Racing for Walkinshaw

In 1975, at Mallory Park, I made my race debut in British Touring car Championship—it was the first round of a new season. I was driving the Toyota Celica Samuri 1600-cc for the Super Samuri Team. I diced the whole race against this Ford Escort RS2000 entered by London Sports Car Centre, it was in a different class to me, the 2-liter class, whereas I was in the 1.6 one. We diced all race long, but we didn’t touch and had a fair fight throughout. At the end of the race I’d won my class. As I got out of my car a small gathering of people formed around me—they were from Pride and Clarke, the Toyota importers at the time, various members of my Super Samuri Team, and Mike Copelan the motorsport manager. They were all congratulating me saying, “Well done Win!” All of a sudden, this stocky bloke pushed through the little crowd speaking to me in a Scottish accent. He said, “Win’s a funny name!” I replied, “It’s short for Winston.” He carried on, “I understand this is your first touring car race.” I nodded in agreement. He held his hand out to shake mine and carried on talking, “You’re very good; one day I’ll have my own touring car team and you’ll be my driver.” The man was Tom Walkinshaw, and that is honestly how we first met. For me it was an absolutely incredible and unexpected meeting that had such a huge impact on my racing career, in fact my whole life.

Sometime later, at Donington Park, I was approached by Eddie Hinckley (Tom’s first employee), I was still contracted to drive for Toyota. Something had happened to their regular driver, Dieter Quester, he’d missed his plane and hadn’t arrived at the circuit. I was asked by Eddie if I could step into Quester’s place. Motor racing, in those days, was very different than today. The Toyota guys were only too pleased to let me have a go in the BMW. I qualified the car quite reasonably, but the car failed in the race and I retired. Little by little, though, I was being drawn toward Tom and racing for him. I got more involved with him when I drove in the BMW County Championship. At the end of 1979 I was still contracted to drive for Toyota. Tom asked me if I’d like to drive for him full time for the 1980 season, I agreed and that was the real start of my career racing for him. Tom is a very focused, determined and ambitious man, and I asked him why he wanted me to drive his Mazda RX-7. He simply said, “Well, I’ve got other plans.” I didn’t then, but I now know, he was at the very start of the Jaguar plan with Chuck Nicholson driving the XJS, which ultimately led to XJR Jaguar and the assault on the Le Mans 24-hour race. Even in those days, his ultimate goal was to have his own team in Formula One—which he achieved with Arrows.