Richard Longman

CHAMPION 1978, 1979

British Leyland had the Triumph Dolomite Sprint with Tony Dron, but Bernard Unett was challenging from the lower classes in a Hillman Avenger and he hadn’t had that much opposition. BL wanted me to take points off him [in 1977, when Unett and Dron ended up tying on points and Dron losing on countback]. There was quite a lot of panel-bashing between Bernard and me.

We had trouble making the tyres last. We had to make the car very unstable at the start, with lots of oversteer, so that it would be quick at the end. It was quite a frantic struggle but eventually we won.