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The idea behind the Mini Challenge CLUBSPORT championship is for MINI racers to enjoy a close competitive series whilst keeping costs low, making the series ideal for amateur drivers with a limited budget.
The idea behind this monthly talk show is to provide a fun community show where we all come together and enable the racers and business partners to gain extra exposure, with guests on the live shows rotating around the partners and drivers, and anyone else involved in the championship. The show is designed to be light and fun, and will also enable us to promote upcoming activities and discuss those that have already happened. Make sure you tune in to the live shows on YouTube and Facebook, and your comments/questions added during the live shows can even be put up on screen (along with your profile name and photo) and answered live in the interactive episodes. But this podcast also enables you to listen back to the shows whilst driving, walking, or working out!! (or in the pub...)
Five, four, three, two.
Greetings.
If that doesn't get you in the mood,
I don't know what will.
That is why I love
commentating on you guys.
You just put on some serious entertainment,
but welcome to the launch.
It's episode one of a whole
new series that is done for
you and with you.
Everyone to do with mini
challenge club sport.
And there's a very big
reason why we've done this.
And that's because it's
driven from the top by some
guys that I've known for many years.
I always upset them when I
tell them how long I've
been commentating on them.
But they're always great
entertainment and they're
really pushing this championship forward.
Let's find out what this
show is going to be all
about and what their plans
are for this championship.
Gentlemen.
Hello.
Hello there.
How are you?
All right?
Did you like that intro?
Did you like that, guys?
That's the first time you've seen it.
That was good, that was.
Very good.
Really good.
Really, really good.
Really good.
I think, you know, it summed it up,
didn't it, guys?
And this is why we spoke in
the first place is that, you know,
you wanted to create
something exciting because
that's how you feel about
this championship.
I'm going to start with Rob.
For no particular reason,
you're actually right next
to me here on the screen.
I'm trying to remember if
I've ever commentated on
you in anything other than minis.
Maybe.
I don't know how long you've
been doing it.
But, I mean,
I first raced in minis in 2005.
Okay.
In the John Cooper Challenge days.
That's when I actually started.
Wow.
So I then drifted off and
did a few other things.
Ciaz, Lotus, Clios.
But I found actually the
minis were the only thing I
was any good at.
So I came back to them.
Yeah.
I love the minis.
I always have done.
I followed it when I wasn't racing in it.
I did 160 races in them.
It was just such good times.
It was very sad towards the
end when we found ourselves
tagged onto the BMWs and I
felt at that time I needed
to do something about it.
I knew, the trouble was I got to a point,
and Glenn will understand this,
that some of the drivers
that were coming along
you know,
the parents were younger than me
and it was starting to get
a bit embarrassing and I
thought that I need to
maybe drop off a bit.
So having, you know,
having sort of had a few
thoughts about this one
night after a few glasses of wine,
it sort of progressed.
And I found myself talking
to Tom Halliwell the last
time I'd seen Tom was in
the back of a truck and I
was warning him about never
to take me on on the
circuit and persuaded him
that we should meet up at
Donington and try and get
this thing off the ground.
And, you know, and it has,
and it's been character building,
it's been hard work,
but I think Ty and I will
both admit that it's been
hugely successful.
And as we developed it,
it was time to actually
bring other people in and
Glenn fitted the job perfectly.
So we were very pleased to
get Glenn on board at the
end of last year.
Well, and I'll bring Glenn,
drop to you here and you,
And the stories I've been hearing is,
let me make sure I get this right,
is that championship coordinator,
technical scapegoat, I mean,
boss of technical,
and you used to run a team
that involved Rob,
but you managed to wait
until Tom had left till you
became the boss of that team.
Yeah,
I deferred my management until I
realised that Tom had gone
and then I thought, right,
now's the time to start.
Thanks, guys.
Yeah, thank you.
We've now got our own backer.
So yeah,
I used to run my own cars and a
friend's cars and stuff way back,
just doing club racing and
things like that.
And then I decided to take a
career change five, six years ago,
and I got involved in
motorsport full time.
So got involved with a team
where I happened to end up
running Rob in minis.
And through that sort of
relationship that's built
over a few years and knowing the cars,
knowing how the motorsport
side of things work,
Towards the end of last year,
when they realised I was
looking at maybe changing again,
they approached me and said,
would you fancy doing this?
Well, it's ideal.
It's the next step, really, isn't it?
So it works out really well for me.
So knowing the technical
side of having run cars,
so knowing how regs work,
all that sort of thing, I was,
as Rob keeps calling us,
puncher turned gamekeeper.
Yeah.
And so far,
I think it's worked so far this year.
I appreciated the
opportunity and I jumped on it.
And as Robert said,
it's definitely character building.
It's quite entertaining at times.
I mean, the thing is,
for Tom and I last year,
it was such a learning curve.
It would be easy.
And honestly, you know,
Anthony Williams at Mini
Challenge tried to put us off.
I think he was relieved in
the end when we decided to
get on with it because he
wanted to get his own back on us.
And, you know, it was really,
really very tough going
early doors because you
can't believe what's
involved in running a series.
It's so much easier to race.
You know, you turn up, race, moan,
and then go home.
but when you're doing this,
you just moan all the time.
But no, I mean, it's, it's, it's, um,
it was, and I think Glenn realised,
you know, that it's,
you can't be everyone's best friend.
You've got to, you know,
you've got to be at arm's length,
but you can also provide,
you're dealing with
different characters all of the time.
It may be the parent, you know, the driver,
the driver who's not doing
so well this weekend,
the driver who's coming good.
There's so many challenges.
And, um,
I think that's part of the
excitement for us.
And I think also, as Tom will talk about,
we tried to create,
what we really wanted to do
was create a championship
that we would have wanted
to race in when we were racing.
And we're getting there.
As a team manager as well,
I think jumping into the role that I have,
a lot of the people on the
grid already knew me and my
technical background,
so that kind of helped as well.
So you've already got,
you're not coming in as a blind person.
you've recruited,
they all kind of know you
and they're all willing to talk to you.
They all understand that you
do have some idea what
you're talking about.
So it does help.
Yeah, no, totally.
But on that front,
how do they then speak with you about,
you know,
they know that Glenn knows what
he's talking about and then in comes you,
Tom.
I'm only joking, mate.
Yeah.
I'm just the mascot.
Yeah.
No, you know...
No, alluding to what Rob said, you know,
when we set this
sort of hair running.
It was based upon what would
we want to race in?
You know,
both me and Rob are very
passionate about the Mini
Coopers and the Essers.
You know, my background was that we're not,
you know,
always want to have a go in a 56
challenge car, tested one,
couldn't raise the budget,
got into one and had a great time.
And when they started to
fall by the wayside a little bit,
and when we totally understand why,
it seemed right to give it a go.
And we've put a lot of time,
a lot of effort, a lot of energy,
everything we can into it
and I'm very very proud to
sit here and where we are
on grid numbers and the
drivers we've got the sort
of the ferocity of the
racing at times and you
know the commercial
partners we've got who you
know without them this
wouldn't be happening you
know and taking Glenn on in
this year has allowed me
and Rob to sort of not sit
back but be able to focus
on a different part of the
championship and the development of it
you know,
the weekends we can then sort of
analyze in better detail.
And with that attract, you know,
further partners and
further commercial support
for the championship for
the years to come, you know,
this year we introduced Ravenol, which is,
which again, you know, huge,
huge brand to bring on board, you know,
on top of Airtec and Garmin.
Yeah, BMTR alongside Toyo.
You know,
we've got further ones to
announce for later this
year and also going into next year.
So, no, no, it's really good.
And we probably couldn't
have done that without
having Glenn on board
because he's took an
element of pressure away
from us that's allowed us
to focus on the actual championship.
Well, and I mean, the key... Sorry, go on,
Rob.
You know,
I think the key to it is that
actually we've been able
to... When we attracted
Garmin at the start,
that was a big plus for us
because with Garmin came, you know,
the kudos of Garmin.
We're pleased that actually
the relationship has been
fantastic because basically
they've created the catalyst,
which every driver who uses,
who they purchase.
And it's been a great relationship,
especially with a company that size,
And with us,
just as a sort of startup business,
it's been very good to have
their support.
And it's great to see them
come along to races and
being involved and doing their bit.
So we're very pleased to see not only that,
that, you know,
we have other partners like
Norfolk Mini who,
You know, driver Neil Clark,
he's been involved.
Gary Patworth,
they've been involved since
we were racing and they
wanted to promote their
business through the championship.
And that, you know,
it's little relationships
like that that we've been
able to develop.
And I think that actually because of that,
the BARC,
have seen that we're quite
serious about what we're
doing and have given us the
opportunity to have some
prime slots because we know
there is a pecking order
that starts with BTCC and
then down to British, you know, the three,
so Beta GT and then down to
the trucks and it filters through.
But we picked up some prime slots.
We were able to pick up live stream,
which is good.
And with that, it builds good, you know,
builds good relationships in the future.
And it's really for the drivers to,
For the drivers, it means that they,
while we're able to do this,
it means that it keeps the
cost down for the drivers
and they get even better service.
Absolutely.
And I mean,
it's quite hard to believe that
this is only the second season.
I mean, it just,
what you've done already is
quite incredible, Tom.
Oh, is that me?
Or is it generally me?
I was going to jump in here.
Yeah, go for it, Glenn.
One of the reasons I was
very happy to take on this
role is because obviously I
ran cars in the
championship in its first year.
And even from that first year,
you could see that, obviously,
it's a growing championship.
You could see the potential in it.
And having known, obviously,
Rob and Tom beforehand,
you know the commitment
that's going to be behind it.
So it wasn't really much.
It was pretty much a
no-brainer for me to jump
on board because you know
it's going to get driven forward.
And you know that they're
always looking to make it
bigger and better than it
can possibly be.
I mean, you think, year one and year two,
supporting trucks,
the second biggest race
championship in the UK.
You can't really ask for
much more than that as a
driver wanting to go to a championship.
Agreed.
I mean,
you talk about this coming weekend.
OK,
I'm now putting a timestamp on this
recording because this is a recording.
Future episodes are going to be live,
just so you know.
And people who are watching
it are able to ask
questions and comments and
I'll put them up on the screen.
But this weekend,
Donington Park is the big
truck fest up there.
And Tom,
you were making the comment that
the infield camping, for example,
is full.
It's full yeah you know I'll
be honest I didn't expect
that you know economically
and what's going on at the
moment but yeah it's full
it's sold out which just
shows the sign of how many
people are going to be
there I mean we never
really get confirmed
figures but we've been told
on the grapevine that it was
right up there last year
with BTCC in terms of gate numbers,
you know,
which normally attracts the most people,
you know,
the biggest four-wheeled crowd
at Donington for the year.
So it's going to be an exciting weekend.
And, you know, me and Rob Glenn,
we're really proud that
we're there this weekend, you know,
and there's nothing better
for a racing driver than
driving in front of a full crowd.
Oh, yeah, I bet.
I can imagine, especially there.
You get to see it as you're
going down the crane and
see the crowd all on the side there.
It's going to be epic.
And of course,
it's a lot of stuff going
off track as well.
I think they put music on
and stuff like that.
You guys have got your own
because you've got a good
sort of set up as the mini
challenge club sport hub
with your own music,
your own DJ pretty much, haven't you?
Yeah, we've set up this sunset garden,
which is, it sounds very grand,
and actually it is,
which basically means you
turn up and get a free beer
or a glass of Prosecco.
But we encourage all our
drivers and our partners to come along.
And in the majority,
we'll get 95% come along
and they enjoy it.
And, you know,
as long as they haven't got
any issues with their cars,
they'll come along for an hour.
We've got a DJ races in our
championship who, Paul Sawyer,
who puts a set together.
And he actually releases
this music on SoundCloud.
And in fact,
the streaming that he did for
the last meeting at Thruxton,
they've had over 20,000
hits on Spotify with him,
which is amazing.
I mean,
You know, so, you know,
there's a lot of things
that we're proud of.
I mean, you know,
I know that last year we
had one particular video from Donington,
which I think we might have
been on the intro to this
with Ross Alexander.
He had over 104,000 hits on
Instagram for that.
And that's, you know, for us,
that's so good.
The fact that he was going
off the track and he about
to hit the wall, it doesn't matter to us,
he was just getting coverage,
which is the important thing.
That's what a crowd like...
From that point of view,
it's what we've got,
and Tom and I have
certainly raced in
championships where it doesn't happen,
but there's a good feeling
in the paddock that
You know,
and a lot of this was down to
Glenn last year when Glenn
was helping out lads and
girls who were struggling
with their cars.
He was working for one team,
but he was helping everyone out.
And it created a fantastic
sort of intimate feeling
where there's competitiveness,
which you must have.
But also, you know,
you know that if you've got
a dodgy engine or somebody needs them out,
there's someone in the
paddock who would help you.
And I think that we saw that.
I mean, at the end of last year,
we were going to have a
little bit of a get-together and we said,
OK, well,
we'll get together at Donington
after the final meeting.
And I said to Tom, at the time,
I thought we were probably
about 30 people turned up.
Well, we had 104 turn up to that.
Wow.
And so that sort of gave us
a good feeling that maybe
the fact that they hadn't
said anything nice,
but they certainly turned
up and enjoyed it.
So we knew we'd done something right.
And I think there's a lot to
be said for that.
I mean, it's safe to say, as a commentator,
when you have exciting racing,
it makes our job a lot easier,
to be honest with you.
We don't have to create the entertainment.
We're just retelling the
story of what's happening on circuit.
And you guys always, without fail,
it's great entertainment.
And it must be even better
from behind the wheel.
So you're providing that for
the drivers to come and enjoy.
Great exposure in front of big crowds.
But there's this big phrase
that says you spend much
more time in the paddock
than you do on circuit on a race weekend.
And the fact that you
collectively have grabbed
the ball by the horns on
that and making sure it is
that everybody is enjoying
that time together in different ways.
I mean, yeah, it's true.
I mean, in the old days,
we used to fight in the paddock,
but that's gone back a long time.
You were just talking about
Kuma earlier this year.
Those days are long gone I'm
afraid and actually you get
a lot more by working
together and then actually
it's wonderful to see we've
had instances where two
drivers are chasing a class
championship and they've
been helping each other in
the evenings with an engine
change or damage from a
fire and we don't want that
to go and I think it's
It's good that actually,
as I said to you at an earlier point,
we've only lost drivers to
them getting married or
running out of budget.
So we think we're doing something right,
but we will always,
always constantly evolve.
And the three of us are
always working on ways,
however batty they are,
to come up with things that
will give drivers a little bit more.
Well, and on that front,
take the opportunity to say as well,
where you say the three,
obviously you've engaged
with myself and Visual PR
to try and do this,
where we'll give exposure to the drivers,
lots of the stories behind the scenes,
maybe we'll chat to winners, partners,
we'll get the partners on
and we'll chat to them about what they do,
their involvement,
why they're involved in mini challenge,
club sport, all of those kind of things.
But there's also a person
that couldn't make it tonight,
but it's very important to
sort of help keep that
message going for everybody,
publicise all of those
people I've just mentioned.
And that is Leanne Fay,
that certainly Tom and I
have known for many years back in MG days,
for goodness sake.
And she'll take the
collateral that we give.
And she's just a mad
motorsport fan as well.
And so it's to make sure
that the championship and
everybody involved with it
is getting people
as much exposure and what
have you as possible.
definitely I mean and
Leanne's actually going to
be at Donington herself all
weekend so she's going to
be doing a lot of live
interviews with that
supported by Owen who's our
resident sort of
photographer he's going to
be doing the camera work as
well so there'll be a lot
of live social media posts
going out especially at
Donington again to push
forward on what we've
always done but we're
trying to take it to the
next level again you know
just again for competitors
and partners really and
to show where we want to be.
Which I think I have to applaud you guys.
It's absolutely brilliant.
Add to that, by the way,
I'll put up on the screen
now is that you mentioned
about streaming this
weekend is that you've got
the stream for Saturday.
If you go to the BARC YouTube channel,
you'll see that it's got them all there.
Saturdays is one stream and
then you've got the Sunday
stream for those that are
seeing this on the screen.
You'll see the links, but you can,
as I say,
go to BARC YouTube channel and
you get to watch it.
So I get this and I really
liked it as well.
I was excited to work with
you guys is that you're
trying to promote the championship.
You're trying to
promote the drivers, promote the partners,
do the things,
I think you've all summed
it up yourselves already,
is what you would have
wanted when you were racing.
Absolutely.
The interesting thing is, you know,
where we created initially
four different classes
really to fill the numbers,
but the racing that you get
in the classes, I mean,
more often than not,
you've got three or four
coopers at the back and week in, week out,
they have some fantastic races.
And it just goes to show you
don't need to have more than that.
You know,
our numbers in Open are very
limited this year.
But if you look at Ross and
Steve at the last meeting,
they were just racing hammer and top.
And actually, it's great that, you know,
we keep getting complimented by the,
by our clerks of how well
our drivers are behaving.
And that is another thing that really,
Tom and I last year,
we pushed hard for it
because we didn't want this
to be a crash fest.
They've taken it on board.
And actually with that,
there's been some brilliant racing.
And I think for anyone for the future,
looking at where they want to race,
if it's a dad and a lad in
a van or a new team coming
in and they want the opportunity,
to to try something new in a
more sort of family
intimate situation knowing
that they're going to get
good back you know good
money is with the cars that
we all all three of us
absolutely adore is is the
best place to be and I
think that that's that's
what we what's we you know
that's why we we we took
the decision to invest in
in in in the youtube and
more on uh on the on the
the social media side
because it's such a big part nowadays
And I just want to add
another comment I think is
absolutely critical,
and I think it's a drum
that I certainly will be
banging as many times as
possible in each episode,
is that there is a
misconception that these
cars are expensive to run
because of where they are
as well in other championships.
But it's like going, no,
the whole idea is this can
be an affordable
championship to come and race in.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, that was what we all set out with.
It was a case of looking...
what, what,
what the budget would be for the season.
Um, and that's, you know,
put together by me and Rob.
So we know we'd go back on
historical data of what
we'd need in terms of
consumables through a year.
Um, you know, we've limited tire numbers,
so then it doesn't allow
somebody to just keep going,
throwing tires at it.
However,
what it does is allow drivers to
be more calculated and
scientific and think about
how they're going to win
the championship.
Um,
So we've kept our iron costs,
but also trying to keep it equal.
And, you know, to reiterate what Rob said,
you know,
the close racing that we've had
throughout the three classes all year,
and we haven't had a single red flag.
We haven't had a single real
driver incident.
But, you know,
I cannot take my hat off to
the two open drivers and
the three Cooper drivers at Thruxton.
I haven't seen racing like
that for a long time and that clean.
and very, very close.
And no, really good.
And Glenn, from your perspective,
taking it from the
technical side and from an
ex-team boss and everything,
is that it must be clear
that it was important to
keep it within the
restrained or constrained
levels so that it could be
affordable racing.
Well, yeah,
that's one of the things I
really liked about the idea
behind the championship is
it wasn't going to be open wallet racing.
The idea is to keep the cost down
as best as you can and keep
it as close racing as
physically possible and I I
believe over the two years
that if you look at the way
the racing's been going
watch live streams all that
sort of stuff you can't get
much closer racing
particularly at Thruxton I
mean them two open cars at
Thruxton were just unreal
they were crossing the line
side by side every lap for
15 laps it was just awesome
I think it picked up I
think it's good and I think
it's go on Tom sorry it's lagging uh
I was going to say,
and as great as live stream is,
it doesn't, you know,
the cameras can only pick
up so much what's happening
on the grid and during that
part of the race.
And actually, if you get there in person,
you'll see much better
racing than you do on YouTube,
because they're not just
taking out the best part.
There's so much going on out there.
And the way that we split
the grids off the line so
that each one's having
their own sort of race within a race is
the cameras can't pick that
up and follow it fast enough.
So really, if somebody's got an interest,
they need to come and have a watch.
And I do take exception with
you guys about that.
As a commentator,
it makes that blooming hard work,
I can tell you,
that you've got all these
flights to pick up on.
But that was actually the
point I was going to make next,
was that...
I think I'm pretty sure I
even said it in the Castle
Combe commentary is that
you are guaranteed to be
involved in a fight, in a race,
because there is,
it doesn't matter where you
are in the field,
you are going to be
involved in a race with somebody.
And that was one thing that
just massively stood out to me that,
because you don't really
want to have a glorified
test day where you're on your own.
And it was that it was just
these multiple clumps of
cars having their own fights.
It didn't matter.
Yeah, yeah.
And that just shows that the
regulations between us to
get together for this year have worked.
What we've done is promote good, clean,
close racing.
So that's down to the regs
and obviously the abilities
of the drivers.
You can't do any of it
without the drivers at the
end of the day.
No, exactly.
And I think that hopefully
people watching this will
get a feel for it.
If you're involved in it,
you'll know what we're
already talking about.
If you're interested,
then make sure if you're at
a circuit where the Mini
Challenge Club Sports
is that go and have a chat with the guys.
They're very approachable.
Even Tom is approachable.
As long as there's not a full moon,
if it is, then go to Rob instead.
Yeah, too right.
He's approachable as long as
you've got a beer in your hand for him.
Always.
Even a full moon is fine.
We've got a beer for him.
That's fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or a curry.
That'll do him as well.
Yeah, too right.
But do go and have a chat with them,
ask questions, find out.
I encourage you.
And I'm allowed to say that
because I'm independent
from these guys and I do encourage it.
The whole idea of this is that we are,
as I said,
we're publicising for the drivers,
the partners, what's coming up,
any news or announcements.
I mean, one, for example, Tom,
you were saying that at
Donington this weekend,
you've managed to get these sims set up.
What's that?
Yeah, so...
So half the press,
we've signed an initial deal with PSM,
who are a simulator company.
So they're going to be
bringing along a number of
simulators at the weekend.
So drivers, family members, children,
general public can come and
have a go on the simulator.
We're in the early throes
now of putting together a competition.
So probably the fastest
three from the weekend,
whatever that may be.
We'll be entitled to a prize.
We're just putting that all together.
But then this relationship
is not just for Donington.
We're looking at building on
it throughout the year and
also looking into maybe
doing some stuff in the
off-season and especially
moving into 2025.
So, again,
something exciting and another
new announcement,
even at this sort of
late-ish stage during the
season for our guys.
So, yeah.
I love the sound of that.
It sounds so good.
Just to let you know,
Tom's got a week on it,
so you can try and beat Glenn and I.
Trying to move house, mate.
Ain't got no time for a cent.
Yeah, your honour.
Yeah, we believe it.
But another one as well, Glenn,
coming to you,
is that I know that there
was a big thing about
trying to promote the do at
the end of the year as well.
Yeah, so it's not really,
we're trying not to promote
it as an awards ceremony
because obviously we want
to celebrate a really good
season with everybody, the drivers,
the teams and
family members friends
everybody so we are
obviously everybody the
drivers do know we've
organized to have a end of
season party in october
where hopefully all the
drivers will bring friends
family team members all
that sort of stuff to get
together and celebrate what
so far and should hopefully
be for the end of the year
a very very good season for
everybody involved and
again it's just it's
pushing onto that sort of
family atmosphere within
the paddock you just want everybody to be
off the track once they're
not on the track you just
want everybody to be on the
same page helping each
other doing all that sort
of thing it's just it's
just to promote that that
family atmosphere with a
lot to get everybody
involved love it I like the
sound I've never heard it
put that way that yes there
might be some awards just
out there but it's not an
awards evening it is a part
end of season party for
everybody I think that's
that makes complete sense
that so keep your eyes peeled to that um
The big one is that
hopefully everyone can see it,
is that this is run by guys
that know minis, know motorsport,
and they're doing it for
passion about it being what
they wish it could be when
they were driving back in the day.
Sorry, guys.
But it's really exciting.
So much more to come.
We're going to be having
live shows of this talk show.
where we're going to get
some of you drivers on,
some of you partners on.
Who knows what else?
We might have someone from BARC on.
You know,
there's so many possibilities and
it will be live.
So even those watching and
it's going to be even
that's going to be get
involved and have some
banter on the conversations
that are put up on screen.
You can't get away anonymously, by the way,
or have your name and your profile photo.
But it's all part of the fun.
It becomes an interactive show.
So keep your eyes peeled.
We'll be announcing all of that.
Tom, I'm going to go around each of you.
Anything else that you
wanted to make sure that we
covered in this first episode?
No, not really.
I think it's just
introducing the idea and
it's not about us three babbling on,
talking about the good old days.
it this is really about the
drivers in the part you
know the commercial
partners and we really want
to be building on that so
after every event there
will be a will be a show
and and the certain drivers
will be asked to come on
and that's when they can
have their time to be
interviewed probably in a
bit more depth and and also
talk about why they go
racing we can find out a
bit about bits more about
them really so no no I'm
really excited I'd love it well
I was going to go to Rob next,
but he's disappeared momentarily.
He'll be back in a second.
Don't worry.
I think he's going to put
another 50p in the electric meter.
Well,
either that or he's just feeding the
hamster a few more, you know,
sunflower seeds and power it up.
He'll be back in a minute.
But Glenn,
anything else that you'd like to
say at this stage?
Well,
just following on from what Tom was
saying,
this is a platform to promote the drivers,
the championship,
make sure people are aware
that nothing's been stood still.
There's always stuff going
on in the background to
develop both the
championship and that side of things.
But we want to use it to
promote the drivers because
if future drivers see what can be done,
then they'll jump on board
as well because we can see
what the benefits are to them.
Absolutely.
on tom I was going to say we
totally recognize that you
know I i used to compete I
have competed with teams
but I also used to compete
when I first met you chris
on a valentrailer you know
with my family around me my
friends and half the time
without well actually not
half time without any of
that I couldn't have gone
racing and that sometimes
they fall by the wayside
and you know in the public
eye so really gives our
drivers a bit of time to
thank those people publicly
and their sponsors, you know,
because I know they all
work really hard to get the
budget together to go racing.
And although it's not a big
budget compared to some other platforms,
and we don't want to
compete with those platforms,
they still should be, you know,
should have their time.
And that's what this is
about and making them feel special.
100% agree.
And I think we all did well
to keep Waffle in there for
a little while because
Rob's come back again.
Welcome back, Rob.
What happened there, Rob?
i was just coming to my bit
and they've got cut off but
never mind well you're all
right you missed everyone
else's but we were just
literally about to come to
you any last words that you
want to add about this yeah
I mean I i want to see some
drivers on here I want to
see some of our partners on
here the reason for that is
I don't want to be on here
because I've got a face for radio
No, seriously, we need people involved.
And I think the drivers need
to use these tools.
And if they use these tools,
they're going to get the benefits.
And they're going to enjoy
the championship.
And as we've been saying,
it's about being part of the family,
putting a bit in to get a great deal out.
I think that's really all I want to say.
I think that we're going to
be pushing this over the coming months.
We want to make the best
championship we can for next year.
We've got a fantastic starting point.
So really looking forward to it.
And genuinely,
the thing that we find when
I do these shows for
different people is that it
becomes an extension of that community.
So get involved.
When we're putting these on live,
it'll be in the evenings
and we'll have a drink in
hand in future episodes, I'm sure.
And we'll have a bit of a chat,
a bit of banter, a bit of promotion,
a bit of finding out some
of the backstories.
So absolutely,
I think that sums it up perfectly.
Well, gents,
unless there's anything else
that you need to say,
I think that wraps up episode one.
Thanks very much, Chris.
Yeah, it's been great.
Thank you very much, Chris.
Well done.
Well, thanks, gents.
What I'm going to do,
don't you go anywhere, you three,
because what we're going to
do is play you out with the outro.
and it will come back with
the sponsors at the end,
and then I shall just speak
to you off air in a second.
But for everybody else
that's watching this back,
this is a recorded.
Next time it will be live.
Thank you for watching it,
and keep in touch.
Keep your eyes peeled.
We'll have more of it,
and it's going to be even funnier,
I'm sure, as we go along.
But from these three,
Motley Crue and myself, Chris Dawes,
thank you for joining us.
We'll see you next time.
Good night, Muppets.
See you, bye.