won’t spoil it [00:14:00] if you’re gonna, it’s, it’s on YouTube at the moment. I mean, and, uh, from what I recollect, and I might be wrong about this. Goodwood do all the races or highlights of all the races for about a month or so afterwards and then they disappear off YouTube again.

Um, because I know I can get access to them through the members thing on the web page and I can one of the privileges you can watch the course, all the full on boards and everything from, um, previous years. And so, so I watch it where you can is what I would say, you know, get on there and watch them because there’s, there’s some cork and stuff.

Just go to the GRRC page on YouTube and it’s all there, but well worth it. Well, I’ll post the links even though they’ll go dead for the, uh, for those avid Well, the GRRC page will remain, it’s just some of the, they, they sort of trim out some of the full races after a while, it seemed to me. Yeah, now that happened to me, I’d intended to go back and watch a live stream one time, and only to find it had been taken down, and at the time I was like, Oh, but then you realize, well, you know, it’s that, this will be a classic thing to charge for.

And it makes sense to, to do that. And you know, you’ve got [00:15:00] to find a way to finance what you, what you’re doing. Um, yeah, the gentlemanly racing thing is, is I think a feature of Goodwood and, and a feature of the way that motor sport used to be due to the lack of safety. Right. The, the, you, you really made a point of showing respect for other people.

I think as a, as a safety point, and I think this is why people like Sterling Moss had such a hard time with guys like Farina because Farina race. In a way that didn’t really have much respect for, uh, for, for the other people that you were against, um, edge. SF edge really a bloke worth reading the wikipedia on the next time you’re enthroned It’s it’s that kind of thing an early early british motoring pioneer, um, there’s a Amazing book that I read When you could buy a copy for 20 pounds, which you can’t anymore sadly called 10 years of motors and motor racing [00:16:00] published in 1905 And it’s by a guy, just stop and think about that.

10 years of Motors and Motor Racing published in 1905. And it begins by saying how sad the writer Jarrett is that the early pioneering days are gone. And basically the early pioneering days was when he and his buddy Edge, who were cycle racers, basically could get these engines on their bikes as well.

So then you could ride the bike down the hill at high speed and then run it. Up the hill on the other side, maybe pedaling, maybe leaping off and pushing. And then, you know, when at night, when you had punctures and things like that, you might not arrive, you know, the publicans house until two o’clock in the morning.

And then he rejects you because the horses don’t like the smell of motorcycles. That kind of is full of those kind of pioneer adventures. Edge was, was that guy? I [00:17:00] believe you talk about, uh, the, uh, a Dirac 200 horsepower. I think it’s the, I think, I think there’s only one. I think it was a land speed record car.

Oh yeah, no, it is. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s like a 26 liter V8 or something. Yeah. Um, it’s 1906, I think. Yeah. And I, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Indianapolis sunbeam was significantly A significantly later car. Oh, yeah, it is. This was, it was the earliest car in the field. It’s got, he used one gear the whole lap.

Yeah, but the thing has a plane engine, doesn’t it? So it has a whole, whole bunch of torque. Yeah. We should find video of, of that. If people aren’t familiar with the 200 horsepower, the rack, it’s, uh, it’s really a, uh, a thing, so I, I have a. You, you well know Mark, I have a total soft spot for those early aero engined kind of I mean, the beast from the terrain is in the same race every year.[00:18:00]

Yeah. Like, in about eighth, I think. So this, I, I believe I met a bloke in a pub many years ago who was building that car. I believe It’s, uh, it was a car that wasn’t built and he got the plans for it and then found in a museum in Italy, an engine. And then from then on, it just turned into this, uh, crazy, uh, you know, thing that the project that was, that was, was completed, um, yeah, so my dream.

Of the aero engine racing car that I had years ago at home in England, I feel it is actually coming to fruition. And, and the reason that I say that is, is I now have the shell of, of this gas, a drag to the Mercury, um, which as you know, I’ve had for a decade or so, but you know, it’s, it’s there that that’s the shower.

I’ve had the back axle. That’s a state correct 70. [00:19:00] Bronco rear axle. I have that. And now I have this DayCorrect 428 that sits in this giant destroyed Thunderbird at the moment, ready to be liberated. And, uh, yeah. So perhaps the other update I should have is, is Mark has spoken to a bloke down in El Segundo who has a business building.

Top loaders, because Mark is concerned that not just any Ford four speed top loader is going to do. You have to have one that has the biggest input shaft. The most number of splines and the most number of splines on the output shaft as well, because otherwise he reckons this 428. I don’t know what the horsepower and torque figures were like from the factory, but Mark thinks with a rebuild and a mild cam.

With a rebuild and a mile cam, mark [00:20:00] thinks 500 horsepower, which nice. You know, that’s gonna be plenty, isn’t it? For that Mercury, which has no interior and, and for reverence, it’s a 62 meteor. Um, it’s, can we do it in, can we take it to, um, Speedway next year? I mean, next year, maybe in the year, in the year 25, 25, you know, at some point, right, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s potentially there.

Um, I will include a link to this, uh, Falcon. Which is built the way that it’s going to be called the hound dog. Um, that the meteor is going to be called position eliminated, which was the way I was fired from my last job in the valley, they can’t actually tell you shit at your job. You’re fired. They have to say, we’ve eliminated your whole position.[00:21:00]

We’re actually not going to do any kind of sales anymore. We’ve eliminated your whole position. I know you thought we were a software sales house, but we’ve eliminated your position as salesman position eliminated. The woman’s name was Celia and she is without question, one of the most awful people I ever met in my life.

I was probably an arrogant prick to her in fairness, but you know. I’m ready. I just confessed. I just confessed. Didn’t I just said I may in some way of being responsible for Celia firing me. It was just possible that I might have been, um, you said a dollar might was pissing oil when we were texting. My dad had a dollar mine.

I, you know, I remember about it when I was a small boy before I even moved to, uh, uh, high Wiccan. Um, when we lived [00:22:00] in Gloucester, I, uh, was having a fight with one of my friends. And, uh, Dana’s walking on the ceiling giving a sound effects. I was having a fight with one of my friends. And I rolled and knocked this, I guess this dry stone wall.

Either way, a piece of dry stone wall fell 20 feet onto my dad’s navy blue Triumph Dolomite and put this huge dent in the roof. And my dad was really peed off at me to Express it mildly. I always felt bad about that. I, when I see a similar dent, I saw a similar dent in the hood of a car just recently, and it takes me right back to the guilt that I felt over, uh, causing damage to, to this Dolomite.

The one you saw was pissing oil at the trap. Yeah. Although if you want to see sort of handsome damage. Um, then look no further than the, uh, I think it’s still on at the moment, at least, the replay of, uh, the [00:23:00] race with the Camaro versus the Jetane Capri. It’s got a proper front left clout, but we’re still expertly peddled round at maximum velocity.

Um, irrespective of its cosmetic roughage. I saw a picture of it on, uh, on Twitter. And, uh, obviously when it had been parked up, instead of just taking the fender off, they just rolled the fender out over the tire. Because the shape over the tire is perfect. But the fenders like totally wrinkled and it’s lost the headlight and the, the whole, uh, that the whole peak.

The guy, I mean, in the Moss Trophy, a guy in a hardtop E type, um, lightweight E type, um, it comes up the lavent straight, goes up, goes to take the guy on the inside. And then the guy didn’t quite see him. So moved across a bit. So there was enough space maybe, but he went onto the grass anyway and he was coming at Raynaud so he, you know, passed it enough that he was going to be plenty past.

So he, but he therefore couldn’t break [00:24:00] properly before Woodcut. Um, so he, when he got off the grass, he stamped on the brakes as hard as he could and then was. And then tried to tip it in on the line it need to be and to drift it round and the back came round on it. And he sort of double pirouetted around and then, and again, off the brakes on the grass, back on the ground, broke brakes on the tarmac again.

Rolled up to nerf, dink, against the rear, against the tyre wall. And again, smashed up the back a bit. Bit of a wrecky round, like, from the driver’s seat. Back in the race. No messing about, racers be racers. Um, will it start? Yup. Does it drive properly? Yup. Well, I’m not even coming in. Carry on. So, it’s, it’s full of that sort of stuff.

And it’s um, oh god, seeing the old Capris and stuff. And that 19 Bossy, 1982 or whatever it is, that chap had a, did you see that one today? He had a Mugello, it’s a video of um, the Zakspeed Capri. The [00:25:00] bright yellow one, the Jägermeister one is it I think? The bright orange one, sorry. Turbo Capri being rinsed around Mugello, right?

Sounds fabulous. It’s lovely to see. Yeah, the um, Zach Speed did Mark 1 Capris as well, but they’re known for like the Mark 3, which is like a 7, it was a 1. 7 Turbo 4 that made like 600 horsepower or something. It was some, I’m not, DTM mutant kind of, uh, kind of a thing. And I mean, look, I mean, we talked a bit about over the email about over the was apps rather about, um, That 935, the body kit on that Zaxby Capri is similar in the sense that it is stepped out as shit from the side of the car at the bottom to create those sort of hovercraft like skirts on the side.

And boy oh boy does it make it look punchy. We really did pause and, and pay tribute to, um, what DTM was conceived to be, which was this, [00:26:00] this sort of Formula One of saloon car racing, where anything goes, where they, they created something that was almost closer to NASCAR. Then our own BTCC, where even in the eighties, do you remember the, you know, the great, the era of Cleland, that those cavaliers were limited to eight and a half thousand RPM, you know, to keep the horsepower down, you know, so you, you, you couldn’t like, there was no like building a really racy engine to give you more power.

They literally, you know, kept the tires narrow and the, the, the playing field very level. So, tell me before we move on from uh, from Goodwood, um, what was the best car you saw in the car park? Not in the event when you were just walking in. You mentioned the car park. Oh, in the car park? Oh, yeah. Um. What would you want to, what, yeah.

There was a Gunmetal [00:27:00] 550. I didn’t look to see if it was on a stick, but if it was. All right, good answer. So answer me this, moving on to, uh, moving on to my, uh, recent couple of weeks en France. Um, when we were there 20 years ago, did they have all that traffic calming in the villages? I don’t think they did.

Now every village has got like flower pots or designated parking so you have to like slow down and stop and they prioritise traffic from the other way, you know? So, or, or they do this business, they do this business where instead of having like just a slow bump that you can, if you hit it at the right speed, it sort of isn’t there.

They do these ones where it goes up and then it goes level and then it goes down. So there’s no option. You have to slow down. I’m not saying I want to speed through French [00:28:00] villages. I’m just saying that I feel like in an effort to make. You slow down, they’re effective, but they make driving just so much more annoying.

I, I, I also, uh, you, you not spend any time in Paris recently. You were aware that they’d done this, this like 19 mile an hour, 30 kilometer an hour speed limit. I had heard rumor. And, and so my fear was that the whole place. It was going to be like everyone had eaten about 15 Valium. It was so good. It was good.

Oh, well, exactly. Exactly. Right. Not very French. That was my concern. I, I, I mean, I’m all, I don’t want pedestrians to be injured any more than the next man. You know, when I recognize that there’s not much to be gained and, you know, the green benefits are dubious, but, you know, I, I’m just saying that, you know, I get, you know, moved in the right [00:29:00] direction and all of that.

So I’m not. You know, objecting on principle. I’m just saying that I was worried it would change the character of Paris, but I didn’t worry that it seems everyone just drives just the same as they ever used to. Like it just saying, uh, the periphery, it’s not like dodgems, like Rome, you know, where half the cars on the side of the car was smashed to smithereens, but still, yeah, yeah.

Rome, it does take some, uh. Rome does take some getting used to I remember when I first moved there looking at the wet cobbles with the traffic going everywhere Thinking yeah, don’t think I needed my jigs to hear thinking Leave that at home That would have been rough. Yeah. Um, I so What I was struck by was uh was the um out on the periphery.

It was less The lowest the lowest speed limit. I’m not saying because they’ve lowered speed limits [00:30:00] everywhere But the traffic did seem slower on the periphery and it seems somewhat less scary than uh than it had done before Although I gave the cab driver that we took from the middle of paris out to orly airport where we picked up a rental um, I gave him the biggest tip i’ve ever given anybody on account of the way that he just dexterously Navigated traffic, you know, in terms of not in terms of jumping lines where he could, but not being too aggressive.

And in terms of when we drove past the entrance to the rental car place, and as we sail past the entrance, Dana did what she did to me, which was, oh, the rental cars are over there. Like as much as saying like, what, like, you know, I knew they were there all along. What are you doing driving past them, you fool.

I should have been driving. Right. She did that to him. And Ollie had already been sick out the window of the car and he’d been really nice about that. So I was like, you know what, [00:31:00] you know what, um, this might be. He, so you know what he did? He reversed out of departures and then, you know, across the Chevron he bit.

To get into the rental carpet. It was really some impressive, uh, real bending that earned an unwarranted. And, uh, I think probably the largest percentage tip I’ve ever given. Like I was that, I was that, um, I was that impressed. So we did these 24 hours of my motos 24 hours. They call it basically like, so it’s the Bugatti circuit at Lamont and.

You remember how before you go, you look at the pictures and so on and then when moving around again, before you go to Le Mans, [00:32:00] you look at the pictures and it’s the fair and you know, the glowing brake discs and all of that. It’s only when you get there. That you realize that actually it’s the motorcycles bouncing off the rev limit is endlessly and the smell of campfires and the fact that you’re wet because it rained earlier and the only way you’re going to stay warm is by having another beer.

You remember how that’s what the actual experience is, right? The motorcycles were that and some. It, it was, it was, it, it, all of the kind of people who go home. You know, go, go off the track. All of those people didn’t come to the motorcycles. The only people at the motorcycles with the people who’ve done things like staple that two Euro cup round their necks.

So they couldn’t lose it. We saw a number of people with beer cups around their necks, the plastic ones like staple, so they weren’t gonna, there [00:33:00] was no way that to buy another beer. But there was no way they were spending 10 euro to get the cup They only needed to spend eight euro on that beer. And yeah, my word um The other thing I would say about it was we uh, uh had a classic l’amour experience in the We got to the hotel, checked in, all of that, drove back out to the circuit and a hundred feet away from a roundabout, like two car lengths away from a roundabout where we were going to get into the circuit and park 200 feet from there.

Uh, the road was closed and, and I was like, well, we should find out what’s happening. And Dani was like, because she knows that means her, because I’m not going to try and speak French. And she, she does well with the French, she got out of the car, right. [00:34:00] I came back to the car and was like, the cop’s not answering any questions.

He’s just ignoring everybody. So like we sit there for about like, you know, half an hour, everyone’s sitting there, you know, I did set a trend. I went and took a pee in the bushes and then loads of other people did. So, you know, I did demonstrate that little bit of cultural leadership there, putting one in, I thought putting one in for the British team that, you know, the first to piss on French countryside, just by the, just by the Porsche curves.

Just the road was just, that’s, that’s exactly, exactly where we were. Anyway, it opened up again and turned out it was really quite lucky because the parking we were going to was actually one of these campsites that were full of Frenchmen with sports bikes who were just bouncing them off the rev limiters at deafening volume and setting off fireworks and generally the whole thing feeling like the set of a Mad Max movie.

I mean, there’s, there’s really, it was like Mad [00:35:00] Max meets like a Slayer gig when it had rained, you know, that was how, that was how it felt. So I was, so I, so as we basically missed the parking, we’re driving away from the circuit, there was some street parking that just came free. So I did a quick U turn, we got in there.

And so we got in that first, so that first evening, we had a little like look around, walk the track, got a lie of the land. Next morning we got up and I was like, we’re not sitting in that traffic again. So we walked, which at the time seemed like a good idea. We’d walk across Lamont about hour stroll, you know, pick up some bakery.

Well, I don’t know how well you know Lamont, but that bit at the beginning of the Lamont movie. That beautiful town square and the cathedral and all of that. That’s the old town which is in the north a bit to the south That’s the bit that you know, maybe you don’t like industrial zones and [00:36:00] stuff Oh, that’s that’s where there’s the the five story apartment buildings that that look like You wouldn’t want to be there after dark.

Yeah, which only occurred to us as we were moving through them Well, it didn’t occur to me until we were leaving When Dane was like, we’ll get a taxi and I was like, we’re going to walk. So he was like, we’ll get a taxi. And I was just like, no, there’s no taxis going to come. Like, what are you, the Uber wasn’t going to come.

Anyway, so that’s, but, but so, so that was, that was Saturday evening, more Saturday morning, we arrive at the circuit, right? And as we, it’s warm up, it’s already, the schedule’s late. We’re warm up with many, we were going to miss it, but actually the bikes were out on track there. And as we come in the entrance, we’re right up on the outside of the end of the pit straight, just as they like cut off to get the bike leant over for the swerve before the Dunlop bridge, right?

[00:37:00] And, and at that moment, the fastest bike, the Work Suzuki comes right up and past. With like a howl out of this straight Akrapovic and the guy leans over and Dana goes, wow, that was fast and that’s really it, right? It doesn’t get it. It’s really that just over and over and over and over again until it blasts you into absolute like oblivion and that’s why you’re like, Dana was like, you’re going to have beer already.

I was like, well, what else? Are we going to do, you know, like you, you, you have to lie, you know, so we ate sugary food and walk, we walk the circuit, but it was windy. Like, so it was bloody cold. Um, we were out on a backstretch, right. A section that Ollie had picked out cause they went fast there. Cause I, we’d looked at the circuit before and he was like, where do you think they’ll be fastest?

And I picked this bit of the straights. We were there [00:38:00] and he was watching them go by and this old French bloke taps me on the shoulder. And he’s telling me how cool Ollie is to be as enthusiastic as he was and knowing the different riders and all of that. So I had a, uh, a cool, that was, uh, a vindicating, uh, moment.

Um, but yeah, we add like a sort of meltdown of energy. about because the race start we were at the circuit at nine o’clock in the morning. 10 a. m was a historic race and uh on the front was like I don’t know a 999 Ducati but next to him was this replica Schwantz SRAD Gixxer. Right. SRAT. Now there were K5s in the field.

There were two K1s. So K5s are the like, you know, the pinnacle analog sports bike, 160 horse. These [00:39:00] were maybe 750s, right? Not the thousands, but the K1 is the one that like my first bike where the headlights wide for people who are not up on their jigsaw law. One headlight wide as opposed to one headlight batwing style for the K5.

The intakes at the side, the two air intakes, uh, the dead giveaway for the, for the body style. So there were K fives, there were, uh, there were Ducatis, um, cbrs, um, you know, like a 9 5 4 CBR we call it in America. So that’s like a 2002. And there was, um, A-C-B-R-F four as well. So I dunno what the engine capacity was.

There was a ZX 10. Like my old five ZX 10. There was one of those where I say like mine, this one wasn’t wrecked, but, uh, uh, there was a ZX 10. Um, yeah. And they were, to be honest, pretty slow looking in comparison to the bikes that were [00:40:00] actually, uh, that were actually involved in the, uh, in the full on championship racing and, uh, like.

Uh, the the Endurance World Championship they call it and that’s uh, that’s what they call the the series. Um, Yeah, so the historic race was pretty good. We were in the grandstands for the starting ceremony. Um, People singing the the the singing of the french national anthem was uh, was really cool moment Um, they run across the track to leap on the bikes before the start that kind of ruled as well So that was fun to watch, um, all around, uh, extremely, uh, enjoyable.

Um, we walked the course, the wind was howling cold. Um, my family were, were, uh, pretty, uh, you know. It was manfully done to survive, um, cause my [00:41:00] word, the wind was cold. And, uh, I guess the closer place or, uh, having walked a lap and being, uh, having walked a lap and being absolutely exhausted in the, uh, visitor center place being like, what are we going to do?

We don’t want to eat more crappy food. Um, or drink more beer, those of us that can. But yeah, I, so we agreed that we would go repair. ’cause I was like, we just need to be somewhere like out of the noise in the cold. And the others weren’t to, weren’t really thinking clearly. But I was like, you know, we need to, and I wanted to have something left in the gas tank.

’cause I knew that we were gonna have to walk back across. Yeah, well, it was only when we left and the other two, it came to the realization that there wasn’t going to be any taxi or Uber and that that was unrealistic and that people were doing things like sleeping in Renault [00:42:00] Clios, like whether they folded the back seats down and the front seats forward and were, you know, people were breaking out the picnic tables on the sidewalk.

Blocking the pavement completely, English word and American look at that. Blocking this out, like, people are like, yeah, breaking out the cheese and the ham and say, uh, you know. Tablecloth? No, no, actually not. Quite a lot of people at the French services, and I’ve got to say, I think we may have discussed this before on a previous cast.

The payage services, part of what you pay for on the payage. Is the payout services and I don’t mean the payout services like that are like everywhere services, like, you know, where there’s loads of stuff and like you go in and fight to get to the car. Z and all that sort of thing. I mean, the payout services where there’s just lose and quite a big, nice woody picnic area with little like gravity drives and stuff and lots of picnics to rest areas and stuff because.

The [00:43:00] friendship, like, well, why would I need to pay for your shitty food? I want to use your nice road. So give me some bathrooms. I don’t want to mix with that. I just want to go and have a nice place to relax and sit and listen to the birds, right, with the cars in the background, and have a picnic table.

And so they take their own food. Well, I saw more than one people with a bottle of wine and a tablecloth and a nice setup and some pate and something like, well, you’ve got glorious food. You know, it’s a nice part of the world. Why not just, even on the side of the motorway, it’s pretty nice. Well, yeah, so we, uh, so, so we had to walk back, didn’t we?

And then at that point, we had to walk back. Cue griping. Sorry? Cue griping from, uh, small and large. No, everyone was too tired. And then as we moved into a fairly scuzzy area, too scared. And then as we realized that the walking route was taking us the direct route out of town, which was parallel to the railway, but meant that there was probably a mile and a half [00:44:00] section where it was just a narrow walkway, um, along the side of the railway track where there was no, you know, egress, right?

So if anything happened, there was, you know, so, so that caused some, some fear. Which was, uh, imbued, which imbued further walking. But by the time we got back to the camper, both adults were, well, all members of the party were shattered, right? Mm-Hmm. I can see why. So we sat downstairs, add pizza, and I had a beer.

’cause I was, you know, and, and we approached the topic with Ollie twice of not going back. But each time he was adamant. That we should go back right and he got his cherry coke. So he was all like ready for it So I was like, you know what? I’m you’re only here once we’ve got to do it, right? But but this is so here we are with an eight year old [00:45:00] Leaving the hotel at 20 to 11 at night To drive back out to the circuit when we have to come back to the hotel, sleep, get up the following morning, drive back to Paris, drop the rental car, and then be at the airport to fly out.

And then it’s, the flight is at 6. 30 and we’re scheduled to get back to the West Coast at 8. 50 and then he’s going to be in school. The following morning, my wife’s going to just do a normal day’s work that following morning, but not a normal day’s work, a day’s work after the, anyway, that’s how after a bunch of time off, if you think of it, right, you, you, you’ve got the six 30 plus the time difference, you’ve got all that time on the plane.

So, you know, in theory, you could be vested in, in reality, you know, we’ve all been struggling with the jet lag somewhat [00:46:00] this week, but, you know. It was, uh, it was always, uh, it was always going to be that way. Yeah. So you get the car. So the, get the rental car out of this annoying, stupidly small spots. Why are European car parks designed to be just a little bit too small for the car?

It’s really annoying. It’s really annoying. Why not make them bigger? There’s so much totally unnecessary damage. Like you could, you could reduce the number of spots by 10 percent and make everybody’s life tons easier. I, I don’t understand it. It’s, it’s really asinine. What about the 10 percent of people who can’t now park in the town?

Yeah, the, the, anyway, about the other thing about the car park, right? Um, no lights. Pitch black, movement sensing, go off the moment you stop moving. So that’s right, you get out of the car to check you’ve parked alright in the spot, and the light goes out, [00:47:00] plunging the whole floor of the car park into pitch black.

I mean, talk about making, saving a tiny amount of power whilst inducing terror into any lone female. Or indeed a lone individual in the building. You know, it’s, it’s just absolutely, uh, anyway. So we did make our way back to the track and, uh, you know, by that time, right. You know, all the Frenchmen, I say Frenchmen, Englishmen as well.

Anybody that is hammered, right. Cause you’ve been, it’s so cold that you must’ve been drinking the beers all day to stay warm. Europop. They’ve got Europop going like blasting volume. They’ve got these like French heavy metal bands. Kind of like, you know, um, France’s answer to Linkin Park. Um, it, it, it’s, they’ve got these bungee [00:48:00] things that where you could like get in a ball and then it springs you like a hundred feet up into the air.

You couldn’t bloody pay me. To get on it, the whole, the whole piece. Ollie was like, we’ve got to sit in the grandstands. So we sat in the grandstands and, and as they cut off, there’s flames out of the exhaust pipe of, of the bikes, blue flames. So that’s, you know, pretty compelling. And then he was like, I was, I was sitting there thinking, how are we going to tear them away?

Because a new day could go at any time. After we’ve been there for about half an hour. Um, I, I, how are we going to tear him away? And just at that moment, he looked at me and was like, I think I’ve had enough. I think we can go home and sleep now. And I was like, Ah, rock star. So we did. And now the run up to the airport was fine.

And, uh. All, uh, all was right with the world. Cool, man. Well, I look, uh, it’s, it’s on my list to do that, or the [00:49:00] bull door or something like that. Uh, I, I want to do one of those. One evening when we were staying in, uh, uh, , I was like, I, I can’t take it anymore. These garages I’ve seen at the side of the road, I’m gonna go out and look at some of them.

So I, uh, cause we passed to that evening, just local to where I was staying. And then there was another one that we’d passed where I’d seen in it. A amongst other things, a Simca 1100 from the 1970s. Um, but what caught my eye that was interesting was a Renault Safran with alloy wheels on it. And it was a Monaco and I.

Thought it was probably a Monaco, but the bi turbo had those wheels on it, didn’t it? And I thought, wowee, if ever there was a car to buy out of a French [00:50:00] junkyard, it would be a Renault Safran bi turbo. That would be a thing. To uh to have anyway, it wasn’t a monaco It wasn’t a biturbo was a monaco when that first evening when I went out I couldn’t find it anywhere I couldn’t it was further away from the house and it needed another expedition later in the trip to find that car but in the village we were staying in there was a Bloke who it was like buying and selling cars and he had a bunch of stuff Like, uh, you know, few thousand euro runabouts at the front.

He obviously did accident repair as well, but round the back it was all B It was, he had, uh, noya Classer, BMW 2002. That was like rusting away. Three series of all ages and vintages. He had. Um, which I particularly liked a Renault 1916 valve in blue with the yellow [00:51:00] square fog lights and the original alloy wheels.

He had a blue, same blue, um, Clio It looked, it looked like it had Williams alloys on it. I don’t think it was a Williams. I think it was just a Clio 16 valve, but either way, like Mark one Clio 16 valve, um, two master RX sevens, both Mark twos. I don’t know what the model designation is. Isn’t it? F a F B and F C, but either way, not the first generation ones.

The second generation ones, not the really cool swoopy third generation ones, the second gen ones, mid nineties kind of, but two of them. obviously something the bloke was interested in and had been, uh, had been collecting. And, uh, as I was there taking photos, I was thinking to myself, you know, if you were here, I bet you, he knows exactly what those cars need.

So you could come to a deal with him. Where you bought the car and paid for [00:52:00] him to do the work to get it to a stage where you could drive it. And see, I love that kind of car because that way only the work gets done that you want to get done. If he comes to you and says it needs a new steering rack, that’ll be 500 euro.

You just do it. If he comes to you and says, you know, there’s a crack in the spotlight and the headlight doesn’t work, you say, fix the headlight and don’t care about the spotlight, you know, you build it your way. Just like that E55 I’ve got, the body’s terrible still. But mechanically it’s great and because it pulled to one side I did all the rubbers steering and suspension and tie rods and all of that so it’s tight as you as you like, which I was thinking about that story I told on this pod a while ago about um, Um, following that, um, rematch over Laura Lee’s grade, um, if I hadn’t have spent all that money on the rubber at the front of the thing, I, there’s no way that that Ben’s [00:53:00] would be as, as good as it is.

I, uh, yeah, never did. Never was. I’m more grateful that I, uh, that I’d spent that, that I’d spent that money. So, yeah. Um, so that was the one place I looked at other place. I looked at was a closed Renault dealer. And, uh, it had less interesting stuff. It had, did you remember, um, the Peugeot 206 station wagon?

The one that was like, it was like a little estate, but it was like a three door estate. There was one of those that was completely sound. It had been hit on the rear corner and it’s obviously an asshole of a body repair and the car wasn’t really worth it. And they just let it sit. There’s one of those.

There was a McGann. Convertible, which I didn’t care about, but you know, the era of folding hard tops. Yes. You’re you’re making a rude gesture to it. Yeah. I, I, I know I was getting carried away. What I did like was there was a green Renault Laguna. [00:54:00] Now, not that era, that first era that you and I will remember, the Mark I Laguna.

This was a Mark II. I’d never really seen one in super clapped out condition before with missing wheel caps. It looked great. It looked really good. But it set me thinking about Renault Lagunas because I had that three liter 24 valve stick shift one that was really a great car. It really was a good car.

Bit 90s and blobby and plasticky. Do you remember how slippy the leather was? I don’t think I’d, uh, I don’t think I’d still want it now, but as a contrast to A BMW 3, 2 3, which was the other thing, I could’ve had like an early E 36 3, 2, 3. It was faster, um, better equipped, more comfortable. It was just, you know, it was just a ton more car.

And, uh, and I don’t regret, I like Reno. I, I, you know, you and I both have enjoyed our Reno products. They’re, um, yeah. [00:55:00] Um. And for that reason, I was just going to pay some homage to the BTCC, Renault Laguna, because I feel like they really Oh, our menu spec, are we talking here? Yeah, well, early yellow, early they were on, they were yellow, weren’t they?

And then later on they went to that Nestle blend 37 and though the era of cars that was like the era of super touring when they were able to get away with like extra wings and that kind of stuff and those blend that blend 37 williams built because they had williams build the cars those williams built um super touring lagooners those are just awesome i still think the clamshell Bonnet, the way the hood goes over the headlights in that clamshell.

I think that’s a really great design feature. [00:56:00] I’m maybe I’m even saying this because I was watching a salvage. Rebuild uk video the other day and they’ve been to a classic car auction And and the comment was at one point whilst looking at a green r plate reno laguna in similar spec to your red pool car of Much abused red pool car of many years ago.

Um, the comment was i’m not even sure if that’s a classic and it does just go to show it depends what your use pattern was because for me we we got so much use uh of that red laguna pool car company pool car of yours that uh or of whatever software house it was you were working out at the time microsoft training was selling at that time wasn’t it but yeah whatever that fully a classic car and dude the other thing that’s you ought to be bare mentioned here for the for the anyone who played With their Playstations and [00:57:00] Megadrive’s later than that, but still.

Um, Toka Touring Car. Toka Touring Car. One of the bastardiest, uh, time trials that you had to do. It was one of the races you had to do for Expert. Because, obviously, we used to invest, as you know, me and the group and various others used to invest significant time in thrashing round on our consoles. Um, was in the rain on expert playing on at Thruxton in the Alan Menuh Laguna, um, that seat that we will play in a season and the final race was to win that, that race and it was a two race meeting crane, those, the, the, the curves out the back are in the pit rain.

Yeah. What church and then when, yeah, before and stuff like that, those bits. It’s so high speed and one mistake and you’re side, you’re, you’re spinning [00:58:00] off towards the tire barriers in the distance and stuff. It’s horrendous. That, that back section of Thruxton is British club circuit at its very best. And I was, I was naive enough to think that culture existed everywhere.

It doesn’t. That’s. Britain, um, we really have a special thing with circuits like Alton and Donnington and Thruxton and, and these, um, Cadwell I went to Cadwell. Cadwell is, they talk about it being like the berg ring of the north. My God. The, the, the, there’s, there’s one turn Mark Hill that’s like downhill, and then at the bottom of the hill, it’s a left turn.

So you’re like heavy braking downhill, like a hell of a circuit motorcycle. That’s the one you must have seen. Is that the one with the jump? Yeah, with the wheelie, where you can wheelie over it. Where you can see the pictures of the sports bikes, like with the back foot 18 inches, the back wheel 18 inches off the ground.

Yeah, you’re actually a bit faster if you don’t [00:59:00] lean on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it doesn’t stop them. Every meeting with some picture of a guy in full leathers, looking as if he’s Straight out of a movie poster, you know, fully off the ground. I actually saw a YouTube, I actually saw like a really clippy in my feed kind of thing of some bloke over egging it and the bike going up totally over the top of them, like wheelie, full wheelie and then throwing the bike away.

Um, the computer game reference is well timed. We’ve been meaning to talk about Ross Chastain and his war running. Um, uh, fill me in because you sent me the article and I deliberately didn’t read it because I was like, we’ll talk about it on the pod. Fill me in with, with what, you know, and cause this was some time ago now, wasn’t it?

It was, I mean, basically I, I can’t remember where I saw it and obviously, but anyway, I hasn’t seen it. Feel free to YouTube it up. I mean, it was Ross Chastain in the [01:00:00] last race. I think it was Minesville. Um, I, I don’t know the circuit, but it was an oval as you would expect. But you know, the ovals can be complicated and he needed to gain.

The TLDR, as you said earlier in the quad, is he needed to gain five places. And he had essentially one long left hander to do it. And he wasn’t going to do it. So, he’d been playing, he, he thought back to his days of, you know, Lord Chidi McCheat. A classic, if you’ve played any of your, uh, stock cast stuff on, um, on Console of Choice, is to pin it and, uh, wall run.

And, um, he was like, well, look, I ain’t making it into the final, the champ four, if I don’t come fifth, and, uh, or fourth, or whatever it was, so I need to gain five places. So, he just on the last, the last, the back straight. Just went out as close as he could to the wall, gunned it, um, [01:01:00] and of course, NASCARs being NASCARs, the way those things pick up pace, and just kept it pinned, and just took his hands off the steering wheel, and let it wall run, and gained all the places, ended up running into the back of the guy, over the start finish, having just overtaken the bloke he needed to overtake.

I made it into the, into the, into the final five. So NASCAR GameCube was his selection of choice. Uh, and that’s where he learned it. And, uh, much congratulations, even from his fellow competitors who were like, WTF, did he just really pull that shit off? And unfortunately NASCAR have said that. Although that stood, they won’t let anyone do it again.

They’re not going to change the rules, but they’re going to use existing rules to essentially disqualify you if you do it again. Which, I mean, I suppose I could see where they’re coming from. But on the other hand, it is NASCAR, um, which encouraged Rubik’s racing for years. And it was the most exciting thing I’ve ever, I’ve seen in NASCAR in [01:02:00] forever.

So, it depends what you think of the sports for, I suppose. I think, I think it’s about the most NASCAR thing ever. To be like, I’m behind, so I’ll try this crazy stunt. Because, you know, it worked, it worked on a computer game. It might just work in real life. There’s, there’s something very NASCAR, and there’s something very 21st century.

It’s it’s really uh, uh, uh, maybe this is why I wanted to talk about it because it combines together this uh, nascar pedal to the metal, uh way of being with um, Yeah, I I think it’s a fabulous story. I think it’s it’s It’s absolutely a legendary moment. Um, I, I, you know, I, I, I feel my whole life. I want to shake Ross Chastain’s hand for, for that instant thought.

Could you, could you? And you did like, I, that’s, [01:03:00] that’s what, what. So it paid off is perfect. He needed five places and he got five places. Didn’t get six. Got five. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. Well, what a magnificent, uh, what a magnificent thing. Yeah. Yeah. I, the, the notion of taking your hand off the steering wheel and just keeping your foot in the throttle is, is really a thing.

Yeah, because afterwards in the interview, like, what did you think about it? And he was like, well, as I was doing it, I suddenly thought, what if there’s like a little gap or what if there’s like a door or like, what if there’s an access thing? Oh, shit, but it all worked out.

High five to you, sir. So don’t ask her that you’re committed before you’re like, well. There could be this or there could be that. Yeah. It’s like John McGuinness saying he doesn’t like going around the TT course in a car because he’s going slow, going that slowly. You notice things, obstacles and [01:04:00] things that you don’t notice at race speed.

Yeah. So my, uh, time in France was, uh, spent with this Fiat 500X. Are they? I don’t think I’ve got one booked from Bordeaux in a few weeks. . Oh, you have? Oh, well I’ve got a small hatch. Mini be it 500 Reno. Funny, you, you’ve, you’ve been doing the fiesta st you said you’d done the fiesta St to uh, uh, uh, around, uh, to, to Goodwood there.

I, uh, have been doing the Fiesta St. And I, I feel like driving the Fiesta St for a little bit. I’ve like cleaned myself with the experience of the Fiat 500 x. Um, and the first thing I should say is that it has 120 holes. And it actually does it all right. Does all right with that. It’s better than you would anticipate for that.

It’s pulled beyond 90 miles. Now, [01:05:00] you know, I don’t want to encounter French. Mr. Plot. That was enough for me. The speedo, the speed limits, 130 people do 150 ish. It’ll do that all day long. Fine. We had four and five adults in it, sometimes with luggage, sometimes without, at no point did it feel like too much and overboard and all of that.

It was a pretty new car. It had like under 2000 kilometers on it, like 1800 kilometers on it. When I picked it up, I had about. 3, 500 on it when I dropped it off. Um, I, you know, I wasn’t gentle on it, but I wasn’t abusive. Um, you know, I had an alpha one for seven years ago, the, I’ll be it. I used it on target Floreo course, but under gentle usage, that thing developed noises and was clearly just shittily built, like be candid.

Um, whereas, [01:06:00] um, this, this was, this was not. Um, you know, I, I feel like I have a fairly high tolerance for plastic interiors and sitting here now, there’s nothing wrong with the interior, but you know, I’m coming from a 20 year old Mustang and, and a Fiesta ST. So, you know, I, I, uh, you know, it’s a, the infotainment, you know, we were looking for like, well, how long will it go before it runs out of gas?

And it didn’t seem to have that trip computer. Function there about it, but you know, um fundamentally it just did the job and was all right And you know, I guess the transmission was fine If it was it was that bad to drive i’d have had more to to complain about it just leaves you feeling a little bit underwhelmed and and disappointed and and uh, You know, I reached out to that youtuber chops garage.

He has a black jaguar [01:07:00] xf 3 liter diesel sport It was a one owner car that’s done 160, 000 miles, full Jaguar service history, black exterior, black wheels, looks the absolute business, 443 foot pounds of torque. I, I couldn’t help myself. I hit him up on Instagram, 3, 600 pounds. And I’m like, Ah, you know, I so would if I could really afford to piss money away, but I can’t and the car I wouldn’t need it until if I was going to do Le Mans next year.

So I’m like, ah, can’t do that car. But in comparison to this Fiat 500, I was just thinking. That Jaguar, the, uh, the, the, the whole time I was obsessed by the, that Reno clear the, by the Shaad, by the 1916 bow. It wasn’t a shaad, it was a hatchback. I was obsessed by that for a bit, to the extent [01:08:00] that I went onto a European website, like a European, or what’s it called?

I’ll, I’ll look it up on my phone. But I went on to, um. I went on to a website and like, it’s called auto scout 24. That’s apparently the place to look for cheap cars across Europe. I went on there. Um, there’s, there’s half a dozen, um, 1916 valves. And I was looking at them and thinking, you know what, you know, maybe they’re not as rare as I thought they were.

Um, how much horsepower do you think they have? Do you think it had? Take a guess. Don’t Google it. Just pull a number out of your ass.

I don’t know. I mean, the thing that would have made it zippy would have been that it would have been light. Yeah. Not that it would have had lots of horsepower. Well, and, and, what we thought was, we thought my Cortina 1. 6 with 75 horsepower was pretty Yeah, well, I was gonna guess [01:09:00] 85 or 90 about what my, um, Sierra 2.

0 liter had. Yeah. Which was I think 90. 135. God damn. It would have been meaningfully fast then. It would have been. But next to your Fiesta. Next to your Fiesta ST. This is the, I mean, look, the, it would’ve been quick. It would still be quick. I mean, like, it would feel fun and fast and like rattle canny and therefore more intense in the same way as like if you’re get a go-kart or on a motorbike or a bit.

Now I wish I, now I wish on a off him. Now you’re making me wish I’d tried to buy it off him again. . I mean, but I, dude, I feel you on the, uh, on the cards. I mean, I’ll be annoyed in the little dirt box of whatever they give me anyway, but. Uh, I always want something of the country that I’m coming from, so I’m hoping, whatever it is, it’s French, not Italian.

I’m hoping it’s the Renfrew or the Park or whatever. Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, I was promised, Sixth promised me a Peugeot 308. [01:10:00] And I was keen for that and they had 208s, but with hindsight, that would have been too small. That is the challenge, especially with like on family, but like, um, all road lead to that black Jaguar.

I’m telling you. Well, this is why when I was discussing the French thing with Angie and I was like, I can’t bear coming back here regularly, which we will be having some shitty ass rental car all the time. And the solution to that. is just keep the ST because the ST and have it here and the ST wouldn’t be it would be great in the south of France and near the Pyrenees rose but it’s right it’s left it’s right hand drive I need a left hand drive so you know have that here you know and um yeah it’s Angie’s car anyway so she’s fully familiar and comfortable and happy with it so therefore I don’t want to sell it I love it and and the values are gonna The values are going to turn.

I, I, it is a five [01:11:00] star classic. Yeah. I mean, I know you said on one of your tweets that I, you know, it’s the car’s fault. It’s like, so it’s a Euro shit box fast. It’s sublime. And that is true. And it’s not actually crap. You know, it’s Around town, it’s just a normal hatchback car. It’s just basically fine, comfortable, efficient, does everything.

You know, good MPG, you know what I mean? Like, pretty much everything you want. All the electric mod cons, all the bits and bobs. But you are not wrong that when you take it out and you go from doing three and a half thousand revs before you’re shifting gear to 6, 000 minutes before you’re shifting gear and you’re hustling it through the the sexy little six speed box god damn is it is it a beautiful way the way when you turn in you come in the gas and it just hunkers down and as you pass the apex you like exit the turn with it being like what you mean i could have gone through 20 miles an hour faster and you’ll think Exactly.

This is unbelievable. This is, this is, suddenly, [01:12:00] it’s gone from being like a boring hatchback to being like a track car, to being a car that can hang, not just at the nerve burger ring at spa. It can, uh, like it can turn in at insane speeds and it feels good. Yeah. I passed, um, uh, at Spa in the Magan or the Rs Magan first generation s, well not first generation, but like the previous St.

So the little boxy sort of version of the previous version being hustled around the pedald around there at high, high velocity. Um, I passed him. They were having a great time. I passed him and then let him repa. ’cause I realized I could learn from his lines. He had, he was quick. Yeah, he had better lines than me.

That follow, watching that? ’cause it was an English registered car, wasn’t it? Following that car round, I was thinking to myself, this could really, it can really hang, you know, it really, it, I was having to feather a little bit [01:13:00] on the straits. That was all, you know? Yeah. To, to keep him, uh, to keep him ahead and learn his, uh, learn his lines.

Yeah. All right. Cool. All right, so quickfire. What’s your favorite car right now?

Um, I do want one, as I say, I want one of these Alpha Quadrifoglios. Um, that’s quite looming large. And then I also, at the other end of the spectrum, when I was last, well, oh yeah, when I was down, um, in France last, there was a sort of horrible colored, I can’t remember what it was, a sort of weird maroon y brown, Renault 21 Turbo.

That I quite coveted. Like my neighbor’s ass. I quite coveted it. It was, it, it’s, There’s a German company that does, when we were at the ring, remember that, there was that Audi. that had been done by Stanceworks. [01:14:00] And the sort of, the word, the name says it all. It sat like a fucking boss. Like that, I don’t particularly like the particular Audi, I can’t remember exactly which one it was, but God damn, it looked amazing, what they’d done with it, with the rims and the stands and the kit and everything.

Well, that 21 sat roguishly at the side of the grey. And I passed it a couple of days in a row and thought, That is a cool car, I would have that. Yeah. I have a super soft spot for I don’t know what it is about Renault turbo cars. I have a super soft spot. Um, I love the 21 turbo. Um, I remember the launch commercial, the car was red.

They used I, uh, feel free. Do you remember that? It was, is it cream? Um, is it a cream sun that is 175 horse black leather interior. I actually have a search of them on, on gum tree. Um, it like pops in every now and again, [01:15:00] there’s a few in Britain, but yeah, I’m sure more in France. Um, also, do you remember when we were at DHS years ago, Helen Marden, you remember that girl?

I went with her and looked at a Renault 18 Turbo in Was that the one where you dolled yourself up in suits and went to test driving? No, that was a Sierra Cosworth. Oh yes. I drove a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth with her, right. And we had this whole thing worked out where we acted like we were a young family.

You know, it was really The Sapphire now is the bargain Cosworth, but that one that I sent you the pictures of at Goodwood, that was 60 K the RS 500. Oh, the i I rs five hundreds have entered stupid territory, haven’t they? Um, the sapphires for me, what I drove, uh, F plate. Gunmetal, [01:16:00] Sapphire two wheel drive, for me, that is the car that, that I would, would want.

And I tell myself that the Fiesta has about the same power as it had. I tell myself that, and then I was watching Salvage Rebuilds UK, and they’re at an auction, and there is a grey early one there, that, until they opened the hood, and it had all been cheesed up under the hood. Um, you know, that car was, was, I don’t give a shit if it’s got a bad history.

You know, those cars have bad histories. Were I a collector, I would have one. Were I, you know, were I able to bring, um, you know, proper resources to bear, I’d buy a nice example of it. And, you know, I’d drive it, you’d drive it, it’d sit right, it’d be in a storage place. We’d have one. We’d, um. Okay, well, I mean, if the, if the crypto does go to the moon.

Then, um, uh, we could go halves on one because they’re not the, the sapphires haven’t left the building yet. Harry was at Silverson’s, [01:17:00] um, classic auctions recently. And there was one, I think 20 to 30, 20 to 25. It was a Sapphire Cosmo in pre min. That’s the one. That’s the one that you, you’d want you, because you know, and, and yeah, you, I would definitely go harvests.

Go harvest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing is money me too hard to get me into it. The other thing is, is when money’s cheap, to borrow a gain, borrowing money to do something like that isn’t so stupid. Because if you only pay off the. So what the car’s still going to be worth whatever you paid for it. If not more than that Should you ever need to part with it?

So there’s interesting jiggery pokery you can do with nice classic cars We shitty one. It’s not so much but we know and that’s the other reason I want the place in front I’ll have space because but thrown in is the fact that you’ve probably got a two car garage Garage, whatever you want to call it and the fact that you can pretty easily put a sort of [01:18:00] wouldn’t, you know, outside wall this kind of place in to get another sort of three or four cars in and whilst you’re at it, probably dig an inspection pit in there as well.

So when I went with Helen to look at the 18 turbo, it was red. It had, it was a mark one. It had those straight wheels, like your dad’s. Remember your dad had that Fuego GTX and it had the same wheels on it. Uh, Renault, absolute, a piece of Renault design genius in my humble. When this, this, this 18 had lost drive shafts, which killed most of those cars.

Right. Looking back, such a silly thing to lose them for, but it was a asshole job. Devon mechanics weren’t keen to work on the car when it had been moved to the breakers yard. They’d craned it and they’d craned the roof and they pinched the roof. So the roof was crushed in. So this car was in the auto trade at [01:19:00] 175 pounds.

And because the roof was crushed in, I remember the guy saying to me, I couldn’t sell you that car. Like that is not the car for you, mate. And, oh man, I wish I’d said to him, no, sir. There are many people in Plymouth who can weld and can beat that straight. I am confident in my own taste that one day, many years from now, people will say a red Renault 18 turbo.

That is the pinnacle of Radwood cool. I too don’t like red, but. I mean, what, uh, talk about, talk about one that should not have, uh, Oh, dude, like I might’ve even mentioned before on this thing that, that, that Angie’s housemates, Renault five sort of dark silver turbo GT turbo. They had that I could have had off them for about 1800 [01:20:00] quid.

And I just didn’t, I had two, didn’t have two brass bathing at the time to run together. Um, but, uh, mark two I would’ve liked. It was a Mark two, wasn’t it? It wasn’t, it was like a second generation. I remember the car, but I still, yeah, I mean, you know. Yeah, yeah, I remember that and feeling that because they were 10 a penny at the time, it was frustrating, but you had to, but you had to let it go.

Um, you know, the other car we looked at around about that period was that bloke who ran the bacon sandwich van near your office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Volvo 740 turbo. Those have come into their own, haven’t they? And we didn’t have it because it had been towing its whole life and we were put off by that. As if we were, we’d also done like 180 K or something issue as, as if we weren’t put off by the fact that it was utterly clapped out.

We were put absolutely fucked. Yeah. Yeah. Again, right? Yeah. Again, a tragedy that, that one [01:21:00] that I haven’t got away and we should do an, well, that man made a fine bacon sandwich. Let me give him his dew. Let’s just pause right and just almost have a moment. Silence. Certainly from this side of the pond for that man’s bacon sandwiches.

That Volvo made noble sacrifice towing the wagon which turned out bacon sandwiches of that kind. Nothing complicated about him. Cut, cut loaf, it wasn’t a cut loaf, he had proper loaf and he doorsteps off with his, with his, with his knife. Give you a couple of nice bits of a fresh English white tin, crusty tin sandwich there, sir.

One piece of bacon in each half of the thing. Nothing complicated, but it was thick cut from a local farm where he knew the bloke and Oh, . Yeah. Um, I, I would, I need an SUV ’cause my son’s got his motorcycle now and, you know, pickup’s open. You live in San [01:22:00] Central San Francisco of course. So obviously I started out sensibly looking at Tahoes and that rapidly degenerated onto government deals, websites, looking for x.

Police pursuit vehicle, Tahoe’s. It’s two wheel drive with the motor you could. Um, so I was looking at those and then for a while, but then I hit upon the most sensible SUV I could possibly think of I’ve long wanted, uh, AMG 63 motor. And previously I’d thought about E classes or something like that, but, but why, why not just wrap?

Why not use this as the opportunity, the SUV as the opportunity to get the 63 motor, ML63s, early high mile ones. They’re only 10 or 15, 000 now. What, what could possibly go wrong? [01:23:00] What could possibly go wrong with a old hot rod Benz?

Oh, nothing. I can’t see is anything could cost you more than about time and satany to repair on that. Yeah. Um, yeah. So what with the fact that I have my tame Mercedes mechanic. Um, total shout out guys, a total legend and knows Mercedes. If you are in the Northern California area, Hugh Winko in San Francisco is, uh, is your man for old Mercedes with him on board.

I’d do it. Whenever you say to him, uh, should I buy some old, scary, fast old Mercedes? Um, he always goes, Hmm. Yeah.

And you can see him buying himself another 15 years of custom. Yeah, well, exactly. Right. I know that’s what he’s [01:24:00] thinking. But I’m also not wanting to buy something that he doesn’t want to work on. You know, you have to be paying for that. Anyway, so my favorite at the moment is the ML63. Um, you own a chateau in France.

What’s in the stables? Because, you know, it’s a chateau, it’s a chateau. You’ve got loads of room. What’s in there? Tell me some of the stuff that’s in there. I mean, not horses. Several, several dirt bikes, um, cause I now own a Chateau and I’ve got land to ride around on. Um, I’d have a Delta Integrale before they’ve completely left the building.

You can probably pick one up in France and they’re all left hookers anyway, so why not? Colour. White. Nice. I think. Nice. Great. Because then it would look cool with the spatters of dirt from the drive up it all the soul of the time. Yes. [01:25:00] Um, uh, and then at the moment, I do a 612 on a stick. Oh, the international cruising.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I would do, uh, the bike, all of the sports bikes with like nice paving, um, mm-hmm, , I would do the most interesting vehicle I saw the whole time I was in France. This electric BMW moped. I really want one of those. I really loved it to have one of those. So I’d have one of those in the, in the chat.

Um, I would do, I feel like if you’ve got a place like that, um, you, uh, well, I don’t know, I’d, I’d be inclined to do. Your imagination runs wild. Um, let me as uh, I see the time is, is creeping on. Um, what is the most air you’ve ever gotten? What car? When? Where? Who? Where? What? When? How? [01:26:00] Either, um, that two liter, uh, Cut New Age styled Ford Focus that I had from Redstone from Fastnet before it became Redstone and the bridge to Bramley where if you jumped it one way, you might, if you were a hypothetical friend of mine, break a TT transaxle, um, potentially, you know, that could happen theoretically.

It didn’t happen, obviously, because that wouldn’t have happened to a company car with the Cisco rep sitting in the passenger seat with his head on the ceiling. Uh, that didn’t happen but it might have happened but it didn’t but if that had happened that bridge going the other way I got about a foot a foot in a bit.

I told my buddy who I think is still at cisco now Um when he had his westfield when we were coming on the back roads To, uh, around, um, that place we lived at just south of, uh, Reading, what’s it called? [01:27:00] Um, near the, uh, the common. Aldermaston. Aldermaston. Um, the road south of there, there was a back road bridge.

And I said to Stu, who was fully foot in the floor of that little Westfield kit car that you think he had. Um, he had his foot through the firewall and I said to him as we approached the little bridge, bridge, over jump, meaning dude, slow down. And he thought I meant over jump as in I was repeating things from Conor McRae rally.

And it was a joke and, uh, kept his foot in. And we went over the bridge at a rapid rate of knots. Um, and, uh, I don’t remember, I don’t know how high we were, but it felt high. And I remember looking down through the windscreen at the front road and there was this horrible grinding. And when we stopped after bouncing a bit, um, Stu got out looking pretty worried.

And, uh, what it was, was he, we’d ground the front number plate against the road as he slid down it like that. And the car was fine. No problem at all. Just some, some artistic scuffs to the number [01:28:00] plate. So I suspect that was probably the highest. So technically I was on the passenger seat for that. That is a good story.

I’d never heard, uh, I’d never heard that one before. It makes, uh Stuff like that makes, uh, makes doing this, uh, this pod feel, uh, feel kind of worthwhile. Um, mine was at your wedding. Do you, or the stag dude, do you remember I had that Alfa Brera rental car, red 2. 4 litre diesel manual, and the house you were living in.

The Puglis Pardo rear seat. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. Um, the house you were living in at the time, um, just on the way out of the town, like towards the A4, um, there was a humpback bridge, wasn’t there? Oh yeah, a kitten bridge. If you got the angle right. If you sort of straight lined it which you could do at night because you could tell lights were coming the other way If you straight lined it you could hit it really hard and [01:29:00] living there being with you for a week or so I got used to driving that road and and I hit that bridge really hard And and it felt like it felt like I was the bloody jukes a hazard in that moment, right?

um really it was uh, all right, um The best race you ever saw Um, what live some of the stuff at Goodwood various races has been utterly spectacular, especially at the end of the day on a Sunday where the sun’s streaming through the trees on the other side of the track down towards fordwater and stuff.

It’s just gorgeous, but some of the best races I watched that race. I can’t remember where it was, but it was in Italy where Rossi passed, um. Uh, Lorenzo, at the last corner, and lost the front and the back, and caught them both, at a corner where is not a passing place, and won the race. That Moe GP race was one of the finest races I’ve ever watched.

Moe GP features in [01:30:00] actually for quite a lot of some of the best races I’ve ever seen. That race between Rossi and um, Stoner at Laguna Seca, where he went off into the gravel and it was just pass, pass, pass. The Ducati was faster and Rossi could pass him through the corners, but couldn’t hang with him down the straight.

So Stoner, Casey would get him every time. And then, I mean, Rossi was knees and elbows and riding the curbs and everything. And it was a real shame that stoner ran off into the gravel at the end of the lap at the end of like lap 10 or 12 or something because it’s sport the rest of the race, but some of those races was amazing.

Yeah. Yeah, you’ve you’ve a good memory for the MotoGP races. Um, I think, uh, I, you know, what comes to mind, we went to see British touring car in the epic period. We were talking about the Lagunas and, and, uh, I, I feel like. To see that, that was super close racing. I can’t remember a specific [01:31:00] race, but that was probably the best, the best racing that I’ve ever seen, uh, uh, live.

I mean, some of the stuff, you remember Gabriele Tarquini in that um, that alpha that he used, in the pissing rain, he would accelerate his way back straight. Yeah. With the front wheel drive. Oh, tip of the hat. Yeah. I’m actually the, the memory of those. Is it one five, five touring car? That’s yeah. Yeah. Well, that was the car that sort of broke touring car.

Wasn’t it? It took them away from narrow body, narrow tire to being like crazy. hot rods. The cars really, really changed at that point. Um, my, my memory is, uh, um, Silverstone when it rained and we got stuck in the field

in my Vectra. I just remember my company Vectra. And just being stuck in the field and just being like, this [01:32:00] is such a Silverstone moment, but so insane. And just for the record, we weren’t the ones who were stuck. It was people, the, the, the entrance to the field gets muddy and then people get their cars stuck pulling out of the field.

So we weren’t stuck. Other people got stuck. We just had to wait for the tractors to come to, to pull them out. But we didn’t like leave the circuit till 11 o’clock at night or some kind of craziness. Did we? It was totally. Well, that happened to me on Metallica gig at Donington a few, um, some years later and I just slept in the car and left the next morning.

I didn’t even, I just pulled on the handbrake where I was and just turned the car off. And like other people pretty quickly realized I wasn’t moving anymore and just drove around me. And I think we left at like 8 a. m. the next day. As a result directly of what happened at Silverstone, I thought, I’m not doing that shit again.

I’m just going to check out of this as early as possible and accept I don’t need to be anywhere until lunchtime tomorrow. I’m staying here. Good thinking. Good thinking. [01:33:00] Best corner you ever stood at.

I’ll go first. Do you remember one day we decided to take a day off work and that we would follow the RAC rally in Wales? Yeah, I was probably going to come to the same corner conclusion. And we were like, oh, we’ll follow and we’ll do this and we’ll do that. We hiked through the woods and we found that piece where we were standing where, when the first, like when the Colin McRae’s and so on came through, they threw stones at us.

And we made the great decision to cross the road not realizing that there was ditch on the inside and we were like scrambling up the inside when bruno sabi came by like as far away As he must have been three feet away from us as we were struggling up the bank. Uh, what a moment I remember [01:34:00] standing there thinking I can’t get out of the way here.

I’m just gonna have to get out to get as far back as I can without falling down this ditch. And he came fast with the headlights on us and drifted past us within two or three feet. Yeah. Yeah. Because before that you were cankering and sprayed us with gravel. That was why we knew. You know, wow, I just got sprayed.

It was like, it was like, yeah, because we were still on the outside. Yeah. So Sabi came through and I remember then we attained the top of the bank. We were there for a little bit and then no other cars came through. And we were like, oh, yeah, uh, and we walked up the track and then there was that Subaru halfway down the cliff held in the trees.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Roll down the thing got stopped by the saplings. And then rolled on down the hill. Yeah. That was pretty intense. I was also shitting myself. Well, yeah, because it was all dark, always dark. Oh, so dark, wasn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s the, the thing with, maybe that’s what’s changed about [01:35:00] motorsport is the, the, um, there was a wildness about what could happen, wasn’t there?

And that made it, um, that made it attractive. Yeah, I mean, we made some dumbass mistakes in terms of what we did for that, but nevertheless, um, and also these days everyone’s carrying a torch and a camera and a video recorder and a tracking device and all that sort of stuff on them, which of course we didn’t have.

Well, lucky we can tell the stories, Mark. And that’s a nice way to wrap it up, isn’t it? Because, uh, I’m going to end with a thought that you were talking about visiting, um, Modena and, uh, you know, Ferrari is a guy full of interesting quotes and thoughts and so on, and remember, at the end, Ferrari’s great fear was losing the memories.

That was the fear, forgetting what was. So, [01:36:00] uh, yeah, so on that note, we’ve preserved what has been of our recent history. Um, see you next time. Take it easy, Bob.

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