Club Arnage

I know this isn't sports car related, but it is motorsport related.

During 2009, the same BBC production team that made the "Trawlermen" series, set about producing a new documentary type series based on BriSCA F1 Stock Car Racing and the family rivalries that have been in the sport for the past 40 years. Also the new up and coming drivers also feature heavily including a good friend Lee Fairhurst and his family.  So it follows the drivers off track and also visits their home life etc as well as some stunning on track and on board photography. No expense was spared and the BBC had a large crew at a lot of meetings last season and captured a dramatic season of racing unfold.

This is the first of a six part series, and is something that all stock car fans have been waiting for since seeing the preview video at the autosport show in January.

Obviously stock car fans want this to do well and get good TV rating so that the BBC may consider funding a second series in the future, so I am telling as many people about it as I can. Se please give the show a chance and watch it and see what you think.

GEARS AND TEARS - BBC1, 10.30PM ,  MONDAY 2nd AUGUST.

A press release from the BBC about the programme.


Gears and Tears (6 x 30 minute episodes)

The programme will be going out each week on BBC One for 6 weeks starting 2nd August.

In the heart of England there’s a secret passion. It’s an obsession that’s divided two rival families for 40 years. Their battlefield is motorsport’s best kept secret – Formula One Stock Car racing – a world where hauliers, hairdressers and double glazing salesmen can be World Champions. Every weekend these racing dynasties fight fiery gladiatorial showdowns in thundering home-built chariots, intent not just on winning, but also destroying the opposition’s cars.

Gears and Tears, a six-part documentary series, is the story behind a single Stock Car season and follows a remarkably bitter battle between the two dominant clans in the sport. The Wainmans are from Yorkshire and the Smiths from Lancashire. This is a latter day War of the Roses where passion, pride and family are everything. Ultimately, all that matters will be victory at the end of a vicious campaign all the way to the World Final.

Frankie Wainman Jnr and Andy Smith are arch-enemies who have much in common. Their fathers, Frankie ‘Smiler’ Wainman Snr and Stuart ‘The Maestro’ Smith Snr, were the leading drivers in the 70s and 80s. This was the sport’s heyday when Stock Car racing was as much a part of popular culture as Wrestling, Curly Wurlys and the Rubik’s Cube – and the crowds flocked in their tens of thousands.

The glory days may be gone but racing is still a way of life that demands total family commitment. Drivers are championed by wives, girlfriends, mothers and grandmas who are even more passionate than their men folk. Women take a leading role in the series where brutal on-track battles mirror the heated rows off-track. Crashes and tears at the trackside are the order of the day, as the episodes progress through a season that takes the competition between the two dynasties to fever pitch. It’s neck and neck all the way. Deliberate smashes, accusations of cheating and even a real life ‘Romeo and Juliet’ love story all build to the most Shakespearean of series conclusions.

Gears and Tears celebrates values that are often forgotten in contemporary Britain. The country’s heavy industry and manufacturing may have all but disappeared, but here are people who can build cars with their bare hands and who drive them with astonishing skill and courage. It’s a world where amateurism, enthusiasm, improvisation – and a handy knack for home-grown engineering – are still king.

Over the nine-month season the film makers enjoyed unprecedented access to this world of everyday heroes, who come from all walks of life. We meet a most unlikely competitor in this macho sport, a ladies’ hairdresser from Nuneaton; and the 16 year old landowner’s daughter who swaps her show-jumper for 740 horse power, with calamitous results. We follow the lad who stands up to on-track bullying, and gets a ban for his pains; and we marvel at the eternal optimism of a window and conservatory salesman who, despite every setback, still dreams of Stock Car glory.

Gears and Tears – it’s the stuff of legends.

Against my better judgement I'm going to a stock car race Sunday (free tickets or we wouldn't be going), the Mrs & I, and my brother & sister-in-law have tower terrace seats at IMS for the Brickyard 400, plus the wife and sister-in-law have paddock and pre-race pit passes, I fear for Jeff Gordon's safety.  The stock car racing your talking about sounds like alot more fun, NASCAR's way to slick and polished for my taste.  And NASCAR is not real stock car racing.  Your version appears to be more like what we think of as super modified stock cars, damn good fun to watch at a small local bull-ring on a Saturday night.
Fax

I'm glad I saw this post Chris - takes me back to happy Sundays at Aycliffe Stock Car Stadium with my son sat on my shoulders watching these awesome machines thunder around with big Ford and Chevy engines. They're built from girders but some of the geometry and detail that goes into them bear very close inspection.
I will be glued to this series - I remember Frankie Wainmann and John Toulson "Cool Toul".
Brilliant!

Sreve

I'm going to the World Semi Final at Sheffield for our stock cars on Sunday. But I would happy trade places with you ! I can't belive its been 17 years or races since i went to the first Brickyard 400 in 1994. Oh happy memories.

I would probably trade places with you, your stockers look like huge fun, Derrick Warwick always has nice things to say about them.  My biggest problem right now with NASCAR is the spec chassis, a Chevy should be a Chevy shape, ditto Ford & Dodge.  I hate the idea of a spec shape.  All that said it'll be good fun, my brother & I will probably catch some of the bands playing at the stage behind the pagoda while our wives become Gasoline Alley stalkers.  Good seats too, behind the pits at the north end of the pitlane.  My money's on JPM, quickest all through practice and easily on pole.  Now if NASCAR will let a foreigner actually win their second biggest race?
Fax

There is now a 2 minute preview clip on the BBC website. :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00td9d7

Friday evenings at Te Marua Speedway for me in my early teens. 

The new season starts in October and I may just take a trip down memory lane.   ;D

Dx

Hi Doris,

I would strongly recommend checking out your local scene when it starts again in October. Trust me you will be hooked again.

I also spent many an afternoon with my dad up at Aycliffe myself, along with Hartlepool as well.

Oh and Crewe, Bradford, Stoke, Blackburn, White City, Nelson, Long Eaton, Boston, Belle Vue, all tracks that are long gone now.

Just watched the clip on the BBC website and it's really reminded me what an amazing sport it is. Can't wait for Monday night now.
Which tracks are still open? Are you still watching it Chris?
Steve

Watching, writing for the magzine and licenced photographer and help out with a team when i can, although thats usually passing tools, holding lamps and cleaning the car etc which is as far as my technical knowledge extends.

Tracks still hosting BriSCA F1

Belle Vue, Manchester,
High Edge Raceway, Buxton,
Coventry Stadium, Brandon, Coventy,
Ollerton Stadium, Sheffield,
Northamption International Raceway, Brafield, Northampton,
Kings Lynn (Saddlebrow Road),
Ipswich,
Birmingham Wheels,
Hednesford Hills Raceway (Cannock Chase)
Scunthorpe,
Skegness,

There are others that also have F2, like Arena Essex, Barford, Bristol, Cowdenbeath,  Crimond, Knockhill,  Mildenhall, St Day, Taunton,

Ha ha, can't believe the forum editted the name of a town I posted because of a few letters in the name. ;D

I've done a little tweak so your post is not censored.

t.

Reminds me of an old joke.

Which 3 foorball league teams have a swear word in their names?

Arsenal, Scunthorpe, and Manchester f**king United.

Ha ha, presume that was S****horpe. I live quite near it and, believe me, it needs editing!

A second preview trailer for Gears and Tears has been posted ahead of the first show on Monday night at 10.35pm on BBC 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OKmfTaW6no

Fair play to Frankie Jnr, He's proper commited to the sport. With his kids racing mini stox in the Isle of Man this weekend. Flew back to Manchester this morning, raced at Buxton, finished racing at 6.30 pm and if he made it to the airport in time, he was due to fly back to the Isle Of Man at 8pm so he can be there for the kids racing on Monday.

Thats dedication for you. Oh and he had time for an interview with me as well.

Mrs B's mum and dad were co-owners of Aycliffe stadium up until about 1986.  She has lots of happy memories of race events back to the mid 60's and she learnt to drive in an old Ford Anglia on the circuit.

Good web site here - http://stox.never-enough.co.uk/aycliffeproject.html (http://stox.never-enough.co.uk/aycliffeproject.html)

Quite by chance I got chatting to our postie this morning, and it turns out he is part of a stock car racing team (not driving this season due to an eye injury)!

He tells me the next meeting at Belle Vue, Manchester is on August Bank Holiday Monday... sadly (or not) I will be away on my jollies in France again so will miss it, but he has invited me along as team guest whenever I fancy it!

:)

My Brother in law used to be mechanic on Roy Eaton's Supa Stock, Roy Partents owned Speedworth who ran the Wimbledon and Aldershot (and others) meetings, think he has somthing to do with the Eastern county meetings now. Seem to remeber he got a longterm ban for building a car specifically for taking out a rival who had put him in the fence on purpose.

I remember you mumbling something about men in uniforms when at LM, also funny how you noticed how well Bas was 'presented' in the mornings...

>Martini...LB

I have no idea what you mean!!!  Although there was one particularly spectacular pair of underpants......

Edit:  I hasten to add that of course all the members of Team LB are handsome chaps!