An Interview with 2015 Unlimited BBA Supreme Champion 22 Dave Vincent
(interview published February 2 2016 in the lead up to the 2016 Unlimited Banger BBA Supreme Championship)

Age: 40
Home Town: Santon Downham
Occupation: Builder
Family: Fiancé Lucy
Racing career: Started racing National Bangers aged 16

How has your season as Supreme Champion been and have you enjoyed being a champion again as aside from points titles, the 2015 Supreme Championship was the first championship race you had won in the sport in quite a few years.
I think it was having the (championship) roof again that I have enjoyed the most. If you ask a driver, most will tell you that the championship races which carry the roof grades are the ones people want to win more than any other and that includes the Supreme but that is also one of the hardest races of the year I think so to win it, and to win it the way I did where I truly felt I actually deserved to win it and it wasn’t a fluke or anything, meant a lot to me. So it was brilliant to win the race and I think I then had probably the best season I have had in quite some time so it was good to have such a good year while I was champion.

Do you think winning the Supreme Championship was a catalyst for you having such a good season?
It probably did to be fair. Especially because it came at the start of the season, I think it was the first meeting I did last year and when you start the year well it motivates you to carry on and try and keep having a good year all the way through. Obviously it’s much better to start your year with a good meeting than it is with a bad meeting (laughs) but winning that championship certainly got 2015 off to a perfect start and it just kept on going from there. It didn’t really change my plans regarding the meetings I raced at, I’d pretty much decided what I was going to do before the Supreme and we stuck to that really so (winning the championship) didn’t make me suddenly do a load more meetings but I think it did give me a bit of added incentive and motivation to put the effort in to make sure the meetings I did went well. It would have been pretty horrible to have won the title and then had a naff year, again having a good season kinda showed that winning the Supreme wasn’t a fluke and that I deserved to win it.

Aside from winning the Supreme Championship, what were the other highlights of the year for you?
There were quite a few really, again it was just a great year and I really enjoyed it. I guess the ones which really stood out were the A60 meeting at Eastbourne. I love racing A60s anyway and I had a great night that night, won a race and blitzed (4 Mark Mitchell’s hearse) which was cool, I also had a good night in my A60 at the Pre 70 at Mildenhall and winning the final at the Heinegone meeting was pretty special as well, especially as I did it in a Crown, that was cool (laughs).

The Heinegone meeting at King’s Lynn was one of the biggest National Banger meetings in 2015, how did winning the final at that meeting compare to winning the Supreme Championship?
You can’t really compare the two I don’t think and as great as it was to win the final at Heinegone it didn’t really compare to winning the Supreme at all for me. I think part of it was because at the Heinegone meeting (TSR) have a prize fund where the race winners get very little for winning the races and the majority of it goes to the entertainer award winners and the drivers with the best cars. I think I got £3 or something for winning that final which I think personally was a shame and almost devalued the value of winning the race. Don’t get me wrong I understand why they do it, because the meeting was more about the crashing but I don’t really think changing the prize fund like that makes much difference to what the drivers do. The ones who want to crash will still crash and the ones who want to race will still race but I think to not reward those who want to race like that isn’t right. But at the end of the day I knew the score before the meeting started and chances are if I hadn’t have won I probably wouldn’t have even noticed (laughs) but at the end of the night I did think it was a bit of a shame really.

Looking ahead to this year’s Supreme Championship, have you started planning for the meeting?
(laughs) Yeah, we have started tonight and everyone else is actually stripping the car right now! It will be my next meeting so that is what we are concentrating on now, we’ve decided to build a Mk2 Granada again like I did last year. I did give a bit of thought into what car I would use as last year I started racing Scorpios for the first time and they have been going pretty well and I had a win in one at the (Unlimited) Icebreaker so we’ve got them going pretty well. But I still think I can get a Mk2 (Granada) around any track quicker than I can a Scorpio, I just find they handle better or at least they seem to handle better with the work we do to them. We’ve never been into setting cars up, the best we can manage is heating the rear springs to lower the rear end a little and with a Mk2 Granada that is all you need really so maybe the Scorpios need a bit more to get them to go as well. The main downside with racing a Mk2 is that they aren’t as strong as a Scorpio, simply because they are so much older. I guess in a race like the Supreme Championship, you probably could be better off in a stronger car because it’s almost always a very lively race with a lot going on but I think it doesn’t really matter what car you are racing, if you get hit hard enough or even hit in the wrong place then that’s going to be the end of your race so I’ll stick with what won me the race last year. And Mk2s look cooler as well (laughs).

Last year was the first time you had used a Duratec engine, have you continued to use them since and will you be using it again this time?
I will be. It was a bit of a gamble using something completely different in a race like that but we had to do it sometime, so we figured we might as well do it in the first meeting of the year and go from there. As well as the car went that night, the engine wasn’t actually that great. Don’t get me wrong it was perfectly fine but I didn’t feel it was any better than the V6 (engine) I’d used before that but we now think that was because we had the gearing wrong and had been using the wrong diff. Since then we’ve tried some different things with it and we’ve got it going better now and we think we know what to do for this year’s championship. Well we think we do (laughs)!

You mentioned the Supreme Championship being traditionally a very lively and action packed race yet despite the size of the grid in recent years there has never been a complete track blockage as we have seen in other races on the same night, why do you think that is?
I think it’s because the majority of the driver’s in the (championship) are out there to try and win it whereas in any other race you get the mix of the racers and the crashers and that mix leads to the blockages and the pile-ups because there are drivers out there that just see a pile-up and see it as an opportunity to blitz someone. I guess in a championship, drivers are more looking to try and do well in the race, rather than just destroy someone at the first opportunity so I think that’s why the championships the last few years have been like that. I prefer it that way to be fair. I think it’s a shame when a big race just becomes a mess because what often happens is when the pile-up clears you only have a couple of cars left and the race isn’t up to much and also it makes the race almost too much of a lottery and the winner can win purely just from being in the right place at the right time whereas it’s always good if the winner of the race is the guy who actually deserves it.

Do you like races like that?
I do, I think they are the ones where I tend to do the best in, the ones where you don’t have to be just good but also use your head to get through the traffic and find the gaps when needed. To me, that is what a good banger race is, one where you need to get through which means it’s not just about who has the best or fastest car but also where there is a speed element involved so it’s not just about luck, you have to be fairly good as well (laughs). There is a lot of luck needed to win this race, usually there is a big grid and it’s a small track so it’s very busy out there and everyone in the race is good so it makes for a very level playing field, everyone in it has a chance but they still need to be good on the day, I don’t think luck alone will win it for you and that is why it’s so special to win.

What are your lasting memories of last year’s race?
It’s one of those races where I actually remember everything. You get races like that from time to time, it’s usually the races which you do well in so maybe that’s why I remember it so well but I do remember it really well. The thing I remember the most was when I thought my race was over. It was towards the end and Dan Lathan backed out in front of me and I couldn’t avoid him and the engine just died. Just as I was starting to panic, it magically fired back into life and thankfully was ok for the rest of the race but it was a bit tense for the final laps and I was even more keen to avoid hitting anything for fear that it would happen again, we actually never figured out why that happened and it’s never happened again so hopefully it won’t this time (laughs).

Have you paid any attention to the drivers who have qualified this year and if so, is there anyone you think is a standout favourite?
I’ve honestly not looked at all (laughs). But then again I never do! I’m not one for looking at entry lists for meetings and stuff, in fact I rarely look on the internet about meetings at all, I leave that to my dad (laughs). He’s always on (the internet) looking at stuff like that and he’s the one who usually tells me what’s going on and who is and isn’t go to be there so you’d be better to ask him who the favourites are (laughs). But again I think this is one of those races where everyone out there is a contender. You have to be good to get into this race in the first place and then being at Mildenhall where anything can happen, it could be anyone, you just don’t know. That’s one of the things which makes the race so exciting because it’s so unpredictable.

For a race like this, is there any kind of strategy or do you have to just ‘go for it’?
You just have to go for it but I think that is the case for almost every race. There are the odd times when maybe you can make a plan, usually if you happen to get in the lead and then you have to work out how to pace yourself but this is one where you just have to be ‘on it’ all the time. That’s what I did last year, I was drawn quite a way from the front so I knew I had a lot of work to do so at the start it was all about trying to pass as many cars as possible and then all of a sudden I was leading which I think was because just as many drivers got taken out as I actually passed which again is where you always need that element of luck. It’s also one of those races where I don’t think grid positions make too much difference. I won from quite a way back last year and if it’s lively like usual, the winner could come from anywhere (on the grid).

As mentioned this will be your next meeting since the Unlimited Icebreaker making for a near two month gap between racing, does that make a difference to you do you think?
If anything I think it actually helps. I do believe that if you are racing all the time it does help make you better but I’d like to think that at my age, having been racing for almost 25 years that it doesn’t make too much difference now as it once did. If I don’t know what I’m doing now then there is no helping me really (laughs). What I find now is that the longer there is between meetings, the more keen I am to go racing and the keener I am, the better I usually do because I’m that more enthusiastic about it all. When I start racing more regularly that enthusiasm drops a little and usually my form does as well, it’s weird really. Take the Icebreaker, that was my first meeting for a few weeks and I was chomping at the bit to get out there and I had a good meeting. It will be even longer until the Supreme so hopefully it will have the same effect (laughs).

As you said you had a good meeting at the Icebreaker, winning a heat and one of only five finishers in a near 50 car final, when your last meeting is a good one does it have a positive impact on your next meeting?
I hope so (laughs)! No, I think it does. It is a lot easier when you have a good meeting to build the next car and get out there again, when things go well, the enthusiasm is much higher than when things aren’t going well and again winning the Supreme I think had a really positive effect on my whole season and it’s still there now so hopefully it will continue again.

Looking beyond the Supreme Championship, have you any plans for 2016?
Well I’m still as keen as ever. I did once say I would retire when I was 40 but that’s not going to happen (laughs). I would only get bored if I wasn’t racing and would probably go back to something like fishing which I used to do when I was younger so I might as well race bangers! The plan for the year is pretty much the same as last year, just to do the RWD and unlimited meetings mainly at (King’s) Lynn and Mildenhall and maybe the odd thing that comes up elsewhere. I’ve not really looked into the fixtures too much yet so we will see what pops up as the year goes on.

We saw you make a couple of visits to Ipswich at the end of last year, might we see more tarmac meetings for you in 2016?
I doubt it to be honest. I did enjoy those meetings but it’s so hard to be competitive on tarmac right now without spending more money on your car and also spending a lot more time setting them up right which doesn’t really interest me so I’ll stick mainly to shale again but I suspect there might be the odd tarmac meeting there somewhere.

A new ruling has been made this year by the ORCi insisting drivers stay in their cars while a race is under green flag, what are your feelings on this rule change?
I’m still a little unsure. I guess it is a good rule really and I can totally understand why the rule has been brought in. Obviously we’ve had some serious accidents because of people getting out of their cars when maybe they shouldn’t have and we’ve had a lot more near misses and you have to wonder if another serious accident would happen if the rule wasn’t changed. I don’t think it will affect me too much because it is quite rare that I would get out of a car when it was on the track unless I was in a particularly dodgy place because the safest place for you is always in your car and I’ve always said that and think that is true. But of course there are times when drivers won’t be as safe in their car as they would be if they got out so it’s down to the officials to recognise this and stop a race if needed because a driver is in a tight spot. I think you will see a lot more race stoppages now though but if that’s what it takes to keep everyone safe then so be it.

Is there anyone you would like to thank or mention?
My mum and dad, Monkey, Richard, Terry and Lucy.