Alec Poole: Tales of Triumph in the World of Racing
In this episode of The Backseat Driver, I chat with Alec Poole, a motorsport legend whose career spans rallying, racing, and team management. Alec takes us on a journey that began with his father’s MG franchise in Ireland and evolved into a storied career that includes racing apprenticeships in France, competing in BMC events, and memorable appearances at iconic races like Sebring and the London to Sydney rally.
We dive into his influential role in Nissan’s touring car program during the 1990s and thrilling stories of racing against legends like Vic Elford at the Nordschleife and employing clever tactics on Japanese circuits. Alec’s anecdotes and insights offer a captivating glimpse into the multifaceted world of motorsport through the eyes of a true insider.
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Yes, it's me, Mike Stone and this is the Backseat Driver podcast.
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Speaker B: -: Speaker A:I'd like to introduce to the backseat driver a man who has been described as Paddy Hopkirk's best friend.
Speaker A:He's a racing driver who rallied.
Speaker A:He's a rally driver who raced.
Speaker A:He was a team manager basically when it comes to motorsport, Alec Poole has done it all.
Speaker A:Alec, welcome to the Backseat driver.
Speaker C:Thank you very much.
Speaker A:Now I know you got into motorsport or cars by virtue of the fact your father was the importer of MG into the Republic of Ireland.
Speaker A:So I suppose it was somewhat natural.
Speaker A:Did he encourage you to get into multi sport or did he just encourage you to get into cars?
Speaker C:I think fair to say he encouraged me to get into sport, yeah.
Speaker C:Of any, any shape or form and, but it was just a natural thing in a progression.
Speaker C:Because of the car stuff.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know what it's like as a kid.
Speaker C:You get all the magazines and you, you know more than you become a total nerd.
Speaker C:Yeah, I was that.
Speaker C:And, and that was my, yeah, my, my, my thing really.
Speaker A:And of course due to your father, it was mgs.
Speaker C:True, true.
Speaker C:We had the other franchise like Woolsey and the trucks and tractors and so on, but obviously the MG thing because back Then in the 60s or the early 60s and M BMC, British Motor Corporation with, in their prime they were the fourth biggest manufacturer of the world out of the big three in America.
Speaker C:It was big, big.
Speaker C:It was a big business.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So from, from Ireland you were sent to BMC to form, to serve a form of apprenticeship.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:And, and that was into the, into the depths of Brum, which was pretty, you know, from, from going from boarding school into this lot, being into digs in the depths of Brum and going into the winter it was cold, it was foggy, you know and it was, it was tough.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker A:And then an innocent Irish lad.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And worse than that, the other apprentices at the weekend, if they were from dealerships around the uk, they go home at the weekend.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And but in fact we, but that in a way that encouraged our motorsport because the few of us from abroad or from further to travel.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:We used to do any sort of motorsport we could get, get, get into.
Speaker C:Whether.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:In any sort of wheels.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So how did you get into motorsport?
Speaker C:Well see back then you, you just needed a competition license to do anything.
Speaker C:None of this division between racing and rallying.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we would do anything.
Speaker C:And then in fact I was fortunate to get to pick up a Mark 1 Austin Healey Sprite.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Which was, had been superseded to the Mark two but nobody wanted those FR and I started using that in event but then progressed into rallying and we, because I found that this, these motoring news all night road races in the depths of Wales were just the business and I mean they were madness, absolute madness.
Speaker C:And in fact one of my co drivers was none other than John Fitzpatrick who went on and still is a close, close friend.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And Fitz, you know, became the most successful GT driver of all time and as I say, we crashed and rolled our way around Wales through the night and.
Speaker C:Absolute madness.
Speaker C:But, but then of course as an apprentice you were looking over your shoulder at BMC competitions department down at Abingdon in, out in the country, which is also at the MG factory and that, that was you know, much so much better than machining brake drums in the depths of Birmingham, you know, you know, that sort of thing.
Speaker C:So that's, that was really your target to try to get down there.
Speaker A:How did, how did the move come about?
Speaker A:How did he manage to get yourself to the competition department?
Speaker C:Well it didn't do you any harm to make to scrap material of say the brake drums.
Speaker C:So whatever department you were in, they'd move you on.
Speaker C:So that was one means.
Speaker C:And of course you, Brown knows the apprentice supervisors, there's an affinity here.
Speaker C:And you'd encourage him to trans, you know, transfer because you do months and you do a small period in different departments.
Speaker C:But we, we were apprentices though back then were regarded as pond life.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And that we were always sort of lined up to do any horrible jobs, you know and sometimes it was a case of get rid of him, we don't need him around here.
Speaker C:And, and you would do anything to get down to mgs to either the development department or road test or competitions.
Speaker C:Of course.
Speaker A:So when you arrived there, what was your intended job?
Speaker C:Well, luckily I was allocated to the competitions development engineer.
Speaker C:And we had actually a good relationship in bouncing things.
Speaker C:And he showed me the way he went about it, which in in a way became a sort of an apprenticeship for competitions as well, rather than just dealership now.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because I mean technically this was all meant to go back to Ireland and your father's dealership.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But as it happened, sometime later, I built a racing Mini.
Speaker C:At that time I was racing the Sprite quite successfully in club racing.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:But BMC competitions then was very much around Mini Cooper S and so on.
Speaker C:And indeed that's where I meeting Paddy and doing it.
Speaker C:Because Paddy won the Monte Carlo rally in 64.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that was a mega event that when afterwards the Sunday that was finished on a Saturday.
Speaker C:On a Sunday, Paddy and Henry Lyddon were appeared on Bruce Foresight at the Saturday night at the Palladium.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And they appeared on the turntable at the palladium and 28 million people saw it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:I mean that's how.
Speaker C:How big it big it was.
Speaker C:It was then.
Speaker C:But, but I, I then after I left competition, went back to Ireland, I built a racing Mini.
Speaker C:But in fact I built it as a Woolsey Hornet.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because of the head of the dealership.
Speaker C:And I won quite a few races and things in Ireland and then I took it to the UK for weekends.
Speaker C:Won with that as well.
Speaker C:One day I called into competitions to see.
Speaker C:To scrounge some parts.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And then Stuart Competition, Stuart Turner, the competition manager, he said, ah, Pool, you've been winning races in my car.
Speaker C:But the.
Speaker C:The Hornet was on the trailer.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Outside.
Speaker C:He said, why?
Speaker C:I want.
Speaker C:I need to have a chat with you.
Speaker C:But while you get Cliff, the engineer I worked for as an apprentice to put that thing on the.
Speaker C:On a rolling road.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:See what power it gives.
Speaker C:Because I.
Speaker C:I'm curious to know if you're winning these races is you or Bakar.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Anyhow, so we were having a chat about maybe a few events or doing something or other and Cliff came into the office about half an hour later.
Speaker C:You could have heard the thing on the rollers in the background.
Speaker C:And he came in quite sheepishly and he said.
Speaker C:I don't quite know how to say this, sir, but that Mini on the rollers gives more power than I have ever seen on those rollers from a Mini before any of our cars.
Speaker C:That's When Stuart got up, locked the door and said, you, Pooh, are not leaving here until we sort out the exact specification.
Speaker C:And of course he was so crazy.
Speaker C:The first thing is, and the obvious thing is, is it oversized?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I said, I said no, no, I couldn't tell him, of course, because it had his pistons which I had nicked from his stores.
Speaker C:But anyway, so yes, a good relationship with them.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And good fun.
Speaker A:So I conclude then you were signed up to be a driver for them.
Speaker C:Well, yeah, but I've got a problem because you can see from the shape that, you know, my other sport used to be rugby and the second row forward.
Speaker C:You know, you, you have your heart in, in racing, but you then it.
Speaker C:After a while you realize that this is never going to become a serious profession.
Speaker C:It is better to treat it as a golfer, a competitive amateur golfer would and pick and choose if you can, if you can select.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But you're never going to be a Paddy Hopkirk or a Jimmy Clark, you know.
Speaker A:But in a roundabout way you did become a Paddy Hopkirk or a Jimmy Clark.
Speaker A:I mean, you from there, I mean you ended up at Sebring, didn't you?
Speaker C:Yeah, luckily I said the club racing was going well along with a pal called Roger Reniver and they, they got us, they Austin Healey and which is part of the British Motor Corporation group, asked to go to see me.
Speaker C:But we, we just went there as a couple of sort of 18 year olds and they, to add a little bit of interest, my girlfriend at the time was an aer linguist stewardess and she said to me, look, because it was this time of year and she said, in March, she said, along with half a dozen of my mates, we're going to New York to St.
Speaker C:Patrick's Day parade and that's on Wednesdays.
Speaker C:Why would you mind if we came down to Sebring with you to meet up with you and Roger for the weekend?
Speaker C:It was incredible when we had these.
Speaker C:Well, I was gonna say chickettes, but they had, they had quite a bit of style about them.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, their all seties are always stylish, aren't they?
Speaker A:I mean it's very sexist to say that now, but I mean cabin crew are always stylish.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So all of a sudden Roger and I this, we were heroes.
Speaker C:Not be.
Speaker C:Not because of our driving and because of what we had in tow.
Speaker C:And they were well turned out.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And in fact they, as it happened, they, they, they took over the catering facilities for the whole BMC team.
Speaker C:Yeah, because that's what they, those, the girls did.
Speaker C:They did proper meals then.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that made the whole BMC team poppy because the, the journeys weren't interested in going to looking at GT 40s or codebas.
Speaker C:They were much more interested in looking at these girls.
Speaker A:Nice girls and nice route.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, how did the race go?
Speaker C:I think we finished second in our class.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:But it, it was a small sp.
Speaker C:The Sprite.
Speaker C:It was in a, like a group N or.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Basic sort of category.
Speaker C:So we didn't set the world on fire, but how could we?
Speaker C:But, but that wasn't really the point as far as we were concerned with our driving.
Speaker C:We were very popular.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:It doesn't, it doesn't harm.
Speaker A:I mean, most.
Speaker A:Well, back in the day, a lot of drivers did well because they were popular or because somebody noticed them.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Or.
Speaker C:Or a movie thing.
Speaker A:Or a movie thing or something like that.
Speaker A:So where, I mean, how did it move along from there?
Speaker A:Because, I mean, there's the famous story of you overtaking Vic Elford at the Nordschleifer, him and his Porsche, you in a Mini.
Speaker A:You were told that the Brands Hatch driving an mgb, kindly slow down because we don't want you winning and beating cobras and GT 40s.
Speaker C:That's true.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Actually, that Brands Hatch thing, we were Fort Roger and we were driving an mgb.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Factory.
Speaker C:Factory mgb.
Speaker C:It wasn't the time.
Speaker C:We had borrowed a car from the fact because we had access to the back door and we.
Speaker A:Did they not notice one was missing?
Speaker C:Well, no, we, we.
Speaker C:There was a slight change of color along anyhow, but what, being Kitten Young.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And having done a lot of club racing at brands and it was wet and it really.
Speaker C:The conditions sort of suited us, so we were really on the edge.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And you're quite right.
Speaker C:The clock of the course called me and when Roger was in the car saying, you know, you guys are out of order, you're using all the track and a bit more, and I want.
Speaker C:I'm going to black flag you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And we, I said, but why we have.
Speaker C:We haven't.
Speaker C:Has anybody.
Speaker C:Has there been any complaints about us balking or holding anybody up?
Speaker C:He said, no, no, that's the, that's not the point.
Speaker C:But I cannot have an mgb, a thing like an mgb, win my race.
Speaker C:I want a Porsche or a Cobra or something like that to it.
Speaker C:So just let me tell you, the Stuart Clark of the course was.
Speaker C:He was a good old boy and he was actually, he was A friend.
Speaker C:But he said just, I just want you and Roger to know that I am looking for an excuse to black flag you.
Speaker C:What?
Speaker C:To get you in.
Speaker A:Did playing the game give any benefits?
Speaker A:Were you.
Speaker A:Was there anything that came from that?
Speaker A:Because you were, shall we say, it played along.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:And out of the blue.
Speaker C:But nothing premeditated.
Speaker C:But it must have been a few years later because that race was sponsored by boac.
Speaker C:Yeah, the BOAC manager in the Caribbean.
Speaker C:Out there, the club racers got in touch with the BOAC manager saying will you sponsor some and fly some UK drivers out here in the winter or in our winter so we can race against.
Speaker C:The request came through to Nick Sarritt because of his connection motorsport and we got a phone call from him along with another driver, a good friend called Gordy Spice.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that was how we managed to hit the Caribbean.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So where did the rallying come along?
Speaker A:Because, I mean, but back in the day, it's like Paddy and yourself.
Speaker A:I mean it's like I said, they, you raced, you rally.
Speaker A:There was no real differential.
Speaker A:It's not be differentiated.
Speaker A:You did whatever came along.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:And in fact.
Speaker C:And more so in Ireland because when that apprenticeship was over, go back to Ireland, there was an at that initially no racetrack.
Speaker C:So you would do rally, you do hill climbs.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:You spend.
Speaker C:Because they had the facility of closed, closing the roads.
Speaker C:And I used to do through the winter you do things like the Galway Rally, Donegal Rally and so on.
Speaker C:Anything on wheels.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And you just take your chances.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I mean, what was the first major rally you drove in?
Speaker C:I suppose I won the.
Speaker C:I managed to win the Galway Rally but that was by default because the boys in Abingdon.
Speaker C:Sorry, my mum and dad lived in the Wicklow Hills out south of Dublin and occasionally, you know, they'd have a bit of a problem with the snow.
Speaker C:So they gave mum a set of studded wheel tires and wheels.
Speaker C:And I did the Galway Rally and realized that unusual that there was going to be snow.
Speaker C:So I.
Speaker C:I borrowed mum's wheels and tires and we.
Speaker C:We just aced the stage.
Speaker C:So these things happen and you, you know, but, but if you.
Speaker C:But I think with sport and things like that, if you see an opportunity, you just grab it with both hands.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:So from BMC and mgs and Healeys etc, what did you move on to score wise.
Speaker C:But then I was fortunate because the chemistry with Paddy when, like originally when Paddy was in at his prime in the 60s, the other two mini on the Work Work team were guys called Timo Mackin and Rauno Alton.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And like, when.
Speaker C:When Patty would come to the competition shop department, he.
Speaker C:He'd always be sort of, you know, taking me aside and said, what have they specified for the next event?
Speaker C:Yeah, you know, and I said, well, they've got this, that and the other.
Speaker C:He said, well, I must have that.
Speaker C:And I said, no, no, no, we've tried that.
Speaker C:And said, well, what about substances?
Speaker C:I said, don't you worry, I've already put another set on your car.
Speaker C:Yeah, you know, so.
Speaker C:And, you know, so obviously it got on well with Padland and indeed the sort of thing that.
Speaker C:That happened he.
Speaker C:Before a few years later, the cars going to Sebring, we prepared or built in the competition shop.
Speaker C:And Paddy sort of said, I don't want to spend the week at Silverstone going round and round making sure everything was pointed the right way.
Speaker C:And he would arrange for me and for an apprentice to be told, next week, we want you at spend the whole week at Silverstone.
Speaker C:And you'd be going through each car today gloriously.
Speaker C:People would call that testing, but in fact it was just making sure that everything was right.
Speaker A:So when one's better embedding in, make sure.
Speaker A:Because a lot of.
Speaker A:A lot of parts work better when they'd done a few hundred miles.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And things like that, you know, the stupid things like the wipers weren't lifting and the everything, you know, it was full throttle and then rattles and squeaks and things.
Speaker C:So it meant at the other end, in the States, when they got the cars out of the box.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:They could hit the ground running.
Speaker C:But as an apprentice, what?
Speaker C:You know, when nobody else.
Speaker C:There was no hierarchy with a competitive team like that where everybody is.
Speaker C:Rode in together.
Speaker C:What a fantastic opportunity.
Speaker C:Some of the people today would pay a lot of money.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, people will pay to go and do it.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:And I conclude doing this meant that people like Stuart turn and people like that would notice you.
Speaker A:You get noticed more and more as somebody who did a good job and gave results and I mean, at the end of the day, the only reason the manufacturers competed was for results, which was ultimately to sell cars.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:That was the day with the game.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:But also when Stuart was.
Speaker C:When they were doing.
Speaker C:When BMC was doing something like the RAC rally.
Speaker C:Yeah, because I was a driver and knew how to throw spanners at things.
Speaker C:I used to be Stuart's driver on driving the team car, the team manager's car all round the rail.
Speaker C:I was his chauffeur and we had another good guy, another mech in the back of the barge and ours was our high speed chase car really.
Speaker C:So great opportunity, especially if you're young.
Speaker A:And terrific because I mean another famous event you did was.
Speaker A:It was the London to Sydney, wasn't it?
Speaker C:And in fact how that happened was Paddy's regular co drivers, Tony Nash, and they decided they needed a third driver.
Speaker C:And what do they need with a third driver was someone to share the driving and to perhaps fix it if it stopped.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because of like 10,000 miles.
Speaker C:And so that was my brief, like I was saying about opportunity because back then to get a trip to Australia, I mean I felt that if this car broke down, whatever, well, I was going to carry it on my back.
Speaker C:What an opportunity to get to, you know, Australia.
Speaker C:None of this casual stuff today of backpacking and kids.
Speaker C:That was not, wasn't invented in those days.
Speaker C:Terrific opportunity because you were driving the.
Speaker A:Famous Landcrab, weren't you?
Speaker C: Yeah, the Austin: Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Thank goodness.
Speaker C:Could have been quicker but pad was particularly quick downhill with the thing.
Speaker C:Maybe that's because it was so heavy.
Speaker C:I definitely, I did.
Speaker C:I since wondered if in fact he, he used to do that sort of showing off to me that he was.
Speaker C:So he went that extra.
Speaker C:Yeah, I'll try that.
Speaker C:But, but we, we right at the.
Speaker C:We were right in contention and literally 100 miles from the end we came across Lucien Bianchi.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Who was leading in a work Citroen DS and he'd had a head on smash with another car and both the cars were locked together and on fire and we had a little fire extinguisher, like aerosol fire extinguisher.
Speaker C:And to our amazement we put the fire out.
Speaker C:I mean this was serious because Lucien was trapped in the car and we couldn't get at him because the door had compound.
Speaker C:We couldn't open the door on one side and the seat had ratcheted forward and.
Speaker C:And had trapped his legs or his feet under the seat.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Weird cars like that.
Speaker C:We had no idea where the seat catch was.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know, it could have been on the back.
Speaker C:Back seat here.
Speaker C:God.
Speaker C:God only know.
Speaker C:But, but he was hurt, you know, and he was unconscious.
Speaker C:But anyway, that was, it was sort of quite, quite sobering the whole.
Speaker A:I'm gonna say I think that was the one thing, I mean I Enjoy watching on YouTube a lot of the footage of the rallying from years ago.
Speaker A:And the cars were nowhere near, shall we say, as well prepared as they are now and everybody seemed to have a good time but I think because of the cars and the construction, it's like in Formula one, the accidents were more severe back then, weren't they?
Speaker A:Because the cars weren't as prepared as they are now.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:I mean we didn't.
Speaker C:It was early days for safety belts, if at all.
Speaker C:Fire extinguisher went.
Speaker C:Roll cages weren't.
Speaker C:I mean the only thing that roll cages started to creep in to try to give the thing a bit more strength rather than to prevent, you know, to stop it getting crushed inside.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So all of that stuff which we take for granted today.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Was.
Speaker C:Well, it's a bit like talking to kids.
Speaker C:Children today.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Grandchildren can't understand life.
Speaker C:How did you live without a telephone and without you.
Speaker C:You know.
Speaker A:So I mean from there you moved into management, didn't you?
Speaker A:Because I mean your famous role was with Nissan and unofficially, I don't know whether selling British built Nissans to Nissan in Japan.
Speaker C:I was fortunate that to be invited or asked by Nissan, this was in the early 90s, then mid-90s to sort out their touring car program because in.
Speaker C:In the UK there was about eight manufacturers involved with the btcc.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And Nissan where because just nothing in.
Speaker A:You'd already proved yourself a touring car champion back in the late 60s behind the wheel of a Mini so you out won the title.
Speaker C:Yeah, but these sort of things.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Fall your way.
Speaker C:But then you're totally out of touch because, you know, not being from the.
Speaker A:Late 60s, Minis bears no resemblance to a 90s Nissan touring car, does it?
Speaker C:But yeah, but I happen to know or had raced with the, the Nissan PR manager for Nissan Europe and it was his budget that was draining away and getting nothing and he had remembered we had known each other back then and he out of the blue he got in touch with me.
Speaker C:This was like 20 years later and I haven't a clue what to do to sort it out.
Speaker C:But as ever in things, whatever the job, you know, like we're looking around this room, I know nothing there about curtains, but give me 10 days and I can become an expert on when you start getting your head down and start looking.
Speaker C:So what I did was I had a word.
Speaker C:I've always felt that watch what's going on in Formula one and that will percolate.
Speaker C:And I happen to know a couple of Formula one design, notably the Jordan through the Irish Connection designer Gary Anderson.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And chat to him how he would tackle the thing and anyhow, we built a prototype for the upcoming season and it seemed to work very well.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:With his guidance.
Speaker C:And then we in Japan, Nismo and Nissan motorsported.
Speaker C:They had been, hadn't won a race all year and they had their final.
Speaker A:Because the big thing with the Japanese is saving face, isn't it?
Speaker A:Failure is not an acceptable thing.
Speaker C:So they asked us to take our prototype to Japan for the final race.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And one thing led to another was a little bit of be, little bit of craftiness in, in qualifying.
Speaker C:With about five minutes to go, the rate the, the qualifying was, was red flagged.
Speaker C:So we had nothing else with us.
Speaker C:So we just told Anthony, our driver, go down to wait at the traffic light at the end of the pit road.
Speaker C:And he said but I want to change this.
Speaker C:I said we've got nothing.
Speaker C:We, we have nothing to change.
Speaker C:But luckily we said, but it is getting drier.
Speaker C:It had to be.
Speaker C:It had really the downpour half an hour before and if we're first out you should be able to get a lap in, cross the start and finish line before many others.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we go down there and the Japanese are laughing at us because we, we.
Speaker C:And they're doing final tweaks for, for about 20 minutes.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Getting all set and they suddenly realize that they've got to get out quick because they've only got about two minutes.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So we said to Anthony, Anthony, pretend you can't start the thing.
Speaker C:We want to stall, we want to jam the end of the pit road.
Speaker C:Anyhow, this duly happened and we said, right, go.
Speaker C:Eventually, like sort of 30 seconds after the green light had gone, Go, go, go.
Speaker C:And off he went and he got across the, he got into his final lap and we put it on pole position.
Speaker C:The Nissan guys went crazy and they said, right, this big problem with starting.
Speaker C:We will get in touch in Tokyo with Hitachi.
Speaker C:We will get them to make us a special starter motor overnight.
Speaker C:Race prepared starter motor overnight.
Speaker C:So this will not happen again.
Speaker C:And we said, no, no, it's okay, we've sorted the problem.
Speaker C:They said no, no, no, no to Alec Aric.
Speaker C:No, no, no, this is not good enough, you know.
Speaker C:And we said, we have things in hand, you know, in one syllable and eventually say, oh, awesome.
Speaker C:They realized that we went, you know, that, that we went, we went these sort of dumb, dumb foreigners and we, anyway, we won the race.
Speaker C:And the next day on the Monday we go back and they get their driver, the Japanese driver to try our race car exactly as it was, who finished the race.
Speaker C:And I remember they had this big huddle and a meeting and it crossed my mind, it must have been like, because in Japan the drivers are here, big heroes, race drivers and they had this big huddle and it crossed my mind it must have been similar to a debrief from the pilots getting back from Pearl Harbor.
Speaker C:Yeah, you know they, they were really into.
Speaker C:And eventually the drivers gave it his blessing.
Speaker C:They turned and said, right, we want to order two cars from you from the uk, true Nissan Primeras, but a one condition is, or the main condition is nobody must know because they just could not lose face that they were having to buy Nissan Primeras from the UK for their championship.
Speaker C:And glad to say they won everything with the car, these two cars the following year.
Speaker A:Now by your own admission, you're like me, you're no spring chicken anymore.
Speaker A:Do you still compete?
Speaker A:Do you still do anything?
Speaker C:I think you should.
Speaker C:On my way up here to Lancashire from the South.
Speaker C:South.
Speaker C:I think you should just ask that woman in that Nissan that wanted my space on that roundabout.
Speaker A:And of all the cars you've driven and of all the events you've driven, which is your all time favorite car?
Speaker A:If you would have one of your race cars, a rally cars bike, which would you have?
Speaker A:I know it's an unfair thing because people who've driven at the level you have driven so many cars, they probably like quite a few of them back.
Speaker C:I, in the latter days of actually BMC or even British Leyland, I built a turbocharged Mini ultralight and the thing gave about 108, 190 horsepower.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that thing was difficult to drive but my goodness, did it go.
Speaker C:And it's something like one racetrack called Phoenix Park, It Road Circle but quite bumpy.
Speaker C:And I remember I got some, some of my pals said, Alec, you know that thing goes like the wind and when you shut it off at the end the flames come out the exhaust and all that stuff.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:But they said is it really necessary to do that?
Speaker C:Showboating down the straight with overtaking one car on one side and the other on the other.
Speaker C:And I said I actually can't help it, there's a mind of its own.
Speaker C:But no, but, but I did in, what was it?
Speaker C:I think 78.
Speaker C:I have a friend in the States and he got me, he asked me to drive, he had a 3 liter RSR Porsche EX Peter Greg and we finished third in Daytona 24 hour racing and that was, that was a fantastic experience.
Speaker A:Alec Poole, I hope your career goes on for many years and I would love to have sat and chatted with you more because I know, there's a lot of stories there, some of which we can't broadcast, but Alec Poole, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker A:Thank you very much for joining me on the backseat driver.
Speaker C:Thank you very much.
