Transcript

(Speaker 2)

So thanks for joining us here at the home of Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works, a place where Jaguar's history isn't hidden away, but lived with, worked on and maintained, keeping yesterday's vehicles fit and ready for tomorrow's roads. So I want you to all get comfy now and relax because I want you to take you away from the rather wet and windy February day that you've battled through to be here and transport you back in time to 1988 and one of the most pivotal moments in Jaguar's history. And just by way of sort of show of hands for a moment, who here was at Le Mans in 1988? And then also keep your hand up or raise your hand if your love of Jaguar was inspired by that race that year. A few of you, a few of you, yeah, okay. That's the power of the stories that we're going to tell here today and why it's still so important to recognise the legacy of that victory and of course the people who

0:15:26

(Speaker 2)

made it happen. So to understand why Le Mans 1988 mattered so much, not just to all of us, but to Jaguar itself, we need to rewind quite a long way. And Jaguar's relationship with Le Mans was already legendary, but it was even by the 1980s quite a distant memory. The marque last stood on the top step in the 1950s. And of course the C -Type and D -Type didn't just win races, they defined that era for Jaguar. Five overall victories between 51 and 57 made Jaguar the benchmark.

0:16:01

(Speaker 2)

But when the factory withdrew and handed the reins over to the Acura Cos, the world gradually moved on. So for more than 30 years, Le Mans success remained part of Jaguar's identity, its history, but not its reality. There were attempts to reconnect with motorsport along the way. The Broadspeed XJC programme of the 1970s was bold, it was charismatic and unmistakably British, but it never delivered the sustained international success Jaguar needed and British Leyland executives expected. So by the early 1980s, Jaguar faced a massive change. The brand's new boss, and he's here with us today, had taken the manufacturer out of the stranglehold of British Leyland, and Jaguar was in a period of significant change.

0:16:53

(Speaker 2)

Motorsport could no longer be about nostalgia, though, or domestic results. It had to be global, credible, and technically relevant to the cars that Jaguar were building. And that turning point came with the XJS touring car programme and a partnership with Tom Walkinshaw Racing. What began as a touring car effort quickly revealed something deeper. Tom and his TWR outfit, didn't it? know how to race, they knew how to build a complete race program.

0:17:26

(Speaker 2)

One small but telling detail captures that mindset. In 1984, Jaguar and TWR won the European Touring Car Championship with the XJS. Yet, Alan Scott, Scotty to the team members, one of the key technical figures behind that success, didn't have time to celebrate that title because by the time the ETCC win was secured, he'd already been told to focus elsewhere. So, rather than dwell on the result, he immediately turned his focus to preparing TWR for something far, far bigger. That something was Group C. Group C didn't just redefine sports car racing, it changed how teams thought. Rather than limiting engine size, the rules focused on fuel consumption.

0:18:17

(Speaker 2)

Teams were told how much fuel they could use over a race distance, and how they achieved speed within that limit was pretty much up to them. It rewarded efficiency, discipline, and engineering intelligence just as much as outright power. It punished those that chased speed alone. For Jaguar, it was a rule set that aligned perfectly with endurance, with their heritage, and with their technical strengths. And as we'll hear, the engine in the number two car, as was with all the Group C cars, effectively the production V12, heavily breathed on. So, Jaguar was stepping into a fiercely competitive arena.

0:19:01

(Speaker 2)

Porsche were the established force, with the 962 being the benchmark that everyone measured themselves against. Other manufacturers were circling too, including, of course, we'll hear from Mike, Nissan. So Group C very much in the 1980s was a fierce battleground. Our story begins years earlier than all of that, with Tom Walkinshaw himself, a racer by instinct, an entrepreneur by force of will, and the founder of Tom Walkinshaw Racing, TWR. And from modest beginnings, TWR grew through his ambition, hard work, and refusal to accept second best despite restricted budgets. And I think it's safe to say Tom had a real talent not only for racing and for driving, but also for spotting and encouraging talent.

0:19:54

(Speaker 2)

So what followed was a partnership that carried Jaguar from touring cars to the summit of endurance racing, culminating in the XJR9, the car that would return Jaguar to Le Mans glory for the first time since the 1950s. And standing in the corner of the room here today are the two extraordinary machines that we'll focus on. The Le Mans -winning, silk -cut Jaguar XJR9 at chassis number 488, as it's known within the team. And of course, the road car that it spawned, the XJR15. And that came directly from the racing programme. So this was not a fairytale comeback by any means.

0:20:32

(Speaker 2)

It was hard, it was political, it was exhausting, and at times held together by determination, a bit of secrecy, and as we'll hear, a gearbox that was on its last legs. Today isn't about the result either necessarily, it's about the people that you're about to meet. It's crucially about how the story looked from inside the TWR Jaguar garage, and also thanks to Mike Wilds, how it looked from the other side of the pit wall as well, from the other teams looking on. So before we get into the racing itself, let me please bring on our fantastic panel. Make a big noise, please, for our first panelist, Eddie Hinkley, the race engineer.

0:21:27

(Speaker 2)

Hello, Eddie.

0:21:28

(Speaker 2)

Take a seat. Eddie Hinkley here doing his first ever public conversation about 1988. So it's a huge honour to have him here and I've interviewed people about TWR for years and Eddie's name always comes up but I'd never met him until today so I'm really excited about this today. The winning driver of the number two car in 1988, make a big noise for Andy Wallace and another of our driver lineup. He was driving a Nissan R88C at the time. It is Jaguar man through and through, though.

0:22:17

(Speaker 2)

Mike Wilds, everyone. Nice to see you, Mike. Take a seat. The number one race mechanic for the number two car in 1988 was Rod Benoit, and he's here with us today. And you've heard from him already. He didn't arrive at TWR until a year after the great win in 1988, but he was there for the win in 1990 and crucially knew Tom Walkinshaw very well, was the marketing director of TWR, Richard West.

0:23:10

(Speaker 2)

So now we've sort of set the scene for you and understood how TWR and Group C came about and what they all mean. Please put your hands together for the man who pretty much held the purse strings at the time. He was chairman of Jaguar Cars Limited, as it was known during the Group C era. Ladies and gentlemen, Sir John Egan. Hello Sir John. So you're going to sort of top and tail today and put things into context from Jaguar's point of view, how this racing all came about.

0:23:46

(Speaker 2)

And before we talk about the racing itself, just put us in the picture as to where Jaguar was in the early part of the 1980s, the company that you inherited and how you ended up being in a racing program with TWR.

0:24:00

(Speaker 3)

Well Jaguar of course was owned by British Leyland and it was in a pretty poor state. It was down to making only 10 or 12 ,000 cars a year. They were very poor, losing 50 or 60 million pounds a year. And I think most of the people within BL thought it was finished. But Michael Edwards didn't think so. And he and I had been talking for some time.

0:24:25

(Speaker 3)

When Margaret Thatcher arrived to control the trade unions, I thought, maybe there's a chance of picking Jaguar up. By the way, the Series 3 XJ6 was a very beautiful car. And I thought we could turn around the company on the basis of that car. And I agreed with Michael Edwards that if I could turn Jaguar around, we could separate it from the rest of BL and it could become a separate company again. So that was the basis of the start. And incidentally, we turned it around pretty quickly because

0:25:00

(Speaker 3)

1984, we'd turned the company around, we were making 50 million pounds a year, it was the only profitable part of BL, and Margaret Thatcher wanted some money back for helping BL, and so they had to privatize something, and as we were the only profitable bit, we were privatised. So by 1984, we were on our own. And that's really the core of how we got here.

0:25:29

(Speaker 2)

Was racing something that you had in your mind as something Jaguar had to do to market itself, or did that idea come around almost by accident?

0:25:37

(Speaker 3)

No, I knew in putting the company back together again, engineers require to be trying to create the best car in the world. If you're in the luxury car business, and you're not trying to beat the rest, you're going to fail. And so, at some stage, I thought I need in putting the company back together again, as it was in the 1950s, I need a racing program. And I was at the motor show stand in Geneva, and who comes but Jackie Stewart? And I put the question to him, and he said, I think I have an answer for you. A guy called Tom Walkinshaw.

0:26:19

(Speaker 3)

He said, you get three things in the one package. A good driver, a very good engineer, and an entrepreneur, and he'll work with you. Strange enough, about three weeks later, arriving by helicopter was Tom Walkinshaw.

0:26:35

(Speaker 2)

Tell us about that first meeting, what were your first impressions of him and how did that meeting go?

0:26:39

(Speaker 3)

He was part tornado, he was part leprechaun and he was part really intelligent person. He was a mixture of everything and we sort of paced around each other a little bit. My engineers were frightened of another Broadspeed. They thought, Jesus, this is just more work and we'll get nowhere. And so I put the question to him. I said, if we're going to go into racing, we have no money.

0:27:10

(Speaker 3)

So you'll have to find some money. Secondly, you'll have to cure the problems that Broadspeed had. with the engine. And we'll have to find a way of braking a car. The broad speed problem, second broad speed was the engine and also the brakes. So anyway, Tom came back about two or three weeks later with solutions for the engine, but we had solutions for the brakes.

0:27:40

(Speaker 3)

We had a wide -modelled armoured car with wider area, and we could actually make bigger brakes. We could actually fix the braking problem. And he found some money from an oil company, Motul oil company. And so he had some money, and I said, OK, we have no money. We'll pay you by results. So we went into the XJS program on the basis of paying by results.

0:28:06

(Speaker 3)

And incidentally... At first, the engineers didn't really get on with Tom. But actually, he was very persuasive. And it wasn't long before the engineers and Tom's team were working really quite nicely together. And you could see they were solving problems together. And my view that we needed this kind of enterprise to get them going was actually good.

0:28:34

(Speaker 3)

By the way, we have to remember one thing. The engineers, we needed about 600 or 800 engineers and we had 200. So the engineering team was far too small to be making a modern car. So we had time, we needed time to build up. size. So having engineers from Tom's team was very important in building up the programme.

0:28:57

(Speaker 2)

And what was it about TWR specifically that really made you realise that they were the guys for the job? Because over in America you'd had Bob Tullius and Group 44 running cars for years, they'd had the IMSA guest entry to Le Mans in 1984. What was the difference between the two that you saw at the time?

0:29:14

(Speaker 3)

Tom Walkinshaw was down the road and Group C were over in the US. I felt as if we were going to be working together. They had to be close together. They had to talk to each other. They had to work together.

0:29:25

(Speaker 3)

And so I always felt that Group 44, OK, great, great team, but actually it wasn't the way forward.

0:29:33

(Speaker 2)

And as you came out of European Touring Car Championship, that's one thing. The next thing, Group C, was a huge undertaking. From a budget point of view, from a manufacturer's point of view, did it feel quite scary to be entering that arena?

0:29:49

(Speaker 3)

Well, to start with, we wanted to go in a relatively cost -effective way. And the first we all met after we privatized and we had our own budget and we knew we had money to spend, we thought that the way forward was with the Group 44 car, but that Tom would develop it. So he was going to develop the Group 44 car into a Le Mans winner. The first thing he did after he'd got one was to take one to see Frank Williams. And Frank Williams, I knew Frank, by the way, and I also believed in Frank as well. And they came to the conclusion, Tom and Frank, that we'd be 10 years behind Porsche with a space frame car.

0:30:36

(Speaker 3)

We needed a modern Formula One tub to actually be competitive. And actually, don't forget, Tom and I had worked together for now two or three years. By the way, he was as cute as a bag of monkeys, so I knew I had to meet him on a monthly basis. Otherwise, he'd be off in five different directions. You had to keep him, tame him down, and we had to agree on a simple program together.

0:31:04

(Speaker 3)

And it was very quick. He said, we need to design a new car. He'd already hired Tony Southgate without telling me, so he was on his way already. But don't forget, we believed in each other by then. There was no messing around. I knew he was right.

0:31:21

(Speaker 3)

I didn't think the Group 44 car was competitive. I never really thought it was. And so I thought, well, we're on the right lines here. And Roger Putnam, who had worked for Lotus, I said to Roger, we've got to get some money. We'll need about 30 or 40 million pounds here for this. And he was off.

0:31:43

(Speaker 3)

Oh, two or three weeks later, he came back, said, I think we've got a sponsor in Silcot. I then had to ask the senior managers, what did they think about having a tobacco company? In those days, everybody was just starting to realize how bad tobacco was. But they all said together, if you can't find anybody else, you can do it. We said, we'll go ahead. So it all happened very quickly.

0:32:10

(Speaker 3)

But we, from then on, started paying Tom so much to build the cars. And we covered his budget from then on. And Silk Cut covered our budget.

0:32:20

(Speaker 2)

And you had a commercial reason to do that that was proven in the XJS, didn't you? Because that was a car that had sold so few units that production had stopped when you came into Jaguar. And because of the European Touring Car Championship win and, of course, the launch of the six -cylinder engine, the XJS saw an incredible resurgence, didn't it?

0:32:38

(Speaker 3)

The simple thing was... the V12 engine, they had a programme going already called the High Efficiency Programme, where they were raising the compression ratio up to, I think, 12 or 12 .5 to 1, and it was a more efficient engine, and we were putting it into the XJ -12, Obviously, we could put it into the XJS as well. And so in revitalizing the company, we started to think of relaunching the XJS, which we did. And indeed, we went from none in 1980, selling nothing, to 10 ,000, by the way, by the time we ended in 1990, the time I left. So it was a fundamental part of the turnaround of the company. Incidentally, when we won at Le Mans, People were turning up at the dealerships in America as though their car had won.

0:33:35

(Speaker 3)

That was the important thing about having a Jaguar engine in the winning car. It was a Jaguar engine.

0:33:43

(Speaker 2)

Brilliant stuff. Well, we'll come back to you at the end to conclude what effects and legacy it had on Jaguar. But for now, thank you, Sir John. Ladies and gentlemen, Sir John Egan. So starting with our panel then, and I'll start with you, Richard, because Sir John mentioned there the whole silk cut livery that became so iconic with the car and indeed I think as many people know them as silk cut Jags as anything else, don't they? What is it about certain teams that just seem to have that intrinsic link with their sponsors and here in the building normally you'd see a lot more Land Rovers and Camel Trophy with Land Rovers is an example, Rothmans and Porsche, Golf and Porsche, there's something about so many teams

0:34:35

(Speaker 2)

that just have a really close link with the sponsor. Why is that, do you think?

0:34:39

(Speaker 3)

It's the merging of two sets of values. In my McLaren years in Formula One, Ron Dennis once said to me, when you do a sponsorship deal, you know, there's one party here with money and there's another party who needs the money and they join. They're very easily pulled apart. The important part of any relationship is to actually create a third dimensional element into that. So if you take away the training department or the advertising department, you can still hold the relationship together. And a lot of research in Formula One terms, again when I was with Williams with the Rothmans deal, they bought into that because they'd had huge experience in Group C racing.

0:35:18

(Speaker 3)

But they saw in the Williams company, as Sir John just said, a man who was very determined, very focused, British values. And if you remember the old Rothmans ad with the pilot with the gold bands and the Lotus gear change, those brand values matched. And in fact, Roger Putnam, the sales director to whom Sir John referred, worked with Mr. Sponsorship at the time, Guy Edwards. and they very quickly worked with Peter Gilpin, who was the chairman of Silk Cut at the time, the Gallagher Group, and Peter had been the chairman of the Rothmans Empire for ten years before that, so he really understood the importance of the big brand feel. And if you look at other cars of the era, you'll see that there were multitudinous amounts of sponsorship on them. And you couldn't really work out who owned what.

0:36:04

(Speaker 3)

But that big... First of all, the matching of the values and the brand of the manufacturer and the commercial company. And secondarily, how did you then tie those into all elements of the program for both the car manufacturer and for the sponsor's products, and do so in a way that was adventurous? And in the case of Silk Cup Jaguar, or Rothmans Williams Renault, or Marlboro McLaren, or indeed, you know, when you look at a Formula One car today, it's getting increasingly difficult to see really who's got what, because there's so many brands. This era of motor racing, if you look at the really successful manufacturers, they cleverly pulled together the manufacturer's values and their own and they didn't overcrowd the car.

0:36:44

(Speaker 3)

So you became known as a shortcut Jaguar, Rothmans, Williams, Renault or, you know, Marlboro McLaren. That's how it was.

0:36:50

(Speaker 1)

And important to note that it was pretty early on in motor racing history. with all of that. Yes, Bob Tullius was probably the pioneer with that, with Group 44, it was very recognizable with Quaker State and the green and white, but it was relatively still a new thing, this almost the sponsors owning the brand of the team, wasn't it? And TWR were one of those pioneers in the 80s of doing that. So we have a story, we have the background of Jaguar in motorsport, we now have some proven success with TWR and Jaguar in European touring cars. Championship.

0:37:25

(Speaker 1)

Let's get a little bit more about Tom Walkinshaw himself and TWR and Eddie you were Tom's very first employee weren't you? Employee number one at TWR.

0:37:36

(Speaker 2)

What were those early days of TWR like and what are your memories of meeting Tom for the first time?

0:37:43

(Speaker 3)

I can't remember anything about that, it's so long ago now. Well we worked out of Bill Shaw's workshop in Tottenham in North London where we first started. That had been 1976 I think. And then we very shortly moved up to Kidlington.

0:37:57

(Speaker 1)

But yeah, Tom was always, you know, he's like, he's always very energetic at doing everything.

0:38:04

(Speaker 2)

And you were on Mazdas and BMWs then, weren't you?

0:38:07

(Speaker 1)

Yeah, the first car we built was the BMW 530i in Tottenham.

0:38:14

(Speaker 2)

And it's amazing that you had such a long career with him. You stuck with him almost for the entirety of TWR's operation, didn't you? Yeah. Still suffering the effects. What was Tom like? Give us an insight into the man.

0:38:30

(Speaker 2)

What was he like to work with? How did you build a relationship that tight with a man for so long?

0:38:36

(Speaker 6)

I don't really know. We just got on well.

0:38:38

(Speaker 1)

I did what I was told.

0:38:40

(Speaker 1)

That helped. Yeah, definitely. I don't really know.

0:38:46

(Speaker 1)

I mean, I just gradually moved up through the ranks, really, from that early days as mechanic building the car to the sort of middle management.

0:38:56

(Speaker 1)

Yeah, we always got paid, which was a good thing.

0:39:00

(Speaker 2)

Well, of course, you had a strategy, didn't you?

0:39:02

(Speaker 1)

There was a three -year plan for Group C. The first year was to learn, the second year was to race, and the third year was to win.

0:39:10

(Speaker 2)

Yeah, with Le Mans, yeah.

0:39:11

(Speaker 1)

As race engineer, did you always feel that was achievable at the time? Yeah, I think so, yeah. we always had a pretty reliable car, really, so we knew we could do it. We changed a few strategy things. We used to, in the early days, we used to change everything on the car on a Friday, all the suspension components and everything. And that was always a bit of a recipe for a bit of finger trouble, shall we say.

0:39:38

(Speaker 1)

And so we stopped doing that and we just used to run the cars and then check them all over on the Friday and race with them. And I think that was the winning formula, really. We could perfect the cars on the Friday and get them absolutely 100%. I think we're getting the sense that TWR, although it became a huge name in motorsport, had very humble beginnings. And most of the people that worked for TWR had humble beginnings with it. And Andy, I come to you now, because you were the same.

0:40:08

(Speaker 1)

Let's go back to when you started your motor racing career. It started with buying a racing car off a Scotsman in a lay -by, didn't it?

0:40:16

(Speaker 24)

Actually, that's pretty true.

0:40:18

(Speaker 1)

Yeah. I wanted to go motor racing but I didn't have any money, or nobody's ever heard that story before I'm sure, but my solution was I had a little Suzuki AP50 moped, this was just before they limited them to 30 miles an hour, so this thing was a rocket ship for a 50cc, and I went round all the racetracks to try to see how to start motor racing and I decided that the best way to do it was they had a series called Pre -74 Formula Ford. So this would have been 70, 79, 78 even. And I already identified a number of cars which would fit front of the grid running for this championship. And there was a guy in Scotland, I found him in the back of Autosport, and I managed to convince him to meet me in the sandbag services near Alton Park, which was kind of halfway for both of us. and he turned up in this old coach where they used to have a lot of these in the paddock in those days where you cut the back of the coach off of these pair of doors that unfolded the car was in the back and he had some seats in the front and he got this car out the back we fired it up in in the service area can you imagine formula ford car and i didn't really know what i was looking at to be honest um he said well Why don't you just have a go in it?"

0:41:44

(Speaker 1)

So, okay. I honestly, this is straight up, I jumped in the car and I did several laps of the... I imagine how long that would take before somebody came and locked you away doing that now. Anyway, he decided, yeah, it all seems to be fine. We went back in his coach, he made a nice cup of tea, and he wanted £1 ,250. So I was already ready with that.

0:42:06

(Speaker 1)

I'd been to the cash machine on several different days to get the money out, and I had it all in £10 notes, and I counted it all out. and I put the last one, £1 ,250, and then I think he took one look at me and I wasn't dressed too well and I had this nasty old car that I was using with the trailer on the back and he said, here, here's £10 back, get yourself some breakfast.

0:42:32

(Speaker 8)

And bearing in mind, you know, he was from Scotland, I thought that was quite generous of him.

0:42:40

(Speaker 1)

Yeah. Well from that point on you battled on to eventually take the championship in F3 and what an achievement that was alongside some huge names that would later go on to Formula One and I guess you probably thought that would be your route as well but the old money came into play again didn't it? Yeah and it's you know the sob story everybody's got the same thing but I mean if you go motor racing now unless you're in some academy somewhere or you've got a lot of money from somewhere, you wouldn't even attempt it. But in the days when I was going through the category, you could just to get by, if you knew somebody who, you know, could give you 10 quid here and 10 quid there, work on the car yourself. I used to tow the car with an old transit van and then sleep, originally in the van, but the roof leaked, so under the van was the best place to sleep. And no, bit by bit, you could make it work.

0:43:38

(Speaker 2)

What was the question again? Well, what I'm leading to here is that I suppose whilst you went on, obviously, as we'll find out, to win Le Mans, sports car racing, I guess, wasn't on your radar at this point.

0:43:53

(Speaker 1)

Your focus was on Formula One. Yeah. Because all the time I thought, well, this is the only way you're going to succeed in motor racing. You've got to go to the top. And it was a long, long journey to try to get there. And you realise that each time you move up a category, the money involved,

0:44:10

(Speaker 1)

gets exponentially more. And I got to the point with F3, and F3 was quite a big deal in those days, because Formula 2, straight Formula 3000 as it was later, was a sort of cloudy area. A lot of drivers went straight from F3 to F1 at the time. So I decided, what I'll do, I'll go and knock on all the Formula 1 team's doors and say, hello, it's me. And surprisingly, most of them said, yeah, yeah, we know who you are. We've watched you in your career.

0:44:38

(Speaker 1)

Keep going. So after winning the British F3 championship, there's a race in Macau at the end of the year, which was a massive, massive event with all the different Formula 3 championships from around the world, plus guest drivers from Group C and sometimes F1 doing this race.

0:44:56

(Speaker 23)

And I ended up winning that race as well.

0:44:58

(Speaker 1)

So again, knocking on the team's doors, and two teams, Arrows and Tyrrell, said, we'll put you in the car next year if you just come back with $600 ,000.

0:45:09

(Speaker 2)

Wow. Which, even if it was $6 ,000, there was no way I was going to find that. So that's where that stopped at that point. But the Macau race was very important for what we're talking about here, wasn't it? Because that's where you met a certain Jan Lammers.

0:45:23

(Speaker 1)

And actually, you kind of helped him out that day, didn't you? Because there was a bit of an incident on one of the corners where you sort of stopped him from having a bit of an off. Absolutely right. Well, it's... Macau's an amazing track, very, very bumpy and it has one section, the start -finish straight basically, really, really wide and by the time you get to the first real corner, which is called Lisboa Corner, it goes from this wide down to a narrow side street and so Jan had got off the line better than me and I was chasing him for the whole race. There are two races and they put the results together in aggregate.

0:45:57

(Speaker 1)

On the last lap, he knew the only place I could pass him was this one corner, Lisboa corner, so I'm all over him like a rash. I could see he's looking in the mirrors and he's got wonderful car control as I later learned. He broke so late that there was no way he was going to make the corner and in fact he locked up the rear. And he never gave up in a car. He said, never have an accident. Just keep going until you actually finally hit something.

0:46:22

(Speaker 1)

Then it counts as an accident. So he was wrestling with the car, but I could see what was going to happen. He was going to hit the apex barrier, which was an AMCO barrier. Now, this all happens in a split second. So I dive down the inside of him. And just before he hit the barrier, I knocked him straight past him, looked in the mirror.

0:46:42

(Speaker 1)

He's still there, no foul. Went around, crossed the line and won the race. The second heat I cleared off and won that one too. But we're on the podium at the end and he said, oh, thanks very much for that. He said, that was brilliant. I was definitely going in the wall.

0:46:56

(Speaker 1)

And we're having a conversation, laughing and joking, and became good friends. It just so happened that Jan was driving for Jaguar in Le Mans for the World Sportscar Championship. And he put in a really good word for me. And I'm very, very grateful to get a phone call from TWR to say, come down to Pau Ricard. If you're interested, we want to see what you can do. Tell us about that Paul Ricard test because Tom had a bit of a trick to play on you, didn't he?

0:47:22

(Speaker 1)

The first time in the car, you're keen to impress. Tell us how that unfolded for that test session. Well, it was there for a few days and I'd driven, we had a low downforce car, Le Mans car and a high downforce car. I'd driven them both and I'd actually got reasonable lap times compared with the regular drivers. Martin Brando, John Nielsen, Jan, Johnny, etc. And then they said, OK, yeah, that's quite good.

0:47:48

(Speaker 1)

But you do know that Le Mans is a 24 -hour race. So we want to see, can you do a tank of fuel? And all your lap times are the same. So OK, fine. So drink of water. strapped myself in.

0:48:00

(Speaker 1)

They put the fuel nozzle on, pulled it off, shut the door and sent me. And poor Ricciardi's still is. It's a wonderful circuit, but it's got a straight where you're just over 200 miles an hour on the straight. The car wanders around a bit. Pretty good downforce, even in the low downforce spec, through the corners. So, it's quite a workout and very, very hot inside as well.

0:48:21

(Speaker 1)

So, I managed to do the whole hour. All the lap times were there. Came down the pit lane, thought, oh, thank goodness for that. I'm absolutely wasted now. So I popped the door as I came in, and they said, what are you doing? I said, well, I just did the hour.

0:48:34

(Speaker 1)

They said, uh -uh. They put the fuel nozzle back on and shut the door again and sent me. And going down the pit line, I was absolutely used up like you can't believe. So I just somehow dragged enough out of it to not disgrace myself in the second hour. And then Tom said to me, right, if you come to Kiddlington, I think it was like a Tuesday morning, we'll have a chat about this. So I went there and sat down in his office.

0:49:03

(Speaker 1)

Hell of a leap, wasn't it? From a single -seater F3 car to nearly 1 ,000 horsepower, I suppose, in XJR9. I bet it felt like a big car, did it, in comparison? Well, this is the thing. A Formula 3 car in those days had 165 horsepower. So you jump in from that to an XJR9.

0:49:19

(Speaker 1)

Also, speed -wise, I mean, a Formula 3 car, yes, in Macau it was probably 160 miles an hour, but it's normally sort of 140, and you're jumping in something that easily clears 200. And then the fact that it was a closed car, I'd never driven a closed race car, and they're so hot inside. So Jan and Johnny as well, they were very helpful to me, and they said, look, You've not driven one of these before. We're going to give you a few pointers because it's going to be so different. In fact, you probably scare yourself to death initially. This is what you've got to look out for.

0:49:52

(Speaker 1)

So I had a bit of a head start from them. But nothing could quite prepare you for the first time off down the straight in Pura Carta.

0:49:59

(Speaker 2)

That car is so slippery and it just keeps gaining more and more and more speed. So yeah, a bit different from a Formula 3. And not only is the car different to drive, but the ethos of Working in a team is now different, isn't it?

0:50:15

(Speaker 1)

Because in single -seaters, it's all about you and you kind of have to be a bit selfish about how you go about your motor racing.

0:50:22

(Speaker 9)

In sports cars, you're a part of a team now.

0:50:24

(Speaker 1)

Was that an adjustment that you had to make and was that where the relationship between you and Jan Lammers started to flourish a little bit and help you along? Well, yeah. Well, first of all, you were driving for TWR, the most amazing team. You were driving the Jaguar factory. car, so already this is a massive thing for a driver to be in a factory team suddenly. But then as you say, you've got two co -drivers in Le Mans.

0:50:53

(Speaker 1)

So you're not used to listening to another driver give you advice which is actually true. But luckily, I mean, they did explain to me, look, each time, it's okay. You can drive the car and you can either be the fastest driver or the second fastest driver or the third fastest driver, but if all we're doing is trying to be the fastest driver, we're not going to win the race. And this is how you've got to do it. And after a while, everything they said made a lot of sense. But then when we actually got to Le Mans itself, I mean, we went round in road cars, round the track, on bicycles, and I think at one point we even walked a lap, and they pointed out every single little bit, because I'd never been to Le Mans before, this is what you've got to watch out for, this is where you mustn't, don't drive there, there's no grip there, and altogether, this was going on over several days,

0:51:50

(Speaker 1)

Of course, I'd done a couple of races earlier in the year, so I knew the car very well, but I just didn't know Le Mans. And then we did have this conversation, which is probably what you're going to ask about next, about the gearbox side of things. But Jan sat down and said, look, with all these cars, the weak point is the gearbox. The cars have a lot of torque, a lot of downforce. what's probably going to happen is the gearbox is going to break and we're not going to win the race. So, after saying that, the next 10 seconds almost in silence, he said, well, that's not very good, is it?

0:52:27

(Speaker 1)

He said, no, but I've got an idea and this is what we need to do. There wasn't really much data on the car, so you couldn't really check what people were doing. So, it was a case of we've all got to trust each other. Again, going another lap around the track, the S, for example, is usually a third gear corner. But if you take it in fourth gear, it makes next to no difference in time. I mean, a few hundredths, if that.

0:52:53

(Speaker 1)

But it eliminates one downshift and then one upshift the other side. And we went all the way around the lap and decided that's what we were going to do. But we have to stick to this. Doesn't matter if you're racing somebody or not. That's what you do. Next thing was, if you go over a curb or a bumpy section, don't go wide open to put all the stress in the drivetrain.

0:53:13

(Speaker 1)

Everywhere else, of course, you're driving flat out. But if we stick to this, that will give us the best chance not to break the gearbox. And this kind of pact that you'd made between the three of you really was teamwork at its best and would prove to be one of the key points that your successors will find out as we go through the story.

0:53:33

(Speaker 2)

Is that the same for you, Mike, in Nissan terms in the same year?

0:53:37

(Speaker 1)

You were trying to figure out as a team how you work together.

0:53:40

(Speaker 2)

How were you gelling with your team over at Nissan?

0:53:43

(Speaker 1)

Not at all. Not at all. Very, very difficult. I had driven for Japanese teams in Japan before, but Nissan was the first works drive with a Japanese team at Le Mans, and it didn't go well. I have to say the R88C that I was driving, we were actually in the next pit to the Silk Cut Jaguars. As soon as I arrived at the circuit, my thought was, I wish I was in one of those and not in the Nissan.

0:54:21

(Speaker 1)

Basically, I tested the car at Fuji prior to Le Mans, tested qualifying engines and the race engines and so on. But when you go to Le Mans, it really is a little different to anywhere else that you drive the car. You set off down the Morse Arm as I did the first time I drove the Nissan. Fuji, the car was pretty good. You've got a 200 mile an hour straight at Fuji and the car was pretty good because the surface was really nice road course racetrack. The Nissan suffered from something called bump steer.

0:55:01

(Speaker 1)

I don't know if any of you understand bump steer, but it's where the car goes over a bump and it decides to steer left or right. And when you're doing well over 200 miles an hour, somewhere around 230 plus, To have a car that suddenly wants to turn left or right is not a very, very good idea. And especially when you're trying to do a 24 -hour race. And I found it difficult to work. As a team with the Japanese, I worked really well. Win Percy, who we all know and love, was a great friend of mine.

0:55:36

(Speaker 1)

He was driving with me along with her. Australian called Alan Grice. We got on really, really well and we gelled and we decided how we were going to drive exactly as Andy was talking about to make the car last and so on. The problem was the team. The three of us sat down and said, this car is utterly dangerous on the straight. because at one stage I did hit another car.

0:56:08

(Speaker 1)

I had to stay on one line because there's a crown in the road. If I tried to go over the crown, the car was lethal, so I just stayed where I was. But it was still doing this, and I actually made contact with another car who was near the crown. I mean, it was unbelievable. But the Japanese, being Japanese, said, yes, Mike Sam and they would go and say, you've done the geometry on the front of the car, yes, so you go out and it's absolutely the same. And we did this all week and we did finish in the car, we had a gearbox, we lost 45 minutes, dropped down to 33rd and got back to 14th I think.

0:56:51

(Speaker 1)

But the car was like that to drive for 24 hours. It was a nightmare. We were doing two -hour stints, so we drove two hours, had four hours off, two hours on, four hours off. And I thought I was fairly fit. But my God, at the end of that race... And again, the team element of Nissan.

0:57:18

(Speaker 1)

I'd never finished Le Mans. I'd done it seven times, and I'd never finished because of mechanical failures. And I was in the car with 30 minutes to go. I get a radio call on the street saying box this lap. The car's dying, the wheel bearings are gone and it's still going fairly well. So they're paying me a reasonable amount of money, I do as I'm told, so I go into the pits and they ask me to get out the car.

0:57:49

(Speaker 1)

And there standing is a driver who'd never sat in the car all week. I'm afraid his name escapes me. He was a Japanese Formula One driver that drove for Lotus. But he was in the sister car, which broke its crank after about 10 hours. Never sat in our car. They asked me to go to the car and put him in the car so a Japanese driver would finish the race in it.

0:58:15

(Speaker 1)

Well, as far as I'm concerned, that's illegal. I think we were only allowed three drivers. He worked hard, really, really hard for this whole race to be kicked out of the car, to have somebody put in, which I thought would get us disqualified. So I'm afraid I wasn't very happy to the team manager. And afterwards, when he was paying me, They always paid me in traveller's cheques. I don't know why.

0:58:45

(Speaker 1)

Can you imagine getting paid your wages in traveller's cheques? There was quite a few. And the traveller's cheques were signed by a Japanese man in Hia Griffiths. It must have taken him weeks to do these traveller's cheques. So they paid me these traveller's cheques, and they gave me a watch, which I still got at home, nicely engraved in the back, and said, thank you very much. We won't be requiring your services again.

0:59:10

(Speaker 1)

So that was it. So the team element didn't play. It was a dangerous car. And as I say, I really wanted to sit in a silk -cut Jaguar all week. I did have dealings with Tom in business. I used to buy and sell helicopters to earn a bit of money.

0:59:27

(Speaker 1)

and we did a bit of helicopter flying together. And I found him, he was probably a lovable rogue. Is that fair? A lovable rogue. But when I shook hands with Tom, it happened. There was no mucking around.

0:59:46

(Speaker 1)

I would do a deal on a helicopter for half a million pounds. I knew when I shook hands with him, That was it. I didn't need a contract and a signature from him. I liked him a lot and I got on well with him. He was just a bastard not to ask me to drive. What's your mindset when you're up against not just Jaguar but Porsche, of course, who were the dominant force at that time?

1:00:14

(Speaker 1)

Are you literally just hoping they're going to make a mistake or end up in a barrier? I don't think we think that way. We try and do our best. When you're paid by a factory to drive a car, you do the best job you can. You would never wish another competitor ill. It's great when they do break down or they have a problem.

1:00:40

(Speaker 1)

It does raise a smile, but you'd never wish... It's a little bit of a beef of mine with modern motor racing as to when we were driving in the World Championship. It's all about competition. corporation now, and money, and a lot of the passion for me seems to have gone out of it. If I was racing Andy in the 70s or 80s, we didn't have a lot of runoff area. We were in fairly dangerous motor cars.

1:01:18

(Speaker 1)

These were the highest tech at the time. But to be honest, now when I drive them, they are quite dangerous. If you go off, you're going to get hurt. I would have respect for Andy. I wouldn't do anything. I wouldn't lunge him in a way I could kill him.

1:01:39

(Speaker 1)

So there seemed to be more respect between drivers than there is nowadays, because contact seems to be, OK, I'll just tap you. There's a bit of runoff, so you're not going to get hurt. I guess the difference being Back then, if you had a serious off, the chances were you weren't going to get out of the car, whereas the chances of survival are much higher now, ultimately. I mean, I've been hurt. I'm sure Andy's been hurt in racing cars. I've had both my legs broken in single seaters when I was driving them and been in a wheelchair for a while and so on.

1:02:16

(Speaker 1)

But for the love of the sport, you get better and you want to get on and do it. I was asked to drive a modern GT3 Porsche Cup car in a race. I did the race, I came 14th, because I was in my mid -70s against all these youngsters who live on Playstations and so on, I suppose. But I was quite pleased that I wasn't last, and I got within a second or so of the leaders, which is a massive distance. But it was really the day I decided I'd race historic cars, because I still have a passion, I'm 80 now, but I have a passion for driving racing cars that talk to me. It's interesting that some drivers end their professional career and never go near a car ever again.

1:03:11

(Speaker 1)

I'm thinking Eddie Irvine, ex -Jaguar F1 driver, he's never even looked at a racing car since he left Formula One, and others like yourself, and Andy, who drives for Nigel Webb at Goodwood and others, you just have it in you, don't you? I think my story is very similar to Andy's. I had no money. I lived in a flat with my parents and my brother in London. I worked in bars in the evening.

1:03:38

(Speaker 1)

I worked six days a week to try and earn money to get a racing car. I didn't save enough. I found a little car I wanted to race. and my parents, thank goodness, stood guarantor for a bank loan for me. So I took a bank loan to buy the car. I hadn't really thought about it well enough because the car was delivered on a trailer.

1:04:01

(Speaker 1)

I paid 280 pounds for it in 1964. It was a little like a Lotus 7, but it was called a DRW, it was a special. And it was delivered on a trailer, left outside the block of flats where we lived. I hadn't really thought about it because I didn't have a road car. My mother had a Morris Minor 1000, so we put a tow hitch on that. It took me two days to get anywhere towing it.

1:04:29

(Speaker 1)

The best drift car ever invented, by the way, a multi -thousand. But I then just worked. The car had to sit outside with a tap top all in over it. Nobody ever touched it. And eventually I had to sell it to pay off the debt to the bank and various things that had to do with the car. But if you have that kind of passion, do a sport, I mean, it'll never leave me, ever.

1:04:57

(Speaker 1)

I can't think that I would not drive a racing car this year. Thank you, Andrew. I'm driving with Andrew this year in a Jaguar. I own an E -Type Jaguar.

1:05:10

(Speaker 13)

I love Jaguars.

1:05:12

(Speaker 2)

So I can't wait for my 61st season of racing. Brilliant. I think that deserves a round of applause. And long may it continue, Mike. Now, Rod, while all these drivers are all getting all the paparazzi and they're doing all the sponsorship deals and all that kind of stuff and keeping all of that going, you're working very hard in the garages at Le Mans, aren't you? Talk us through, because a lot of people won't quite realise what goes into that 24 -hour race.

1:05:47

(Speaker 2)

It doesn't start on Saturday afternoon for the mechanics, does it? It's a whole week leading up there at the circuit and before that as well. So talk us through the preparations that go into the race. In those days we always had our Wednesday and Thursday practices in the evenings and getting the car set up but after each one of those finished you then spend the following day prepping the car to do another evening's qualifying effectively. We were given Friday off Actually, in the early days, as Eddie had mentioned earlier, we used to strip the cars, almost completely change engines, gearboxes, put all new stuff on. But fortunately, some sense was seen and we kept, if the engine was still good at the end of Thursday and the gearbox was good, we'd change the ratios maybe and just check everything.

1:06:31

(Speaker 2)

But the engine stayed in. If it was good that long, it was going to probably do the rest of it. So Friday became slightly easier, but our day for Le Mans itself would start at 7 .30 in the morning, we'd be getting up and we wouldn't finish till Sunday evening by the time the bar had closed, about 8 .30 I suppose.

1:06:48

(Speaker 1)

But we had a bit of packing up to do before we could get to the bar and get a meal. But we were well looked after, but yeah we worked hard for the guys. These days the pit crew are almost like sort of athletes on a course at the Olympics. Friday, normally you will see them practicing pit stops against the spectators. and honing and perfecting that process. Was it the same back in those days or did it just all sort of happen together?

1:07:17

(Speaker 1)

We would do a lot of that in the workshop before we even got to Le Mans. And don't forget, we'd also had a race series with six -hour races where we'd be doing pit stops anyway. So it kind of just carried on to Le Mans, but yeah, we would do some practice. It was keen. I think we had something like 31 pit stops during the race, if I remember rightly. And when you look at that, it's equated to 55 minutes in the pits.

1:07:38

(Speaker 1)

That's not very long at all. It's about two minutes or something.

1:07:41

(Speaker 4)

So it was, it was hardened and the guys were all, everybody knew what they had to do and how to do it.

1:07:47

(Speaker 2)

And there's also a routine about changing pads and brakes and things and looking at each other while you're doing it. So it was, it was quite well choreographed.

1:07:56

(Speaker 1)

So much so.

1:07:57

(Speaker 8)

I had Alan Scott share with me some of the diagrams that you were working on before the race, where there's like little drawings of where you would all stand when the car came into the pit lane.

1:08:08

(Speaker 2)

I think you were on nearside rear tyre at the time, I can tell from his drawings. I was a fairly big bloke, so I could hump one of those tyres out of the way. get it back on again fairly quickly and carry a gun at the same time. And of course you had spats to deal with as well over the rear wheels. Yeah, the wonderful spats. And in those days obviously we had the narrow pit lane too, didn't we?

1:08:29

(Speaker 2)

We had the old pits, so there were cars buzzing behind you like the Mazdas coming through shooting flames out the exhaust as you're trying to fuel up and changing tyres.

1:08:38

(Speaker 1)

Yeah, it was an exciting area to be. Did you have then a list in your mind going into the 1988 race at Le Mans of the things that you knew might happen, the breakages that might occur, and did you have a sort of preparation plan for when inevitably some of those problems would raise their head? I have to say we kind of, as a bunch of people, as a team, we knew that the only way to win Le Mans was to go faultless. If you had a issue, you were always going to lose a few spaces, because Porsche was so reliable, and you had to have that same reliability. So a plan to change things?

1:09:15

(Speaker 1)

We had, as I said, we'd had races beforehand, so we had a chance to think about what might happen if the gearbox did break, and we could possibly repair it during the race.

1:09:24

(Speaker 2)

Because there's always a chance to get back in the race again at Le Mans, because it's such a long race.

1:09:29

(Speaker 1)

We had patches made up to cover the bodywork because quite often with the wheel spats, if they touched another car, it would twist up with the wheel and it would break the rear engine cover. So we had patches made that we could stick on and hold it all back together only with tank tape or clear tape, whatever we could use to make the thing carry on going. There were a few other little challenges thrown at you in 1988 as well. Normally, you would have a pre -Le Mans test or a small race, basically. That year, though, they resurfaced the track at Le Sarthe, so you didn't have a sort of pre -race test session. So, was it a little bit more frantic than normal to get the car set up and ready that year?

1:10:08

(Speaker 1)

Well, as I said, we had the pre -qualifying sessions beforehand, and we followed exactly what Eddie said on the set -up. we were already there by the time we'd finished Thursday night practice we knew exactly what setup we wanted. There was a warm -up officially which you could have changed but as you said it was different so no we were pretty much there we were ready to go. And Eddie there were other things sort of playing into your hands as the season had worn on and you arrived at Le Mans in 1988, one of which being the choice of fuel that you were all running on. Now of course Porsche were turbocharged engines, the V12 of the Jaguar normally aspirated, and a decision had been made towards the end of the 1987 season that everyone was going to run on effectively road fuel, and that was 98 octane like the stuff you get down the Shell garage.

1:11:02

(Speaker 2)

Porsche arrived at Le Mans with shell livery all over their cars, and of course, there was all sorts of unknowns as to how the cars were going to behave on that fuel.

1:11:13

(Speaker 6)

Porsche had been one of the big voices in trying to get road fuel into the series for the 1988 season, but actually that played into Jaguar's hands, because with the turbo engines, they were having to dial back ignitions and all that kind of stuff, weren't they, and run retarded engines. So, was that something you were just... building your hopes on, all those little things as you went into 1988? I can't remember. Yeah, I don't remember much about that, really. I think we just got the car reliable. That was the thing that was an important thing for us, really.

1:11:50

(Speaker 6)

I don't think too much about what fuel was in it.

1:11:53

(Speaker 3)

We knew how much we had for the race.

1:11:57

(Speaker 1)

We had fuel meters on the dashboard that told the driver how much... fuel we'd used and whether we could go fast or back off a bit and that sort of thing. But it's really the quality of fuel, I don't remember much about that really. be focused, I guess, in Group C regulations as much as Eddie says, on the fuel consumption as your outright pace, because that's part of the name of the game here. And one of the innovations that you had on the Jaguars was, as he says, that little fuel gauge. It tells you whether you're a bit ahead of your time or a bit behind. But of course, when you start off with a tank of fuel, you're going to be heavier anyway, aren't you?

1:12:35

(Speaker 22)

So there's all sorts of calculations you're doing in your mind as you're driving.

1:12:39

(Speaker 1)

Yeah, although because the cars weigh 900 kilos, a tank of fuel 70 kilos or something like that, I think. The fuel? Yeah, so 100 litres, about 70 kilos I think it is. So it's not such a big percentage change. for the fuel burn, but having the computer was very, very useful because it was obviously counting the fuel as you were using it, but rather than give you the number in litres, it would give you the number in laps. So when you cross the start -finish line and you've done three laps, the computer should say 3 .0.

1:13:14

(Speaker 1)

The only slight complication is the signaling board that told you where you were going where you were, it was after Mont Saint Corner. So there was a half a lap out in some cases, but you could see how far you were on the fill. Now, it wasn't like with a Porsche if you had adjustable boost or something, you could use a lot more power or not. Basically for us, we had two things we could use. We could use slightly less RPM before shifting, to try to save fuel, or the best way to do it, especially with a very slippery car like the XJR9, if you just lifted off before the corner, just a few metres before, and just hit a small coast before braking, you could gain a whole load of fuel back. So it wasn't really a massive time loss if you were slightly over the fuel.

1:14:00

(Speaker 1)

What you didn't want to do, and I did drive a whole season with John Nilsson, who is a fantastic driver, but he did like his fuel. So whenever you did a Group C race, a normal 1000km race, let's say, if he started the race, when you jumped into the car and strapped yourself in, you went out the pit lane, you'd done 38 laps now, the computer said 40. And your job was, you had to bring all that back. And so if you stayed on the fuel, pretty much a flat line, that was a lot more efficient than using too much and bringing it back. So you really did concentrate on the fuel gauge. A lot of that was done in the setup though, wasn't it?

1:14:42

(Speaker 1)

But I don't remember doing that much lift and coast or short shifting in Lemoyne in the 24 hours because we had to the setup absolutely right. It's an insight into how many things a driver is having to think about whilst hanging on to that monster of a car, isn't it? I can add something to that which was to give you something else to think about. So on the times when you're going down the straight and you're racing with other cars, that's one thing, you're occupied. But when you pull out of Tetra Rouge onto the straight and you're on your own, you're sitting in the car, I think it's like 55 seconds or something like that of wide open in a race car, which that doesn't happen anywhere in the world.

1:15:25

(Speaker 1)

So in that 50 odd seconds of wide open, you start to imagine things like, well, what's that vibration? What's that noise? I'm sure the car's pulling more to the right than it did before. So all those things are going through your mind and then also throw in some darkness. So you're on your own, you're going down the street, you can't see very much, there's not a car ahead of you, and all these thoughts are coming. But this little computer, with the fuel numbers on, also had four red buttons in the corners, which were...

1:15:58

(Speaker 1)

There was a light inside the button. Let's put it that way. And so we didn't have tyre pressure sensors in those days, but what we did have was infrared tyre temperature sensors. And there were three on each wheel. Outside, middle and inside. So the idea was, if... you've got a slow puncture, what actually happens is you can't feel it on the straight.

1:16:18

(Speaker 1)

And anyway, if you lost a little bit of air, all that would happen was the sidewall would rise up and down a bit more and gain some temperature, therefore pump the tyre back up effectively. So really, with a slow puncture, you would see the temperature increasing. So how would we know? Because we're just looking at the fuel numbers. So in fact, if there was a tyre that was out of parameter temperature wise, that light would flash in the corner. And if you pushed it,

1:16:44

(Speaker 1)

you could then read the tyre temperature across that particular tyre one for each corner so i'm driving down the straight and i was thinking okay but what if the bulb's broken you know i mean how would you know And, of course, the year before, when Percy had had a tyre explode and gone upside down, and that was because it had rained during the race and coated the lenses so that they weren't working, the tyre temperature sensors. So I would go down the straight, literally, and you couldn't really steer it with one hand anyway. Press the button, come back. Now that one looks OK. And then on some laps, I'd got halfway down the straight, and I'd say, well, what if the bulb's broken now? You know, that's how paranoid you became.

1:17:32

(Speaker 1)

Because I realised if you had a puncture, particularly if it was a rear puncture, it would drop down and the car would fly. And that's number one. But number two was we were on cross -ply tyres. So we were running radial tyres throughout the season. Sorry, just let that sink in for a minute. He's doing 240 mile an hour on cross -ply tyres here.

1:17:52

(Speaker 21)

Well, and there's a very good reason for that.

1:17:54

(Speaker 1)

So during the season, we're on radial tyres and they were obviously fantastic. But... Dunlop, who were supplying our tyres, and it wasn't just Dunlop, it was all the other manufacturers had the same issues, you couldn't do 240 odd miles an hour safely with a radial. But if a radial fails, usually the sidewall is what fails, and there's a small chance the tyre can stay on the rim and it might not fly apart. But with a cross -ply, if you start to get a failure, you get about a one second warning where there's a vibration and that's the first bit of one of the pliers coming loose and slapping as it goes round on the ground you lose about 100 rpm and then it goes goes bang but when it goes bang this tail that comes off the tire on the second round it's long enough to take the rear wing off, which is another reason why you go upside down.

1:18:45

(Speaker 1)

So this is a definite possibility, which is hence why if you're on your own, what's that vibration? What's that noise? What's that smell? Why is the car moving? I wonder if the bulb's broken? All these things.

1:18:58

(Speaker 1)

And it was, I don't know if you had the same thing, Mike, but I You know, I was well aware that it could go very badly wrong. Aware than most because when I was trying to be a professional racing driver, I wanted to work in the sport. So I met people that could possibly help me become a professional racing driver. So I worked for the Firestone European race tyre division. So I know exactly what Andy's talking about, because I worked at Le Mans as a tyre engineer for Golf Porsche on the 917s and the GT40s. So the first time I'm sitting at Le Mans at over 200 miles an hour, all I can think of are cross -plies.

1:19:45

(Speaker 1)

I've seen them do this, and so I'm thinking of it most laps, and touch wood, I never, ever had a tyre problem, but my co -driver, David Leslie, when I was driving for a Curia Cos, he had a rear failure on the Morsan, and our little C2 was doing 217 miles an hour, so it was a super, super efficient little car, very fast, and the rear tyre went, and it absolutely destroyed the back of the car. And we were leading the class, by many laps at that stage. And poor David, luckily the car didn't spear off in any direction, he managed to get it slowed down. He stopped, looked at the damage and tried to get the car back to the pits. And how unfair is this, really?

1:20:39

(Speaker 1)

I know it's the rules, but he kept stopping because he smashed the side radiator as it was going around, so all the water was coming out. We were running Cosworth DFV 3 liter V8s. and he kept stopping at marshals posts and pinching all the marshals drinking water and putting it into the system to get to another couple and of course we were disqualified for outside the system for stealing water. Tires was a big thing wasn't it in group C because you were ultimately the power was one thing but it was the torque those cars are generating you were pushing tires to limits that tire manufacturers just weren't making compounds for ultimately. We would do it, and I think we would do it gladly today. The inclusion of two chicanes, I've driven it in, I've done some group C races in the Le Mans Classic with these chicanes, and it's just not right.

1:21:42

(Speaker 1)

The chicanes should not be there. All these pussies who go around.

1:21:48

(Speaker 3)

No, we can't go too fast in case a tyre goes or something. I mean, I understand health and safety, but it's not the same. And of course the high downforce the cars generated, which was a relatively new thing.

1:22:03

(Speaker 6)

I forget what the figure for those was, but the Sprint car was like 4 ,000 pounds of downforce on the Sprint car.

1:22:11

(Speaker 1)

I can't remember what the figure was for the Le Mans car.

1:22:14

(Speaker 6)

So that was another factor for the tyre to consider.

1:22:17

(Speaker 1)

Didn't you say it was four Ford Cosworths sat on the roof equivalent? Tony Southgate used to say it was equivalent to having a Ford Granada on the roof of a car. He told me three Ford Granadas.

1:22:27

(Speaker 19)

He told me three.

1:22:28

(Speaker 1)

And the reason he told me three... glasses of wine.

1:22:31

(Speaker 14)

Yeah, no, because I kept saying to him, you know, the kink on the straight, you're arriving at 240 miles an hour.

1:22:38

(Speaker 1)

And it was rather than turn the wheel to go through there, you just move your elbow. Yes. And you shoot through there. But then when it's raining, you get down there. There is no way, you're brain celling, there's no way you're going to go around there flat, even with wet tyres on in the rain. So I was having this conversation with Tony Southgate.

1:22:53

(Speaker 1)

He said, no, it'll be fine. I said, well, why will it be fine? He said, well, look, you've got so much downforce on these cars at that speed. He said, imagine you've got three Ford Granadas balanced on the roof. He said, that's why you can go through flat out. And then I was thinking, I did it flat in the rain.

1:23:11

(Speaker 1)

And I was just thinking, I hope the Ford Granadas don't fall off the top. So a little bit of information is a dangerous thing. But I was going to say one more thing that you said about this, Mike, about the crown in the road. So normally on a racetrack, the road is cambered left or right for the water to run away. But on a public road, quite often, it's crowned in the middle. And normally, you wouldn't feel this.

1:23:38

(Speaker 1)

And you certainly wouldn't feel it in a normal treaded tire car going a sensible speed. But at those speeds, with big fat slicks, When you wanted to cross lanes to pass the car ahead, you turn up the camber and it would push you back. So you couldn't actually go over the top. So you'd say, right, OK. But bearing in mind that a small movement on the steering wheel at that speed is quite an effect. So then you'd have to go a bit more, a bit more, and finally go, right, take this.

1:24:06

(Speaker 1)

And you go over the top, and you just keep going. Luckily, there's a hard shoulder on both sides. But a couple of times, you swerve about when you do that. So when you see the video sometimes, back from those days, you see cars crossing, passing cars. It looks like a piece of cake. But inside the car, it's a bit more of a nightmare.

1:24:24

(Speaker 1)

And the other thing that would happen, would you have two C2 cars, you were in a C1 this year, but when you were in the C2 car, you'd have two C2 cars behaving themselves very nicely behind each other, and you're coming, and you pull into the right -hand lane, and just before you get there, the one behind decides to pass the one in front. So he pulls out into the right -hand lane, but you're coming. Now, the sensible part of any human being would be, well, don't worry, I'll just lift off, I'll wait till he's done his passing manoeuvre, and then I'll go again. But then, we're all working for Tom Walkinshaw. Now, if you lost three seconds by lifting off, waiting for these two C2 cars to pass each other, well, you better have a good story when you get back to the pits. So, what you do, of course, is you say, right, okay, these two cars are pulled out, I don't know how to do this for you to see, but you've got this one in front, this one's catching, I'm in this lane, He pulls out.

1:25:22

(Speaker 1)

Now this gap is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. But you're coming now in the right lane. So you pass back to the left lane.

1:25:30

(Speaker 4)

And you see the gap. And it is closing, but you're closing.

1:25:34

(Speaker 1)

And you think, yeah, I can do it. I can do it. And you go through. And it feels, at that speed, it feels very close. I doubt it was that close. But you scare yourself to death.

1:25:43

(Speaker 1)

Because as soon as you've gone through the gap, you also go over the crown. You gather it all together. And you say, that's it. I'm never ever going to do that again. That was really, really, really stupid. And guess what happens four laps later?

1:25:56

(Speaker 1)

Exactly the same. I've seen quite a few videos of the cars going down the straights. You find some really good stuff on YouTube, don't you? From all those years.

1:26:07

(Speaker 2)

Yeah, the cars look quick, but when they're crossing sides, lanes it looks like it's easy.

1:26:13

(Speaker 1)

I'm never quite sure what is the worst position to be in, you getting past the slower traffic or being the slower traffic trying to look in your mirrors for the UK. I'm not sure which is worse. I've been on both sides. You've been on both sides, yeah. I did four Le Mans in C2 and I think most of us are aware, most professional drivers who were driving C2 cars would be aware of things that are going on but some aren't. But it's the first time I ever got in a C2 car and I was catching, funnily enough, a C1.

1:26:56

(Speaker 1)

It was a Canon Porsche, a Jonathan Palmer. Now they have a lot more downforce than my C2 car. I was doing 217, he was probably doing about 210 or so. He wasn't going that quickly. So I decided to slipstream. But of course, being a little bit inexperienced on the Mulsanne, I just slip streamed up to him and it shattered, broke my windscreen because of the turbulence behind the car.

1:27:26

(Speaker 2)

So I always, that's right, I'm gonna move out way before I catch the car. But the funny thing was, was driving alongside, even with a crack across the windscreen, and waving to Jonathan Palmer as I drove past in my C2 car, which I thought was really good fun. Funny, Nissan Primera Taxis always had crack windscreens as well. I wonder if that was why. So, we've got a race on here, haven't we? We've got the preparations leading up to the Le Mans 1988.

1:27:58

(Speaker 2)

We've got the pact that the drivers have made to protect the gearbox because they know it's going to be a weakness. They're going to look after the fuel and the tyres. And then we have to consider the main competition here. Now, Porsche hadn't been racing in the championship in 1988. Instead, they had focused all their attentions on Le Mans.

1:28:22

(Speaker 2)

They'd updated the 962 to the 962C and they arrived at Le Mans with a revised rear wing, with new shell sponsorship and the bright red and yellow colours and a three -car team. and about 50 brake horsepower more than the Jaguars. The race started pretty well, though, with Hans Stuck taking the lead early on, but very quickly, Jan Lammers took the Jaguar into first place. And it became very clear, all of a sudden, that Eddie, your car, the number two that Jan Lammers was driving, was about 10 kilometres an hour.

1:28:58

(Speaker 3)

Not only faster than the Porsches, but also faster than all of the other Silk Cut Jaguars. What had you done? I'd like to say it was something clever I'd done, but unfortunately I can't say that. It was really by accident. During the preparation of the car on a Friday, somewhere along the line, the rear rods fell. The rear ride height wasn't set correctly and it was about, I don't know, about six or seven mil too low, which doesn't sound too much, but when you're doing 240 miles an hour, It's quite a lot.

1:29:32

(Speaker 3)

Basically, if you take the rear ride height down on the car, it reduces the frontal area and takes the angle off the wing. So it made the car a lot quicker down the straight. But the downside was that it lost a lot of downforce, or quite a significant amount of downforce, and made the car a handful through the Porsche curves, particularly. So in the warm -up, we couldn't work out quite what was going on until we discovered this ride height anomaly.

1:29:58

(Speaker 1)

and we were going to correct it but in the meantime Jan being a very smart cookie wasn't he he would have a chat with these guys and said well let's just hang on a minute let's have a think about this for a bit because the way it is I think we could do really well we could you know we could pass all the cars on the straight we can hold them up through the Porsche curves or they'd have to bust a gut trying to get past us and so in the end they had a chat and said even if it didn't work we could put the ride height up back up during the race which would have been possible but so we left it And that's basically how it happened.

1:30:30

(Speaker 6)

It was purely by accident, nothing to do with me unfortunately. So the Granada was gone. The Granada disappeared.

1:30:39

(Speaker 3)

So basically what happened in the race was, we all had good speed down the straight, passed everybody, they all scrabbled to get past the car and through the Porsche curves.

1:30:50

(Speaker 1)

They did that for about three or four laps, and then they thought, sod this, it's a game of sod, we'll give this up. And they got to the point where Jan was waving to them as he was going down the straight, as he was going past them, or sticking his finger up or something.

1:31:03

(Speaker 20)

Actually, it's worth also mentioning that before the race started, me, Johnny and Jan were in the, I was going to say motorhome, that sounds really grand, it was a small caravan.

1:31:13

(Speaker 1)

with a guard dog underneath it, chained to the caravan. Oh, wow. Anyway, that's another story for later. But Jan said, look, rather, because we were doing double stints as well, each, but rather than do that, if you do that, whoever's third in the car won't have been in the car for five hours, six, two, four, yeah, four hours. I was good at maths at school. It's departed now.

1:31:39

(Speaker 1)

Anyway, so we'll just do single stints each in the beginning. And Jan said, look, what I'm going to do, I'm not going to go crazy. We qualified, what, 10th or something? 10th, 11th?

1:31:49

(Speaker 3)

We were not at the front, because we didn't have an adjustable turbo boost.

1:31:56

(Speaker 8)

So he said, I'm going to take it easy.

1:31:57

(Speaker 1)

We didn't even try to. No, no, no. So we were, you know, out of the caravan. Jan jumps in the car, starts the race. So Johnny and I are watching on the monitor.

1:32:11

(Speaker 1)

And the next thing, he's in the lead. And then we said to each other, he's full of shit, Jan. He said he was going to take it easy. And from that moment on, we realized that actually the car was pretty quick down the straight now.

1:32:24

(Speaker 19)

It did get you into a little bit of trouble though, didn't it, Rod?

1:32:27

(Speaker 4)

Because you were supposed to share all this data amongst the other Jaguar teams, but they all complained that you hadn't done.

1:32:32

(Speaker 8)

Well, yeah.

1:32:33

(Speaker 3)

The problem was we didn't know we'd made a mistake. So there's nothing to admit to. There was a rather strongly worded letter sent to Tom after the race from Martin Brundle.

1:32:45

(Speaker 6)

I'd held back information about the setup of the car, which wasn't true.

1:32:49

(Speaker 3)

I mean, we didn't actually know it was going to work really. So, but yeah. Do you know Wayne, after all these years, I was just watching the guys when you asked that question, and I saw Eddie look at Andy, Andy looked at Rod, Rod looked at me, we all smiled at each other. And all these years have gone by and everyone went, yeah, it was good. I can honestly say it wasn't something we kept to ourselves, it was just, it just happened really. So Yan the smart cookie, and Rod's fault for not setting the car up properly.

1:33:20

(Speaker 3)

I mean, that was part of the reason we won, but the other thing was the car was so reliable.

1:33:24

(Speaker 1)

We didn't take the nose or the tail off for the whole race. We changed the windscreen, that was the only thing.

1:33:30

(Speaker 2)

That car in particular had a bit of a bad name before Le Mans, didn't it?

1:33:34

(Speaker 6)

It hadn't finished a race yet.

1:33:35

(Speaker 15)

It was kind of the black dog of the team.

1:33:38

(Speaker 6)

That particular chassis?

1:33:39

(Speaker 18)

Yeah.

1:33:40

(Speaker 3)

Yeah, possibly. I can't remember. Yeah, it was. It was a car that had a really difficult history throughout its time. Just one thing Andy was talking about earlier with the four red buttons and the lights and the data, it just made me think back, you know, to sort of, we've got one of our pit signallers in the audience here who's, you know, there he is with the right jacket on. for the weather.

1:34:01

(Speaker 3)

And, you know, it was all very basic stuff. But recently I was talking to some engineers in F1 and they now have a Formula One car 15 years ago, had about 12 data logging devices on it.

1:34:14

(Speaker 2)

It now has 300 data gathering points.

1:34:18

(Speaker 3)

Each data point gathers 1 .1 million pieces of information and transfers them back to the pits every thousandth of a second. Yeah, amazing. I mean, the data is just phenomenal.

1:34:29

(Speaker 16)

Whereas I do remember you and I several times, not changing subject, at Daytona, we were struggling for data there as well at one point.

1:34:36

(Speaker 3)

We just didn't have the information, did we?

1:34:38

(Speaker 1)

No. Gave you lots to worry about on them quick bits. Oh yeah, there was lots to worry about, yes, and that story as well. Well actually, just the last one on this, even though the car was fast down the straight, still we didn't have, Porsche had more power than us. So, This happened so many times during the race that if you were ahead of a Porsche coming through Tetra Rouge onto the straight, look in the mirror, you'd notice he'd tow up behind you, pull past you, pull back in, and then about halfway down the straight, he hit his drag wall and you pass him back. So a double tow passed on one straight.

1:35:13

(Speaker 2)

So after this has happened to you a few times, every time it happens that they go past you just wave to them because you know exactly what's going to happen and it was brilliant.

1:35:22

(Speaker 6)

And this is great for the fans there were over 215 ,000 British fans at the race that year and of course from 3pm on Saturday when the race started throughout the whole 24 hours every time the silk cut Jags came past the pit lane the tribunes the pit lane grandstands erupted and I think a crowd like it has never been seen in motorsport before or since.

1:35:45

(Speaker 17)

It was more like a kind of World Cup final football crowd, wasn't it? I remember shouting out Tom's name.

1:35:51

(Speaker 1)

Tommy! Tommy!

1:35:52

(Speaker 2)

At the top of their voice, wasn't it?

1:35:54

(Speaker 4)

Well, I think you probably got the front seat of that being in the garage where the drivers were probably a bit busy to notice. Were you aware of the atmosphere of it all? The drivers were sitting at the back in their little caravans, having a massage. Yeah, no, we were very aware of the atmosphere.

1:36:09

(Speaker 1)

I mean, you obviously wake up, sort of wake up, stir five minutes before the pit stop, and you just see it all building up really in, yeah, fantastic atmosphere. Yeah, tremendous. One of the biggest cheers, though, was not for Jaguar during the 1988 Le Mans. One of the biggest cheers that the British fans gave was when the Stuck Bell Ludwig car came in, having run out of fuel. I asked Derek Bell, actually, I was doing something at Silverstone for Henry Pearman sat over there, whether he still sends Ludwig a Christmas card. And the answer, I can't repeat.

1:36:46

(Speaker 1)

So clearly, Derek Bell is not forgiving. him for that, but I think actually what happened was the failure of their reserve tank fuel pump, wasn't it?

1:36:53

(Speaker 2)

And of course the lead Porsche, the Porsche that was expected to win by many of the pundits that year, had come into the pits with trouble.

1:37:01

(Speaker 6)

Was that the moment for you, Eddie, where you thought it had turned in your favour? Did you dare to dream at that point?

1:37:08

(Speaker 1)

I can't really remember. I remember spending the last four or five hours thinking, we can't possibly win this, it's impossible. that we did. Going back to the British crowd, a shout out for the British Marshals that go to Le Mans, because I swear every lap I did, I knew where a bunch of British men, they talked to me in the paddock during the week. And I waved and they waved to me every lap I did in 88. And it's really good to have that kind of connection.

1:37:44

(Speaker 1)

You've got your head down, you're doing your job. It's lovely to get that connection with the British Marshals. who were there doing a brilliant job for us all. I think probably the nearest we saw in the years after was, again, under the stewardship of Alistair McQueen, of course, when Bentley returned and they had that third year victory in 2003. That was a really good crowd of Brits then, the Bentley boy flags all flying up and down the pit lane.

1:38:09

(Speaker 2)

But it really did raise the profile of the sport and certainly it raised the profile of Jaguar, of course.

1:38:17

(Speaker 6)

Andy, you've talked a lot about the challenges of dealing with traffic, with dealing with the terrain at Le Mans, but just sit us in the car with you, in that number two car, at night, because all of us sat here want to try and just get a taste of what it's like to drive the XJR9 down Marmozam at night.

1:38:37

(Speaker 1)

Talk us through it. With no lights. Yeah, if you can just see the car from here, you can see how low down on the car the lights are, which was the same for all of the Group C cars. So they're very, very close to the ground, plus they're little bulbs from 1988 as well and so you imagine you're trying to get the distance on the lights and as soon as you try and angle them up you get a choice between lighting the sky or lighting three feet in front of the car so they very kindly decided three feet in front of the car was what you're going to get plus there's four headlights and two of them are pointing straight and the other two are either cross -eyed or cross -eyed which way to try and pick up the apexes so in actual fact Going down the straight, once you get to anywhere close to 200 miles an hour, never mind 240, you honestly can't see where you're going. So what you're doing, oddly enough, you get to do a lot of laps of the track and you make sure, particularly on the straights, you make sure you keep ticking off these landmarks in your mind all the way down. So the restaurant.

1:39:45

(Speaker 1)

boom, there's a restaurant. There's this, there's that, everywhere. And when you're going around on your own, that's actually quite easy. You can pick off all the landmarks just to give yourself a backup of exactly where you are. Then if you've got a lot of cars in front of you and you're passing lots of cars, you can actually pass the final car and then for a few seconds, where am I? You can't actually, remember exactly where you are.

1:40:11

(Speaker 1)

It sounds really, really crazy. Because it's no longer a straightforward visual cue as to where you are.

1:40:18

(Speaker 2)

It's literally coming from the landmarks.

1:40:21

(Speaker 1)

The straight is undulating as well. And of course the kink, which you can't see round. The kink is lovely. It's one of I don't know about you, Andy, but it's one of the... I did very little Formula 1, but the Formula 1 races I did, they're very intense and loads of pressure, but you can relax on the Morse Island Strait. I could anyway.

1:40:44

(Speaker 1)

Speak for yourself. Apart from the Nissan, every other car I raced there, you could almost take your hand off the steering wheel, they were so stable. But the Nissan was bad. But the thing I loved, you have this white line, down the middle of the road, because it's a public road. And the thing I used to love, especially at night, was when you come, and as Andy said, you think about moving the steering wheel at 230 plus, you think about moving the steering wheel, and the car goes across to an, if you, there's nothing else there, you go across to an apex, and I used to love that feeling, because you didn't, you got used to the sense of speed, so, it just seemed the norm, but I love the fact that when I turned across to an apex, this white line went across my winch and I thought, I am really going fast. here.

1:41:40

(Speaker 1)

And it was the most wonderful feeling. And I never, in all the Le Mans I did, I never got fed up with, at night, just seeing that white line go across so quickly from one side to the other. You really knew you were covering X thousands of feet a second. I don't know, but it was amazing. You as drivers have the slight advantage of adrenaline during the night, but Rod, for the mechanics and the team back in the garage, you've also got to be awake all night and ready for any moment that that car might come in needing help, quite aside from your scheduled pit stops. How do you keep your mechanics and your team all alert and awake, or do you try and grab little bits in between when you do sleep?

1:42:23

(Speaker 1)

I think, I don't think you can actually help close your eyes once you've gone past the witching house and you're in like three, four o 'clock in the morning. I think you close your eyes, but you're still listening to everything that's going on and you hear the crowd or you hear the radio crackle and you think, what's that? And then you wait for the next instruction that invariably you're getting up, walking out to the pit lane, have a quick look, see that Eddie's fallen asleep or not, and then go back into the garage again and sit and wait for the next pit stop shout. But you, as I said, you've got sort of, 50 minutes I think it was, roughly, between pit stops. So you have time to just chill out, have a bite to eat, have a drink, whatever, and then, right, ready, gloves on, helmet on, balaclava, all that sort of business, and ready to go.

1:43:06

(Speaker 16)

And of course, I guess you're also looking at what the other cars are having to go through as well and trying to learn from your teammates as to what problems have reared their head.

1:43:15

(Speaker 1)

The first real problem for TWR was about 11 p . m. on Saturday evening when Raúl Bolzó's car was retired. He was the reigning world sports car champion, of course, from the 87 season. His car was out by 11 p .

1:43:32

(Speaker 4)

m. with a failed main shaft in the gearbox. At this point, word must have been going through the TWR garages, watch out lads, it's coming for us.

1:43:42

(Speaker 1)

In those days, the garage was the pit lane for the race, so everybody knew, and if there was an issue going on, everybody was there ready to do whatever they could to help that team, whether it passed from a spanner or a part or whatever, or run and go and get something. So everybody was there lined up, ready to do whatever they could to assist. but ultimately it was down to the mechanics on the car to try and resolve their issue and get it back out again if they could rather than pushing it round the back into the paddock again. How did you become aware of the problem?

1:44:13

(Speaker 3)

Obviously, you're in radio contact, but of course, Porsche can hear the radio contact, so Jan Lammers is trying not to tell you anything over the radio that might incriminate the car. Was the first time that you were aware as a team that the gearbox was in trouble when Jan came in in fourth and parked up for his pit stop and then left in fourth? Was that the moment that gave you the clue or did you know before then, Eddie? Well, he radioed me at about three or four laps before the last pit stop. and said, we've got a bit of a problem, I'm not going to say anything at the moment, I'll tell you about it later. And that was it really, that's all we knew about it.

1:44:48

(Speaker 3)

And then we, I'm not sure how it happened, but we came in the pits, obviously he was jammed in fourth gear, so we had to help the car out of the pits after the pit stop. He stayed in the car for obvious reasons. So it was very close to the end, it was like literally three or four laps before the last stop.

1:45:05

(Speaker 1)

I couldn't remember, but I've got all the run sheets here, which I had to look at that yesterday to see when it was and I've actually made a note on it of the fact that we lost third gear but just before the fact I put these over on the table over there people can have a look if they want later on. I've written in here it's got lost third gear and then I've crossed it out for some reason I don't really I don't understand why. but it was actually, I mean we were lucky it was so close to the end of the race really and he stayed in for the last race, for the last stint and was able to nurse the car to the end. And actually I can add something to that because Jan had had a conversation with Raul Bozell, said what happened and Raul said well I'm just driving along, got on the throttle coming out of the corner and it jumped out of gear, it jumped out of third I believe. Right. So then he put it in fourth and it jumped out of fourth and then he tried all the others and it was gone.

1:46:04

(Speaker 1)

That was the end of that because the main shaft was broken. So Jan had that in the back of his mind.

1:46:11

(Speaker 6)

We had a conversation about it and then when he was in the car when this was about to happen it jumped out a third for Jan.

1:46:18

(Speaker 3)

He put it into fourth and it went in.

1:46:22

(Speaker 13)

And he said, that's it, I am not moving that gear lever for the rest of the race. I thought it was fourth, but it may have been third.

1:46:30

(Speaker 3)

So this is one we prepared earlier. Brilliant. Look at this. And you can see actually where the fault was was through the oil. There's an oil feed.

1:46:41

(Speaker 2)

Oil comes up the main shaft and feeds the sliders where the gears are on. And it broke across the drilling for the oil way. You can see that. So that was obviously the fracture point. Let me hold that up for everyone. There you go, ladies and gentlemen.

1:46:56

(Speaker 2)

Gearbox main shaft for you. You can see the break in the end there, where it's just sheared off down the oil gallery. That was the famous piece of gearbox that nearly lost Jaguar the victory in 1988. It was an incredible amount of cool -headedness. And the incredible amount of level -headedness from Jan Lammers to keep his nerve, really.

1:47:24

(Speaker 1)

and to guide that car round in fourth gear.

1:47:27

(Speaker 6)

Was it a conversation you'd had with him? Did you know about this at all during the race? Well I'd had the conversation about what had happened to the other car and then, and you probably said this just now, that the only reason that The whole thing was still together because it was in the middle of fourth gear, wasn't it?

1:47:42

(Speaker 1)

Yeah, that's the other reason. Because it managed to continue, because there's a slider that goes up and down these splines, which carries the gear engagement, if you like, that hub, the big hub on here, actually carried the drive through between the two halves of shaft. So if you can imagine it, there's a ring around here, and that carried the drive through. Because that was taking so much load, because the shaft was broken, which is why it jammed and wouldn't slide and change gear. So, I mean, we had the conversation before about being kind to the gearbox, if we could. I think, I'm glad Jan was in the car at the end when that happened, because he had the presence of mind, once it had gone in gear, to say, that's it, don't touch anything.

1:48:29

(Speaker 1)

Then, of course, he was losing a little bit of time because he was stuck in one gear. But this is where the Jaguar V12 comes back in. If it was a turbo engine, a little small turbo engine, there's no way you could have done a competitive lap in one gear. But that Jaguar V12 had so much torque and such a wide usable power band that he was able to do it. We were losing time. But then at the same time, I think the Porsche was overheating that was chasing us.

1:48:57

(Speaker 3)

So I think when they saw us slowing down towards the end and they hadn't got the benefit of listening to the radio because we didn't say anything on the radio they slowed down as well because they were overheating yeah and that's you know if they'd have known we had the problem they might have risked blowing their engine up to try and catch us yes you can imagine in today's world where every bit of the team's communications might

1:49:20

(Speaker 2)

by the media, that could have been a very different story. They'd have piled the pressure on you, wouldn't they, straight away.

1:49:27

(Speaker 4)

Wayne, I've got to just say I'm watching Matthew Davis there from JDHT, looking at that piece of componentry that was part of the winning car, like there's a pile of gold bullion there that he hasn't got that bit for the museum. Wants it on a gold plinth by the end of the day. We mentioned that before the 1988 Le Mans, that car had a pretty torrid time in the races that it was entered into. But apart from the obvious big problem, Rod, was it a pretty plain sailing race up until that point? I would have said it was really uneventful. The only real thing that we had that we had to change was that windscreen at seven o 'clock in the morning, whatever it was.

1:50:06

(Speaker 4)

And even that wasn't a drama, it's something we'd rehearsed. And we had spares ready to go on. We knew what we were going to do.

1:50:12

(Speaker 8)

The only funny thing for me was taking that screen out and looking for where to put it.

1:50:16

(Speaker 4)

And then this big hand comes through and grabs it. Give it to me, laddie. And there's Tom standing there. I'll take that. And off he goes.

1:50:23

(Speaker 2)

And the boys hand me the other fresh screen to put in. But that was our only real drama, really, I think, until Eddie whispered in Harry that he actually can join the race. I think we might have a problem.

1:50:34

(Speaker 1)

And that was just before we started our stint. Someone once described Le Mans to me as a game of snakes and ladders. Most of the time you're on a ladder, but every now and again you step on a snake.

1:50:45

(Speaker 8)

And you were pretty snake -free, weren't you, all the way through until the gearbox issue started to raise its head.

1:50:53

(Speaker 1)

Sorry, just on that same thing. Do you remember in one of the qualifying sessions, one of the daylight qualifying sessions, smashing the window? The side window?

1:51:04

(Speaker 4)

The front one, I believe, wasn't it?

1:51:06

(Speaker 15)

It might have been the side one.

1:51:08

(Speaker 4)

Yes, it might have been the side one, you might be right.

1:51:11

(Speaker 8)

Because it went backwards for a while, and it popped the window.

1:51:14

(Speaker 1)

Yeah. And it had little plastic 4mm screws holding it in. Right. And that's what happened. So all that happened was Jan, I think it was Perea in the 962, did something in front of him. Jan lost it, did a 360, then came in with a hole in the window.

1:51:29

(Speaker 1)

I didn't realise it was a side window. Yeah. And they said, what happened?

1:51:32

(Speaker 9)

Oh, it just spun.

1:51:33

(Speaker 1)

Okay, so how did the hole come in the window? So, of course, as the car was spinning, the doors opened, hit the window and then closed again. And you just got a hole in the side window. Fantastic. I have a story. I'm sorry it's not a Jaguar story, but the first time I drove the Acos down the Morsant, because I was the most experienced driver, Hugh McHague, the owner, said, you drive it first.

1:51:59

(Speaker 1)

So I did an installation lap, came in, they said, yes, that's fine. go and do some laps. So it was the first time I held the car flat all the way down the morse arm. And Ray Malick, the engineer, who's also one of the drivers, who I like, fantastic engineer, he said, with tyre growth and what have you, if you're doing 9 ,000 rpm, you'll be doing 200 miles an hour. And I thought, yes, I'd always wanted to do 200 miles an hour. I'd driven Porsches there before at 180 and so on, but 200 miles an hour was very exciting.

1:52:33

(Speaker 1)

So I set off on my first very fast lap down the Morsan Strait, and I came past the Oudin Air, and it was pulling 8 .4, 8 .6, 8 .8, 9. I thought, I'm doing 200 miles an hour. This is fantastic. And it went 9 -2, 9 -4, I thought this is really great. Then there was an almighty bang. Now, I can tell you if you're a driver on the Morsant, flat in top, and there's a loud bang, it really gets your attention.

1:53:07

(Speaker 1)

And there was an immense bang. and everything filled with dust inside the car and so on. And because we'd managed to do, I think, about 170 miles an hour on the straight at Silverstone, we'd never managed to do a top speed run with the car. And we had no way of the pressure that was building up inside the cockpit to escape. And it just burst the side of the car.

1:53:33

(Speaker 2)

the whole side of the car went out.

1:53:36

(Speaker 1)

That was the noise of 200 mile an hour wind and so on and the pressure.

1:53:40

(Speaker 2)

It was like sitting in a huge balloon and somebody pumping it up so, and then it bursts. It was that kind of sensation of air pressure change and noise and it scared me a bit. I can imagine it. Sorry, nothing to do with Jaguar, for which I apologise. Well, we've all seen the Ford versus Ferrari Le Mans film.

1:54:03

(Speaker 3)

We've all seen the various different photo finishes that have been orchestrated by teams at the 24 Hours of Le Mans over the years.

1:54:12

(Speaker 2)

Let me draw your attention to the photo that's on the screen behind us.

1:54:15

(Speaker 6)

Three TWR Jaguars coming over the line in formation.

1:54:20

(Speaker 2)

Looks fantastic, doesn't it? That was the hardest thing in the race to try and organise. That was the hardest thing in the race to organise. Jan couldn't go faster.

1:54:28

(Speaker 3)

But there was more to that story.

1:54:30

(Speaker 2)

It wasn't just about a photograph, was it, Eddie? Because the two cars behind Jan Lammers are being told over the radio, if he stops, push him over the line.

1:54:44

(Speaker 1)

Now, I don't know how the regulations would have seen that. You can guess who said that, can't you?

1:54:48

(Speaker 3)

Yes, that is truth, isn't it?

1:54:50

(Speaker 4)

Because it's one of those myths that you often hear about in racing, but that is true, isn't it?

1:54:55

(Speaker 1)

Well, you would have got away with it, too, if you were following really closely when he stopped.

1:54:59

(Speaker 2)

You didn't push him across the line, it was just a... Just let it cruise. It just happened. I couldn't stop. A nail -biting moment. And of course in the garage whilst everyone was celebrating, Alan Scott, who was Chief Engine Development Engineer, was also looking through the regulations because he believed that if the car did stop, and they couldn't push it over the line, that because the marshals had waved yellow flags in their celebration waving of flags, that constituted the end of the race being the lap before.

1:55:32

(Speaker 2)

So all sorts of machinations were going on in the garage at the time to make sure that Jaguar took the win.

1:55:38

(Speaker 1)

But, of course, take the win you did. Andy, what are your memories of that moment?

1:55:43

(Speaker 6)

The crowd invaded the pitch, as it were, the start -finish line at Le Mans, and the place erupted, didn't it?

1:55:51

(Speaker 12)

It must have been an amazing feeling.

1:55:53

(Speaker 1)

That was absolutely amazing, even though it was a very long time ago. And I know you just jokingly say sometimes, I don't remember. 38 years ago. Yeah. I mean, I don't remember some things, but that is something which I'll never forget. It was an incredible thing.

1:56:08

(Speaker 1)

And of course, you have the press conference afterwards, which is quite difficult, because by this time, the adrenaline's going down a bit. And now everything hurts and it's difficult. But the three of us together, drivers, when we got back to the hotel in the evening, we said, look, you know, it's not every day you win Le Mans. So we could either be boring old farts and just go to bed now, or we should go and celebrate somewhere. Not necessarily get completely slaughtered, but go and have a meal, for example. So we went to this restaurant.

1:56:41

(Speaker 6)

And just three of us at the table, and then we were kind of talking to each other, but we were so tired that if one person was talking, either one or both of the others would fall asleep. And you'd have to kick him. And in fact, a couple of times, head first in the pizza as well. But we still, we did it.

1:57:02

(Speaker 3)

Well, that was the downside.

1:57:02

(Speaker 2)

We all had to go to the prize -giving, didn't we?

1:57:04

(Speaker 1)

And that dragged us off to that.

1:57:05

(Speaker 4)

That went on for, goodness knows how long. And I remember the heads clunking onto the table when everybody was falling asleep. Same for you in the garage, I guess, Rod. Elation, but absolutely exhausted as well. Yes, complete and utter euphoria. It's relief as well, because there are so many things, and you said about watching other people retire.

1:57:27

(Speaker 2)

You had to rely on that being a permanent retirement, because if they were not retired for that long, they could still catch you if you had a problem.

1:57:33

(Speaker 1)

So it was always every lap was another lap without a problem. So yeah, the relief and the just enjoyment and pleasure of listening to the audience and the crowd. everybody in the whole team enjoying those moments essentially, so it was a fantastic day. Were you secretly happy for the mic from back there in your Nissan? I was, I mean, I have a Jaguar, I love Jaguar, which is why I had to thank Matthew. It was 34 years before I actually got to drive the car, that car, so thank you very much indeed.

1:58:08

(Speaker 1)

I was chuffed to bits for them. I knew Andy, of course. I didn't know Jan very well. Johnny had been a co -driver of mine. I was chuffed to bits for him. There are very few races in the world like Le Mans.

1:58:29

(Speaker 1)

I think there's the big three. You've got the Indy 500, Monaco and Le Mans. It would have been lovely if I could have won one. I raced at Monaco. I didn't do the Indy 500. It didn't sort of interest me to go round and round in circles without corners, really.

1:58:49

(Speaker 1)

Not that I had the opportunity, but no, I was chuffed to bits for Jaguar. and as you say I love the mark to this day. And for you Andy the start of an amazing career really in sports cars and of course in all of the other driving jobs that you've had since as well it must have really felt like a springboard at that moment. Well, I can definitely tell you one thing, winning Le Mans doesn't hurt your career too badly.

1:59:17

(Speaker 3)

No, and I have a lot to be thankful for to Jaguar and to TWR and to Tom, because, you know, having knocked on all the F1 drivers' doors, That was it. I was done because there's no point doing Formula 3 again. I didn't have any money to go any further and it was going to stop. So Macau and the touch together with Jan and then luckily the situation Jan was in, I mean if I look at it there is a thousand different ways it could have gone, and only one, the way that it did go. Then you ended up with the Audi R8C, and that went downhill from there, didn't it? Do you remember that?

1:59:59

(Speaker 1)

Talking about doors earlier, when the door blew off, we were trying to pre -qualify for Le Mans in the Audi, and the driver's door blew off, and we didn't have a spare one. So we had to go and find the bits on the Mulsanne straight. And I think we had about 10 minutes to go over the window left to pre -qualify.

2:00:16

(Speaker 3)

And I've never been so close to having a heart attack in all my life.

2:00:21

(Speaker 1)

Well actually, I know it's not a Jaguar story, but just to set the scene, you had to pre -qualify at Le Mans. Was it the week before? Was it the week before you had to pre -qualify? Yeah, it was, because we went out and stayed out there, didn't we? That's it, and so they split the field into two, so there were two different groups, and we had one Audi in each group, and so the one group had already run, and I think, I don't know,

2:00:50

(Speaker 4)

in and then I was driving along and this happened to me, it's Netizen as well, so this is the second time it happened, so I'm out of Monsant Corner, up through the gears, just before Indianapolis and it's a left -hand drive, the door completely disappeared, but it's a bit like you saying about the bank, it's not like the doors just disappeared, you're driving along And then there is no door. And it's like somebody's turned the spotlight on. It's all suddenly got light. There's a radiator there. And it's gone. So I just get on the radio.

2:01:23

(Speaker 4)

I didn't crash or anything. I got on the radio. Guys, yeah, I've just lost the door. Can you get another one? And let go. And then we're going on.

2:01:30

(Speaker 4)

They said, where did it go? Where did it go? He said, don't worry about where it went. Just get another one. Because I was just thinking, well, we could take one off the other car if it came to it. And then they kept asking, where's it gone, where's it gone?

2:01:44

(Speaker 3)

I said, guys, I was going, you know, 200 miles an hour, it's in the trees somewhere in Indianapolis.

2:01:50

(Speaker 14)

And they went, well, we don't have another door.

2:01:54

(Speaker 1)

And the other car, of course, was in Parc Fermé, so you couldn't touch it. So didn't they send somebody out with a ladder and a monkey bar?

2:02:01

(Speaker 2)

Yeah, we did find it and repaired it and got it back on the car with about 10 minutes left before pre -qualifying. And that's it.

2:02:07

(Speaker 4)

And then we went out and literally out the pits, and then as we crossed the line, the flag went down behind us. and then just one lap and we're able to pre -qualify. Brilliant stuff.

2:02:17

(Speaker 1)

And Rod, you must have a real sense of pride when you point at that car and say, I was number one mechanic on that. I do like to quote that I put that together by myself, but obviously I didn't. Yeah, there's a huge amount of pride and I know that the guys that were with us as team members and things, we all contributed. We had a bodywork guy looking after the bodywork and gearbox guys and so on and engine guys, but yeah. amount of pride looking at it yeah even though we're now 38 years later I tend not to talk about it very much but some people you know it's still a memorable day memorable occasion so Well, it was at three o 'clock on Sunday afternoon in 1988 at Le Mans where Jaguar took victory. They'd come two years before to learn.

2:03:07

(Speaker 1)

They came in 1987 to race and, of course, won the World Championship that year. And finally, the race that had eluded them in 1988 was theirs, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

2:03:18

(Speaker 3)

And, of course, the fans invaded the track. The Union Jacks were flying high, Jaguar were champions and even on the roads heading through northern France, back to the ferries, back to England, the French all came out and waved their Union Jacks that they had bought from no doubt a corner shop somewhere and Jaguar flags and celebrated the win on the behalf of the Brits. And of course the victory would make its way all the way back to Coventry, Sir John, wouldn't it, where you were hoping to reap the rewards for Jaguar itself. What was the feeling From your point of view and within Jaguar from the 1988 win, what did it do for the brand? Well, there was an almost immediate sense of euphoria in the company. We brought the cars back and the workforce all saw them and everybody felt as though the company was back together again.

2:04:10

(Speaker 3)

It was all as though we'd started to put the pieces together again and we were doing that. Sales, of course, went up, and the impression of the company also. The views of Jaguar were back almost to where they'd been before. And then there was a knock on my door, and it was from Ford. And they said they wanted to buy the company.

2:04:37

(Speaker 3)

And suddenly, I was immensely then turned on.

2:04:40

(Speaker 3)

trying to keep the company away from them. So it was the good thing was yes, it was great for the company. The bad thing was the image of the company was so big now and it was a small company and Ford wanted to buy it. And, of course, you were there in 1988 watching the race unfold, yes, as chairman of Jaguar Cars Ltd, but also surely as a fan as well. Oh, yes. I was sitting next to Tom, by the way, when he was putting the three cars together.

2:05:08

(Speaker 3)

I said, what in God's name are you doing, Tom? He said, just in case they have to push it over.

2:05:13

(Speaker 3)

And it was sort of odd, the idea that...

2:05:17

(Speaker 3)

But Tom didn't leave anything to chance, so he was ready for it.

2:05:22

(Speaker 3)

No, I think the euphoria was there and we were.

2:05:25

(Speaker 3)

were immensely relieved.

2:05:26

(Speaker 3)

But as they all were, they were all pretty tired too, because we'd been up most of the night. And Ford had to pay a little bit more for the company as a result of all of that, didn't they? I'm afraid so, but they didn't really understand what they'd bought. Brilliant.

2:05:39

(Speaker 2)

Ladies and gentlemen, once again, Sir John Egan there. And of course Eddie, you stuck with TWR, with Tom Walkinshaw, many more successes still to come for TWR and of course they would do it all again in 1990, wouldn't they? And did you feel like that was the beginning of continued success at that time?

2:06:02

(Speaker 1)

Do you feel you could have done it again when you left in 1989?

2:06:04

(Speaker 1)

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I was actually left the Group C team by then, I was working on the XJR15 actually. And so yeah, but it's...

2:06:12

(Speaker 1)

Yeah, I think it was quite feasible to do it again. Obviously, we learned a lot. But in 1988, in qualifying sessions, a team had actually withdrawn because Schlesser, who was driving their car, had had problems with tyres and blistering on those tyres to such an extent they felt they couldn't run the race. they retired before the race had even begun, withdrew their entry in 1988. That team was sauber and they were back in 1989 with a vengeance and of course Richard by this time you'd joined TWR and I think it was probably just assumed wasn't it that TWR would do it all again in 1989. Well, Tom actually shared with me, when I went to do my final interview with him in the November of 88, he said his ambition was a hat trick and I said, well, winning them all, you know, once is pretty impressive.

2:07:08

(Speaker 1)

Just finishing it is impressive. And I said, over what period of time? He said 89 and 90, of course. And I thought, crikey, that's a massive ambition. And Tom never faltered on his thoughts about the importance of the Winds Jaguar. We'd seen it in America, we saw it in France particularly, where sales, John will remember, sales in France after the Le Mans win went stratospheric for a number of months.

2:07:34

But I've got to say, when we got there in 89, the team I don't think was as well prepared as the guys had been in 88. And there is quite a funny story, which I think is worth telling. Tom and I, throughout the 89 race, you know, I was there as commercial director and blah, blah, blah, and things were going strong, and we didn't win the race. Excuse me, I've just got a crackly mic. And Tom and I, at the end of the race, the Saubers had won it. Tom was in what I would only describe as a demonic mood.

2:08:06

(Speaker 3)

And as we walked out of the circuit together, there was this very, very large German gentleman who'd obviously been in the beer keller for 37 hours. and he had a girlfriend with him who, as he was walking, fell forwards and she landed face down in an enormous puddle. The big fat German fellow just kept on walking and this poor lady was laying in this puddle of water with just bubbles coming out through the mud. And as Rodney Tom's hands, they were more like paws. He suddenly looked down, grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, pulled her out dripping water and stood her up against a tree.

2:08:39

(Speaker 3)

And I said, Tom, that was a really magnanimous thing to do. He said, you don't notice the detail, laddie. She was wearing a Jaguar shirt. If it had been Mercedes, she'd have drowned. And with that, we went back to Kidlington. Within 24 hours, Tom had the whole team back in the workshop.

2:08:59

(Speaker 2)

And the effort for 1990 began on the Wednesday after the 89 defeat by Sauber. And it was just relentless. And that's how Tom was. And that was why the team won again in 1990. And Daytona as well that year, quite remarkable, the same as 88. Well, whilst the careers of all of these guys continued after 1988, the career of of the racing career, at least, of the number two car, chassis 488, ended at the end of that race.

2:09:25

(Speaker 2)

It had not done well before Le Mans in 1988. It had won at Le Mans in 1988, and it had probably done all that it could do. So it was retired, it was rebuilt, nut and bolt, at TWR, and restored and handed to Sir John as a present, a gift to you personally, which, of course, it then ended up in the Jaguar Dame Heritage Trust, where it still resides to this day. protected, preserved, but still enjoyed and still able to be seen out at the Jaguar Enthusiast Club's track sport events, where they often bring it out and circulate it with the car on its right here, which is, of course, the XJR15. That particular car, R9R, Andrew Maynard's car, who's here in the audience with us today, was the very first, and Andy Morrison showed me some amazing pictures of it with the silk -cut purple roof it once wore. But, of course, the XJR15, an incredible story in itself, itself, because that was the road car that directly came from the race win in 1998.

2:10:25

(Speaker 2)

it was the road car version of the XJR9 Le Mans car. It spawned a road going supercar and the XJR15 has an incredible story all of its own. What makes Jaguar's victory at Le Mans in 1988 endure isn't just the result, isn't just the win, it's the way that it was achieved and what it meant for the future of Jaguar. Though it wasn't realised at the time, the brand's very survival depended on it. It was the momentum of goodwill and pride resulting from both the 1988 and 1990 Le Mans wins that carried Jaguar through not just the following months and years, but decades. Decades of enthusiasm that we at the Jaguar Enthusiast Club and within Jaguar Enthusiast Magazine still write about, encourage and act as the conduit for to this day.

2:11:18

(Speaker 2)

Jaguar didn't win, as you've heard, by playing it safe. They won by backing engineering judgment, staying the course when things got tough and challenging. They won by trusting people, trusting the people that are here on the stage with us today. And while it got challenging, it was also a moment where British pride also got behind Jaguar. It wasn't just about Jaguar winning Le Mans, it was about Britain winning Le Mans. And that feels especially fitting to say here at Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works, a place where Jaguar's history, as you can see all around us, is still nurtured and celebrated.

2:12:01

(Speaker 2)

You'll have a tour of the facility very shortly. It's never been easy for Jaguar, for one reason or another. Great moments in the brand's history have not come from comfort. They've come from belief and craftsmanship by proud, talented people willing to see things through. Because they took Jaguar's success personally.

2:12:21

(Speaker 2)

So thank you for all of you in the audience for being a part of today as we celebrated not only 50 years since the start of TWR and Eddie Hinkley was there from the start, give him a ripple for that I think, that's a round of applause moment. But of course we've enjoyed that great moment in history when Jaguar beat the world and won the greatest motor race ever. the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Please give it up for my amazing panellists, Andy Wallace, the winning driver of the number two car, Rod Benoit, Eddie Hinckley, Richard West, and of course, Mike Wilds in the Nissan, and once again for Sir John Egan. Now, I have got a free book given to me by Mike, which he signed. So, in order to earn my free book, I must remind you all that you can buy this book here of Mike Wilde's.

2:13:28

(Speaker 2)

And it might, if you miss out today, go back into print.

2:13:31

(Speaker 12)

So, Mike, you've got a few copies left, haven't you?

2:13:33

(Speaker 2)

And you can get it from Mike over there as well. You've got two choices now.

2:13:39

(Speaker 1)

You can either go and have a comfort break, have a rest, have a cup of tea and a walk around Jaguar Classic, or I might have time, if you're up for it, to take a few questions.

2:13:48

(Speaker 11)

Do you want to do questions?

2:13:50

(Speaker 1)

Yeah. There's one. Go on then, Geoff. We'll have one question from you. I just want to know, which has always played on my mind, if you knew the gearbox was faulty, why didn't you do something about it or couldn't it be done? Good question.

2:14:06

(Speaker 1)

No, it was if we knew the gearbox was faulty.

2:14:09

(Speaker 6)

But the thing is, it wasn't faulty.

2:14:11

(Speaker 2)

It was just basically, I mean, what we have, we had close to 700 pounds of torque. and that was where the the state of gearboxes were in those days. It's always been a weakness at Le Mans transmissions it always has been always will be you know it's such a highly stressed part of the car and because of its constrictions of its size and everything there's only so much you can do with it really to make it I mean these days with the automatic the blip automatic shifts I think it's a lot a lot less stressed. So what you're saying is it's the drivers that were doing it manually?

2:14:43

(Speaker 11)

Yeah, it was the drivers fault.

2:14:46

(Speaker 10)

Any more?

2:14:50

(Speaker 3)

One more over here. There's been a lot of discussion about the performance of the engine, the suspension, the design and everything else. I've got a personal interest.

2:15:05

(Speaker 9)

Can you tell us a bit about the brakes and the brake system?

2:15:10

(Speaker 2)

Are you ready? I didn't hear the question again. I'm sorry about one of my dogs, one of my hearing aids the other day.

2:15:19

(Speaker 3)

I'm struggling a bit.

2:15:23

(Speaker 4)

That's my excuse.

2:15:24

(Speaker 2)

Also comes from a lifetime of working with engines and Mazda rotaries, I think.

2:15:30

(Speaker 3)

He was asking about the braking system and why it was so good, I guess.

2:15:39

(Speaker 1)

They were AP, weren't they? Yeah, AP brakes. We had the biggest we could get at the time, didn't we? Yeah.

2:15:48

(Speaker 8)

And like everything, it had a lifespan during the race, so it had to be serviced during the race.

2:15:53

(Speaker 3)

Yeah, we changed pads quite frequently. Like everything, we'd practice that and also calipers were built that we could slide a gate out of the way very easily and clip it and take pads out and put new ones in. The tricky part was getting both sides of the cars to push back their calipers at the same time. so we had special tools and as I said looking across the car to each other to make sure we were in time with each other and then when each had stopped pushing you could slip in new pads if you screwed up at that you were in there with your fingers trying to get a red hot caliper piston back in and things but it was they were they were the pinnacle of brakes at the time essentially we had the best that we could afford. And the discs lasted the distance then? They did, yeah.

2:16:34

(Speaker 3)

Yeah, I mean, Le Mans wouldn't be a particularly hard place on brakes. Obviously, it's the one big breaking point at the end of the Mont Saint, but other than that, it's not particularly hard on brakes. There's another element to that, Andy, and that was very much that Tom, and I remember it really struck me when I first went to TWR, the key people like Eddie and Chief Mechanics and others, Tom would make a point of really introducing his key people to the supply chain.

2:17:00

(Speaker 1)

And Tom would push the supply chain very, very hard. He wouldn't, nowadays it's commonplace, every supplier into Formula One, World Sports Car, whatever, is pushed to the absolute limit.

2:17:10

(Speaker 2)

But there were options then when you could buy customer solutions.

2:17:15

(Speaker 1)

Tom never accepted customer solutions. When the XJR15 program came about, I went with Tom to Japan, we sat down with the board of Bridgestone, the tyre was specifically developed for the 15 programme. Other people weren't doing that at the time, and that was a real mark of Tom's determination to give his team the very best. I suppose you see that in the relationship between TWR and Zytec. I mean, TWR's efforts with Zytec made the company, and it still exists today, doesn't it? Andy?

2:17:41

(Speaker 1)

I was just going to say, the other thing to mention about the brakes, because we were 55 seconds flat out down the straight, there was a real danger of having the disc explode from thermal shock, particularly in the middle of the night, so you had to remember going down the straight, you could easily remember you're doing 240 and you didn't want the brake to explode, so you remembered, but you had to just generally warm it up with your left foot. before you got to the corner and then make sure they were there and put some temperature in. Because this was a course where still cast iron discs, of course you don't have that problem with the carbon brake, but again it's not a Jaguar story but it's quite funny and it might be interesting to hear. There's a race track in Japan, it's owned by Yamaha and oddly enough it's called Yamaha. And there's a long straight, and Jeff Lees was driving for Toyota, and I drove for Toyota after I was with Jaguar.

2:18:42

(Speaker 1)

And he was testing there, and he had a right front brake disc explode at the end of the straight. And it's quite a bad situation, to put it politely. But of course, if the brake explodes, and you keep pushing the brake pedal, you're going to pop the pistons out, aren't you? And basically, you push the brake pedal, the only thing you've got really is some rear brake if you're lucky. So he lost the car. And you know in Japan they've got these little K cars, the small ones, but they've also got little vans and delivery trucks, which are also narrow to go down the narrow streets.

2:19:17

(Speaker 1)

So the track's quite close to the public road. And there was a bloke with a little pickup truck thing, but a small one, just driving along.

2:19:27

(Speaker 2)

And after Jeff lost it, he went into the barrier, up the bank, over the top of the bank and he landed on top of this little K -car pick -up van.

2:19:38

(Speaker 1)

The guy going along the thing and he looks in the mirror and he's got a Group C car on the back of his pick -up. Honestly, that really happened.

2:19:45

(Speaker 2)

So exploding discs, you don't want. We've got the head man from Jaguar Enthusiast Insurance in the audience. I'd love to see how you'd explain that to him. Question over here then.

2:20:03

(Speaker 6)

I was just looking at the sums and sort of from sort of 50s to 80s about 35 years and about from the 80s to now is about 35 years.

2:20:14

(Speaker 1)

In terms of technology was there a greater leap from the 50s Jaguar, Le Mans, Sex to the 88 or in terms of from 88 to now? Good question. I think I know what my opinion would be. Eddie what do you think? bigger leap in technology from the 50s to the 80s than there is from the 80s to now? I think aerodynamics and downforce would be the big thing, that's probably the big leap forward.

2:20:44

(Speaker 1)

Yeah, interesting that the new hypercar series is actually trying to dial back some of the technology to get nearer to Group C running than perhaps it's been in LMP1 for many years, isn't it? Yeah, I also think it's worth mentioning that throughout history the cars get too fast with a certain rule set. So the organisers are always changing the rule set to slow the cars down and yet they go ever faster. faster. And that is coming from the technology, as you say, from the downforce, from the braking system. I mean, with a set of full carbon -carbon brakes, you do the whole race without changing anything on the brake system.

2:21:23

(Speaker 1)

It's ridiculous. Gearboxes and things like that, as you say, it's all pneumatic, paddle shift. So that technology is really advanced, but it almost follows what happens in the wider world, isn't it? I mean, the Increase in technology and knowledge is going like that, isn't it? And it doesn't matter where you are Wherever you are if you put it a straight line, it's gonna keep doing this. Yeah, I did say I'm sorry I just I remember this one time before I was when I was doing Formula Ford and

2:21:55

(Speaker 1)

so early 80s, somebody said to me at one point, they said, you know, we were talking about the future, and they said, well, in the future, one big change is going to be the gearbox. And I was like, what on earth does he mean? You know, we've got a gearbox, and you've got a gear stick, and you change gear.

2:22:12

(Speaker 2)

How could that ever, you know, what's going to happen?

2:22:15

(Speaker 1)

And then you see what's happened with gearboxes from then to now. Huge change. I interviewed you, Andy, when you were driving the MG Lola at Le Mans, and I interviewed you on the pit wall there, and when I think about the differences and the changes in the cars and the technology, even the race and how the race rules and regulations run from, what was that, 15 years ago to now? That's a huge leap in itself, isn't it? Even just the way you qualify at Le Mans is totally different now. In fact, it's a completely almost different race to 1988 in many ways.

2:22:51

(Speaker 1)

It is, and what it really is now, you talk about 31 pit stops, Rod, I think it's still a similar number of pit stops, maybe 32 or something. And what it is now, to win Le Mans, is 32 sprint races, basically. You leave the pits, you're absolutely flat out with everything. And, you know, if something breaks, well, if something breaks, but it very rarely does. So it's changed in, I mean a lot more investment has gone into it too, hasn't it? I think if you look, you've got technology doing that, but in the 70s and 80s we used to motor race and that graft is doing that.

2:23:33

(Speaker 1)

Because you're using carbon brakes and the opportunity to have a zone to fight for a corner has disappeared because you're braking almost at the point of turning. So unless somebody makes a mistake or there's rain, you need to press a button to get DRS to overtake somebody, which is not, in my view, motor racing as we know it. We used to fight under braking for a corner and so on. So technology's doing that, but the actual racing, which interests me, going the other way. I guess for you, Rod, as well, it would be unrecognisable to walk into a modern pit garage from what you had in 1988, just by the sheer volume of screens for a start, wouldn't it? I've been back there since, but yes, indeed.

2:24:27

(Speaker 2)

You were talking about brakes, and I ran, team -managed the Nissan programme for TWR, and we adopted the Williams ABS system.

2:24:37

(Speaker 1)

And going testing with that was frightening at first, because the drivers were committed And then they say, OK, now we're going to turn on the ABS. And if it failed, they were going off, because they'd already made that commitment. And we had a couple of minor incidents with it. Fortunately, nobody was critically injured. But the system is so impressive. And that's one of the biggest changes I would say would occur.

2:25:01

(Speaker 1)

The day I drove a modern GT3 car for Porsche at Brands, the braking was unbelievable. But the car didn't talk to me. I had no idea. A bit of a funny story, I had a German engineer, and I was braking for a corner called Hawthorns at the bottom of the back straight at Brands Hatch, and I was braking at about 80 meters, which I thought, that's pretty good for a 75 -year -old man, left foot brake, turn in, and when I get back, we're looking at the computer, this is on a Friday test session, and he said, what do you think of the brakes? I said, the brakes are amazing, I'm not touching them, till 80 meters before I'm doing 155 miles an hour for probably a 90 mile an hour corner. He said, yes, yes, I see.

2:25:55

(Speaker 1)

He said, this is where we normally brake in the wet. So, and I think I'm on the edge. So now I'm out in the second practice session getting further and further and further because his works drivers touch the brakes at 45 meters. So they're bang on the brakes and they're turning into the apex, they come off the brakes at the apex just before and then on the throttle. And the technology is brilliant. It's blind faith in it though, isn't it?

2:26:27

(Speaker 1)

And I could not get to that stage because I didn't know when it was going to just throw me at the wall. It always amazed me when I first ever walked into the pit lane at Le Mans and I saw the cars do the first ever change from within the pit garage. I remember the thing that struck me the most this wheel came flying off into the garage, it sort of landed at my feet, smouldering, literally smouldering, smoking and sticking itself to the floor, and you realise the sheer volume of heat that those cars are managing, both on the brakes and the engine, and just the sheer friction on those slick tyres.

2:27:05

(Speaker 3)

It's an incredible place to be, and that magic never leaves you once you've experienced it.

2:27:10

(Speaker 7)

So, Thanks for your questions.

2:28:38

You've been a fantastic audience. Enjoy the rest of this afternoon.

transcribed with cockatoo