Inside story - Family fortunes

By Jonathan Gill

28th June 2008

There's nothing new about sons following their fathers into top-flight motorsport. You only have to look at the current Formula One grid, where Nico Rosberg and Nelson Piquet Jr are both trying to emulate their world championship-winning dads.

And it was the same story a decade ago, when Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve were banging wheels in their efforts to match the achievements of their famous racing fathers. Give it a few years, and it wouldn’t be surprising if we saw a second generation of speedy Schumachers!

As with F1, the British Touring Car Championship has been playing its own generation game throughout its 50-year history. But this year, there’s an added twist. Young Andrew Jordan isn’t simply following in dad Mike’s wheeltracks – he’s racing against his old man.

It’s the first time father and son have gone head-to-head in Britain’s premier race series. Andrew is already proving to be a fast learner out on the track, but as any parent will tell you, this is exam season. So we wanted to see whether the rookie was up to speed on the facts and figures of the BTCC’s half-century history.

To put the knowledge of father and son to the ultimate test, we devised a head-to-head trivia quiz – a cross between Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old? and Family Fortunes.

We then created our very own mastermind studio inside Mike’s Eurotech team workshop. The scene was set for a battle of BTCC brains.

Before the lights go down, Mike is clearly the more nervous of the two. While his on-track experience will no doubt stand him in good stead, he isn’t confident he can overcome his son’s agile young mind in the hot seat.

“In theory I should win on age. But I asked him a few questions around the dinner table last night, and he was doing all right,” says Mike.

In contrast, Andrew is quite relaxed. “Father’s Day wasn’t long ago, so perhaps I’ll let him win,” he jokes! On the track, the pair race identical John Guest-sponsored Honda Integra Type Rs. We wanted to maintain a similarly level playing field, so both would face the same 40 questions.

These were divided into eight subject areas, testing the drivers’ knowledge on everything from the history of the BTCC series and past champions to the current rules and regulations. But there would be no phone a friend or ask the audience here!

We toss a coin to see who goes first, and Mike correctly calls tails. Being a decent dad, he volunteers to go first, so Andrew is led out of earshot. The lights are dimmed and the pressure is on – here we go.

Golden oldies

The first five questions focus on the first year of the BTCC in 1958. And although Mike was still in his pram back then, he gets off to a flying start.

He knows the series is marking its 50th anniversary in 2008 – easy for him as he also celebrates his 50th this year – and that Brands Hatch hosted the inaugural race.

Mike gets a black mark for not being able to tell us Jaguar won that first round, but correctly states that Jack Sears took the 1958 title, after a dramatic end-of-season shoot-out against Tommy Sopwith. That’s a respectable four out of five, which sets Mike up well for the rest of the quiz – and he looks satisfied with his performance so far.

Famous faces

The wheels come off a bit in the next section of our quiz, however. Although Mike remembers that F1 star David Coulthard has competed in the series, and that Aaron Slight was the superbike hero who switched to four wheels in 2002, he gets three other questions wrong.

He can’t name the double world champion who won the touring car class crown in 1963 (Damon’s dad, Graham Hill). Nor does he know what year Jim Clark took the BTCC crown outright (1964), or that both members of another famous motorsport family – Jimmy and Colin McRae – have raced in the series. Mike ends the round with six out of 10.

Past champions

Fortunately, Jordan senior seems to have been swotting up on his former BTCC title holders. He correctly names the two Italian and German champs (Gabriele Tarquini and Fabrizio Giovanardi, Jo Winkelhock and Frank Biela), knows Chris Hodgetts was the last back-to-back title winner before Matt Neal and that Swiss racer Alain Menu is a two-time BTCC champ. Mike also identifies the two French winners of the title: Laurent Aiello and Yvan Muller. That’s five out of five, and things are looking up once again.

Record breakers

Our man must also have had his head buried in the BTCC record books, as he gets four out of five right in this round. Mike knows Ford and Andy Rouse are the series’ most successful manufacturer and driver over the past 50 years, with 219 and 60 race victories respectively. He correctly identifies that Matt Neal banked a huge £250,000 cheque for winning a race as an independent in 1999 and names Tom Chilton as the youngest-ever victor. He only falls down when asked which team prevented a Vauxhall clean sweep of wins in 2001 – it was MG. So at the half-way point in our quiz, Jordan has scored an impressive 15 points out of a possible 20.

Rules and regulations

Just when it looks to be going so well, Jordan has another blip. He correctly names the success ballast ‘awarded’ to the top five finishers in each race (at 45kg, 36kg, 27kg, 18kg and 9kg). But Mike fails to get the pitlane speed limit correct (40mph, except at Croft and Knockhill, where it’s 30mph).

He can’t add up the total points on offer to a driver at each race meeting, either (15 points for winning each round, plus bonus points for being fastest qualifier, leading and setting the fastest lap, giving a total of 52 points). Nor does he know why a driver taking pole wouldn’t get that bonus point (it’s only handed out when the pole sitter lines up on the grid).

“I never get that many points!” Mike laughs. “I thought it was 10 for a race victory. Luckily, I have a very good race engineer who looks after all this stuff.”

Last season

Jordan’s grasp of numbers is worse than his knowledge of recent BTCC history. He’s forgotten that Fabrizio Giovanardi won 10 rounds in 2007, but recalls that the Italian’s team-mate Tom Chilton didn’t score a single victory.

And he gets two further points by recalling that Mat Jackson’s maiden victory came at Oulton Park and naming Colin Turkington as the driver who took BMW’s first triumph for years at Croft. He doesn’t know Turkington’s win was the closest in BTCC history, though. With 10 questions left, Mike’s on 22 points.

This season

The penultimate set of questions focuses on the current championship, and Mike bags four more points. He identifies Jason Plato’s SEAT diesel as car number 11 in 2008, and knows there have been eight different race winners so far this season, plus four different drivers on pole, and that live coverage of the series is screened on ITV4. The only question that stumps him is the name of the driver who took pole in the opening round. Mike goes for Giovanardi; it was Jackson.

Up close and personal

On to the home straight, and Dad stutters. He doesn’t know how many points Andrew has scored in his career (18) or his best qualifying place (10th). Still, Mike identifies himself as the oldest BTCC race winner, and knows he has finished ahead of Andrew more times this year than vice versa. He also recalls he beat Andrew by eight-thousandths-of-a-second at Thruxton in May. So, as the chequered flag falls on our quiz, Mike has a worthy 27 points out of 40. “I’ll be surprised if he tops that,” he says.

Predictably, Andrew makes a slower start than his dad. But he scores well in the historical sections, then closes the gap by getting most of the rules right. And he finishes strongly with 10 correct answers from the final 10.

The scores are totted up and a nail-biting recount is required. It’s almost too close to call – but youth has pipped experience, with Andrew winning by a single point: 28 to 27. “I knew he’d get all the current ones right, yet hoped to have enough to hold him off,” says defeated dad Mike. “I told you he was a quick learner!”