An Interview with National Banger driver 19 Joe Mullarkey
(interview published July 8 in the lead up to One Wild Weekend 2015 and the Unlimited Suffolk Open and Steamer Memorial Trophy)

Age: 34
Home Town: West Row
Occupation: Self-employed car mechanic
Family: Partner Angie
Racing career: Started racing Ministox on June 13 1995 at Arena Essex

It’s been a busy time for you and that is set to continue over the coming weeks, starting with the annual 2litre RWD meeting on July 25, can you tell us the appeal of this meeting?
Well I have to be honest, while I very much want to do this meeting I am not 100 per cent certain I will get there. It’s been really busy lately with the Siamese meeting, the unlimited vans and the (Unlimited Suffolk Open) Steamer meeting and to be blunt the RWD meeting is kind of the least important of those. I very much enjoy the novelty meetings so I was really keen to give the Siamese meeting a go and I love van meetings so getting ready for that was a priority too and so is the Steamer meeting as I have something a little different for that. But I do want to do the RWD meeting, it’s just not at the top of the priority list for me but hopefully everything will go to plan and I will get the car ready in time and be able to do it. I hope I can because I have a BMW coupe for the meeting and the biggest worry I have is that if I don’t get it ready in time for (July 25) I will wind up starring at the car for another year until next year’s meeting (laughs) which I would like to avoid if I can! I enjoy all my racing but I grew up in the RWD era and they are just the cars I enjoy racing the most and the thing with the sport now is that you just can’t race RWD cars against the FWD cars. Well you can, you just won’t last very long if you do (laughs) and while I’m only doing it for a laugh it is nice to think you have some chance and the only hope this BMW has is at something like a RWD meeting so hopefully we will get it done on time and get rid of it.

Mentioning that you intend to race a BMW, the RWD meeting in recent years has seen much more modern cars racing at the meeting, do you think that is a good idea?
I think it has to go that way eventually. It would be wonderful if the meeting was still all Cortinas and Capris and stuff like that but there aren’t many left anymore are there but there are a good few modern cars which are RWD about but it’s a matter of trying them out. Eventually the sport has to move on and move with the times and that’s what you need for meetings like this to continue so while it is a shame that the older cars we all grew up on aren’t around so much anymore it is good that some more modern stuff is being tried. The downside to that is that with new cars you experience new problems (laughs) and that is another of my worries with the BMW. As I’ve never had one, sometimes cars like that take a bit longer to build and even longer to build them right so time is an issue because when you build something different you always have issues that you aren’t used to, it’s part of the fun I guess. But it is a little better now because I think the rules in the sport have improved a little to adapt to the more modern cars. The problem with a lot of modern cars, like this BMW, is more and more of the car is made from stuff like aluminium which isn’t exactly the best for bangers but at least now the rules in the sport are starting to adapt to allow drivers to do the things which are needed to make these cars a bit more appropriate for racing. I only wish they had allowed cam guards on Cortinas back when I started and was racing them all the time (laughs).

Moving on and you are among the first to book in for the Unlimited Suffolk Open and Steamer Memorial Trophy meeting, is this something you are looking forward to?
Very much, I love unlimited bangers. Again it’s what I grew up on the sport, rear wheel drive cars and V6 engines and I love unlimited bangers on shale and they are usually good meetings at Mildenhall so I always try and make an effort to do them. I’ve something a little different this year. I’m trying to keep it a little quiet but that is such a hard thing to do in the sport these days because everyone seems to know everything about everyone and there aren’t the surprises like there used to be but I’m hoping I might keep this a little quiet as it’s nice to have something a bit special and it be a surprise on the day. I’m probably making the car sound a bit more special than it really is, it’s not the biggest or the oldest but it’s a bit unusual I think, I’m honestly not sure if there has been another one raced or not but either way it is a little different and hopefully it will be a good meeting again. I’m looking forward to building the car as well, which is always good with cars like this, sometimes building them can be enjoyable when it’s something a little different or special.

Your most recent meeting saw you make your debut at the annual Siamese meeting which proved to be a short lived evening for you and team mate Mark Savage, did you enjoy it?
(laughs) Yeah we didn’t have the best of nights but I did really enjoy it while it lasted. Those are the kind of meetings I tend to enjoy these days. I don’t do many front wheel drive meetings now, I just don’t enjoy them as much as a rear wheel drive car but I thoroughly enjoy any kind of novelty event so I really fancied a go at the Siamese meeting and it was good fun for the short while we lasted. I thought Mark did really well. He was upstairs steering and he’s done very little on track before and so I was really pleased at how well he did for a relative newcomer. I wouldn’t say for certain that I would do the meeting again but I certainly wouldn’t rule it out, it would be a case of seeing how much time I had when the meeting came around.

The Siamese meeting continued something of a trend for you this season as you once again failed to score a point, has not scoring a point this season been a source of frustration or disappointment for you at all?
(laughing) No, not at all. I never really considered myself to be particularly good but I guess this year has been especially bad! But I’ve honestly enjoyed it and at the end of the day that is what you go racing for, to have a laugh and a bit of fun and have a crash with a car and that’s what I’ve been doing and it’s been good fun so not scoring any points and not finishing many races doesn’t really make much difference. Hopefully I might do a bit better at the van meeting (this interview was conducted the week prior to the Unlimited Van Banger meeting at Mildenhall). I’ve always enjoyed those meetings and done pretty well at them for whatever reason so hopefully I might do ok there again but as long as you have fun that’s what counts.

This season has seen you return to being registered with RDC after a couple of seasons with TSR, was there a reason behind the switch?
No, there honestly wasn’t. I guess I’m kind of fortunate because I’ve always been something of a shale racer and I’ve two really good shale tracks not very far from home and I do the vast majority of my racing at those two tracks now and the promotion I’ve licensed with in the last couple of years has always been the one that I have raced at the first time that year. Both tracks and promotions are great, there aren’t really any major advantages and disadvantages for me between either track and there isn’t much for me to gain so it doesn’t make too much difference who I’m licensed to because my racing plans will be largely the same. But I do tend to do mostly unlimited meetings at King’s Lynn now rather than any other format whereas at Mildenhall I do a few other meetings which is probably why I’ve done a little more at Mildenhall this season.

Have you any plans for the remainder of the season?
Not really, it’s very much a case of just taking things as they come and seeing what comes up and also the time I have. I am doing the unlimited pre 85 meeting at King’s Lynn (on August 1) and I’m looking forward to that as well. I had hoped to do the Heinegone meeting but by the time there was a booking for me I just didn’t have the time to get a car ready so I’m doing this instead and it’s looking like it could be a good meeting with almost 100 cars booked in for it so I’m looking forward to that. Whatever racing I do I suspect will be largely between Mildenhall and King’s Lynn for the time being, I’d love to have a go at travelling around again like I did years ago. I’m not getting any younger and I guess there will come a time when I’ll have to stop racing so it would be nice to get around a little bit again before I do. I’d like to go to Tullyroan in Ireland, I can’t explain why as it’s not the sort of track I would go for these days but I really like the look of it and I’d like to go back to Hednesford, the Civil War is a meeting I’d like to do again. But again a lot of it goes back to work. I’ve been self-employed for the last few years and I’m still struggling to get the balance completely right. When I first started and just took on all the work I possibly could because I didn’t really know what I was capable off and it was too much and the racing suffered but I needed to get my business established. More recently I have got a little better as taking on what I can manage and my mechanic for many years, Percy now works with me as well so whenever we have time in between work we are working on cars which is why I’ve done a little more racing lately but obviously work comes first. It’s hard isn’t it because there is no point working all the time and not being able to enjoy yourself but at the same time you need to be able to finance your racing so it’s always tricky trying to get the balance right and most of the time it’s out of your control anyway!

Is there anyone you would like to thank or mention?
The two main people really are my dad for letting me use his yard for the best part of 20 years for my cars and my racing and to Percy for everything he has done to help me over the years.