Historic Racing News podcast

Romain Dumas talks about his Le Mans wins for Audi and for Porsche and the most unusual job interview with Roger Penske. He looks back at the Dakar rally and his amazing feats in the all-electric Ford Transit Supervan. Paul Tarsey is joined by the Chairman of the Royal Automobile Club, Duncan Wiltshire. Alex Brundle is very involved with the world of historic racing these days as well as commentating at Grand Prix weekends. He will explain how he juggles all the various parts of his life so successfully.

Nigel Mansell tells Paul Jurd about his amazing career in a surprisingly candid interview, and Jim Roller looks at some multi-million dollar sales at the auctions in Monterey Car Week. James Newbold looks back to the years where F3000 was the acknowledged stepping stone to F1. Josh Parsons, Manager of the Goodwood Road Racing Club, looks forward to Revival with Paul Tarsey and regular stars Mike Jordan and Mike Whittaker give their thoughts on the upcoming event.

Paul Jurd talks to Mario Andretti about his fantastic career all over the world. Mario talks frankly about his days with Lotus, his Indycar experiences and NASCAR. Don Wales tells us about his grandfather, Sir Malcolm Campbell on the centenary of Campbell’s breaking of the 150mph Land Speed Record in his Blue Bird leviathan. At the other end of the scale, we chat about the upcoming Shere Hill Climb.

Derek Warwick talks to Paul Tarsey about his five participations at Le Mans, BP Motorsport supremo Les Thacker about getting arrested in the paddock and Graham Tyler re-lives some Le Mans thoughts. Paul Jurd is your host.

Derek Bell tells Paul Tarsey about the time he drove the glorious Harrods-liveried McLaren at Le Mans with his son Justin and Jaguar winner Andy Wallace. Continuing our Le Mans theme, Robin Donovan chats to Paul Jurd about his days in a variety of C2 machines before hitting the big time racing a Kremer Porsche 962/K8 to fourth place with Derek Bell and Jurgen Lassig. Mark Raffauf is in conversation with Jim Roller about the turbulent but hugely exciting, years of sportscar racing in the USA in the 1990s under his IMSA organisation. Our studio guest is Neil Smith who digs deep into the history of TWR and those wonderful Silk Cut Jaguars.

If it’s May it must be the Indianapolis 500 and we take an in depth look at the race from the earliest event in 1911 right up to the present day. We also talk to Guy Loveridge about 1950s Grand Prix driver Peter Collins who, with his American wife Louise, were the glamour couple of the race circuits of the world. When he won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1958 in a works Ferrari he had the world at his feet but three weeks later, he was killed in an accident at the Nurburgring Nordschleife during the German Grand Prix. We hear all about Peter and Louise and their life together.

Eddie Jordan has been labelled as a ‘maverick’ and a ‘showman’ but behind all the brouhaha was a very astute businessman who loved his racing. We take a look at the ‘man behind the mask’ in our tribute to Eddie who died last month. We also look at EJ the racing driver and also what happened to the team after he sold it on. Goodwood Members Meeting takes place later in April and we highlight some of the things to look out for.

Jim Roller has taken in some Florida sunshine as he visits Brian Redman’s Targa 66. He talks to Bill Auberlen, Scott George and Brad Kettler about this unique event and the cars they run there. Paul Tarsey and Paul Jurd discuss the success of Race Retro and Simon Owen from Scalextric talks to Joe Bradley about the new season’s cars from the world’s leading slot car manufacturer.

Motorsport legend Brian Redman talks to Jim Roller and previews the 2025 edition of his ‘Targa 66’. Paul Jurd looks back to the first-ever Daytona 500, which was more dramatic than any Hollywood movie could have come up with and Paul Tarsey leads a somewhat off-the-wall discussion about the Ecclestone Collection.

Joe Hale, President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, tells Jim Roller about the sale of some vehicles from the museum’s collection. The first car to go under the hammer will be the ex-Fangio and ex-Moss Mercedes W196 Streamliner with an expected sale of $50 Million! Paul Jurd reviews the career of Giancarlo Baghetti who won his first-ever Grand Prix, and asks why the comparative unknown got a factory Ferrari drive.

We complete our conversation with Derek Warwick. We talk more about his Formula One career and his stellar sportscar drives which brought him a World Championship and a win at Le Mans. Regular contributor Les Thacker tells us about Derek’s early days in the Toleman Formula Two team which led to the amazing exploits in Grand Prix racing, all under Les’s BP Motorsport banner. We also hear from John Mayhead who talks about ‘Goldie’ Gardener who was perhaps the least known, but in some ways the most successful record breakers of the ’30s 40s and who was still breaking LSRs in the 1960s.

Derek Warwick remembers his times in the junior formulae, also as a Le Mans winner and right up to date as a Driver Steward at Formula One races around the world. Goodwood TT winner, Mike Whitaker, gives Paul Jurd the lowdown on seven years of trying to get his TVR onto the top of the charts and Bob Evans recalls his career which saw him driving in Formula One for BRM and Lotus. His views on some of the 1970s team managers is worth a listen on its own!

Paul Tarsey talks to one of the greatest racing drivers of all time, Sir Jackie Stewart about racing, both now and then. Jim Roller hears from George Levy about his book about Jim Hall and his Chaparal cars and Nick Whale brings interesting thoughts on the current auction scene.

It is a bit of a different show this time around. Our broadcast colleague and producer Jim Roller is marooned in the basement of his home in North Carolina dealing with the recent devastation caused by Storm Helene. Consequently we are unable to bring you the intended podcast but instead Paul Jurd and Paul Tarsey sat down and reminisced about the racetracks of the UK mainland. Amongst their memories, Tarsey remembers his first ever motor sport outing to see the Silver Arrows demonstrated by Peter Collins and Tony Brooks at Oulton Park and PJ recalls Thruxton in the 1960s.

Motorsport legend Dick Bennetts talks about everything from being Ayrton Senna’s team owner before the Brazilian superstar got to Formula One to running Nigel Mansell in a Ford Mondeo. Derek Drinkwater met up with Jim Roller at Watkins Glen and they talked about Derek’s epic coast-to-coast-and-back-again trip across the USA in his Cadillac Le Monstre, and Joe Bradley investigates the best and worst books about Ayrton Senna.

Richard Petty is on the show this month! ‘The King’ tells Paul Tarsey about his NASCAR career, the highs and lows of being the leading stock car driver of his generation as well as a team owner. He brought over that incredible Plymouth Superbird from 1970 and his son Kyle drove that up the Goodwood Hill. Martin Warner brings us up to date on plans for the wonderful Shere Hill Climb which will take place on 1st September near Guildford in the Surrey Hills, plus auction news from Jim Roller and Paul Jurd’s reflections of this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Peter Stevens talks about his amazing career as a designer of road cars, supercars and much more, including the Group C derived Jaguar XJR15 and the notorious one-make series for these cars which supported 3 Grands Prix in 1991 and had a $1million prize fund. Plus Derek Drinkwater, who raced his Cadillac ‘Le Monstre’ re-creation at Daytona last November and then drove it (towing a caravan!) all the way across the USA to Laguna Seca in California.

The team takes a look back to Monaco Historique and Nick Padmore talks Paul Tarsey about how he he raced two of Colin Chapman’s famous JPS Lotus cars at this year’s event. He also explains some of the unique challenges which Monaco can pose and how he was invited to take Zak Brown and Adrian Newey on a track walk, the day before the action started, to explain to them both where Monaco’s most treacherous spots await the unwary. Zak was racing the ex-Alan Jones Williams FW07 and Adrian was racing his GLTL Lotus 49 over the weekend. Monaco is not just about the racing and Jim Roller discusses the three high-profile auctions which took place over the same weekend in the principality, especially looking at the sale of Jody Scheckter’s collection. Paul Jurd has been reading Peter Higham’s latest book in his ‘Grand Prix Cars, Car by car’ series which covers the decade 2000 to 2009.

May 1st marks the 30th anniversary of Ayrton Senna’s death and the HRN team talk about the legendary Brazilian and the legacy he left. The team play a Senna-themed round of their gameshow ‘Corridors of Power’ when they look for Ayrton’s greatest-ever Monaco Grand Prix. Nick Whale joins the team once again and this time talks about when is a historic racing car genuine and when is it just a new car with an old chassis plate!

Jim Roller talks to Ray Evernham about his full and varied career from the early days as a driver in ‘modifieds’ through his big break with the International Race of Champions (IROC) team, to his career defining role as one of the greatest-ever NASCAR crew chiefs. Bruce Jones, Peter Snowdon and Nick Padmore discuss the recent Goodwood Members Meeting and Joe Bradley looks back at the life of journalist and writer Michael Cotton.