JAMES THOMPSON: “RACING WAS IN MY HEART”
James Thompson should, by rights, have been the next big British thing to hit the World Rally Championship headlines after Colin McRae and Richard Burns.
From a background in the forests, he instead eschewed that path and went on to become one of this country’s finest ever saloon car drivers.
‘Thommo’shot to prominence as a teenager, ripping up the British Touring Car Championship tracks and landing himself a plum drive with Vauxhall when he was just 19 years old. It was a trajectory that would lead him to two BTCC titles and onwards towards Europe and the world.
Always one with broad horizons, the proud Yorkshire man took on the best on the globe in the WTCC and came within a hair’s breadth of conquering the planet. But, as you can read here, it was maybe his loyalty that denied him the ultimate chance at silverware on that stage.
Thompson has a place firmly cemented in tin-top history on a domestic and world tin-top platform and yet, despite that, he has always remained a grounded human being with a brilliant line in self-deprecation. He is more ready to take the mickey out of himself (and others) than he is to brag about his considerable achievements.
It was a pleasure, therefore, that he put down his beer for a few minutes and took time to chat to Motorsport News.
MN sets the scene: Rallying was very much in a young James Thompson’s background. Dad David was a class podium finisher on the RAC Rally in 1990 in a Mitsubishi Galant, and the stages were his son’s introduction to motorsport. Question: How aware were you of your dad’s David’s rallying career? Were you involved at all?
Russell Scobbie Via email James Thompson: “Yes of course I knew all about it, and I used to go to events with him: not all of them though. When I got a bit older, I used to be part of the service wagon crew – just making the brews and just hang about. Obviously, rallying back then was a bit of a bigger thing in respect of the fact you had a big crew and you would go charging around the country chasing after the rally cars, so it always felt like a proper adventure. It was a bit like the Gumball Rally. You were trying to get fromAto B as fast as possible to look after the competing cars. I really enjoyed it: it is a lot more structured these days. I was not much use at doing anything else at the time, so I just tagged along and had a good time.”
MN: How come you started out in Formula Vauxhall Junior then in 1991 and 1992? Surely you wanted to follow your dad onto the stages?
“Because there was no money in rallying! Back then, if you were looking at it from a pragmatic point of view,So did you know you always wanted to go into tin-tops and Vauxhall Junior was just a stepping stone to that? “I wanted to be world rally champion, but I just couldn’t find a path there – and I had no interest in racing whatsoever when I started out. When the finances and the situation was put to me that we could give it a go on the circuits for a year, year and a half maybe, I was told that if it didn’t work out I would have to get a proper job. I thought let’s go for it. It was the only potential to forge a career.” But you did OK in Formula Vauxhall Junior [Thompson was a two-time winner in 1992]?
