A father’s tale: John Tordoff

Having gone close to securing the BTCC title this season, Sam Tordoff will take on a fresh challenge for 2017 after electing to leave the series for pastures new.

It will mark the latest stage in what has been an impressive career to date for the 27-year-old, and TouringCarTimes sat down with his father John to look back at the journey so far…

TouringCarTimes:
As a youngster, how did Sam get involved in motorsport?

John Tordoff:
Sam started his career when he was eight in karting. A friend of mine was racing pro-karts and invited me to a local circuit near Barnsley called Wombwell to have a go in one, as I was thinking about buying one for myself. I went down there and had a try and Sam came along with me.

I enjoyed the pro-kart but Sam’s face lit up when he saw some cadet karts so we decided to buy one of those instead for him to race. I got in touch with a guy who’s son was racing Honda cadets and the following weekend we met up with this guy, Dave Walmsley, and his son Tom at Tockwith near York and Sam had a go. Dan and Tom have gone on to became real family friends and 19 years later, here we are in Sam’s career.

TouringCarTimes:
At what stage did you look at Sam and think, he’s a bit special behind the wheel?

John Tordoff:
We never had any huge plans and we would always just take it one step at a time. I ran Sam myself throughout his time in cadets and he won a few club championships and the national Honda championship. He was never a superstar, but he was good and we just took it step-by-step.

We were racing against kids who had parents that felt their child was going to be the next big thing, but we were just there to enjoy it. The trailer was on the back of the car, we had an awing to work from and I would do all manner of jobs – I was the secretary who put the entries in and booked the hotels and I was the mechanic who would work on the kart and fix it when it went wrong. It was just a lot of fun.

When Sam got to twelve, we moved into Junior Rotax which was a big step up for him as they were bigger and faster. I realised after a year that he had to race in a team – I’d taken him as far as I could with my limited mechanical ability. So I put him in a team to do Junior Rotax – HRS Motorsport from near Newcastle – and he did two or three seasons with them. He had some success although again, he wasn’t a superstar.

Sam would be consistently inside the top ten in the British championship and when he got to the end of his junior career, we decided to stay in karting rather than follow some people into cars. It was a masterstoke that I managed to get him in with Ricky Flynn Motorsport at that point.

Ricky was racing all over the world in the old ICA class and to this day, Ricky remains one of the best team bosses I’ve ever met in motorsport. His attention to detail is second to none and it’s ironic that I look at him and Dick Bennetts and I see two people who are cut from the same cloth.

TouringCarTimes:
Was that decision to go with RFM pivotal to Sam’s career?

John Tordoff:
For sure, as Ricky got hold of Sam and started to teach him good habits about racing and his preparation for racing, he introduced him to telemetry and really got him focused on the job at hand. In his second year he won the British Championship in the ICA class, which got him entry into the World Cup in Italy the following year. That year he did KF1 in the UK and KF2 in Europe but the drawback was his studying, as we always insisted he had to focus on his studies.

A lot of kids then – and I suppose now – at 14/15 didn’t go to school and think about their education as they expected to make it as the next big thing. But I always said Sam had to study, so when Ricky was in Europe for a week, it was hard for Sam to do that alongside his GCSE and A Levels.

Sam then went off to university but he managed to mix the two quite successfully until we took the decision to leave karting behind. The simple fact was that at that stage, he would have needed to race in Europe every weekend and it just wouldn’t have worked with his studies. We looked around at what we could do, and ended up going to the Clio Cup.

TouringCarTimes:
What was the thinking behind going with the Clio Cup? Was it a case of looking at what worked financially or was it based on a longer view of his ultimate career goal?

John Tordoff:
I think it was a combination of a lot of things. All through karting, Sam never – and I never – had any ambition for him to follow a single-seater career. A lot of people have tried it and had to pack it in, or take a different route, because unless you have access to tens of millions of pounds or are lucky to be picked up by someone like McLaren who will fund it, the honest truth is that you wont get far. To this day, I don’t think Same has ever actually driven a single-seater race car.

We were always interested in tin-tips – be that GT or touring cars – and the Clip Cup seemed natural. I knew a lad racing in Clios, Lee Pattison, who arranged a test at Donington and Sam was pretty quick from the word go, despite the fact he had been racing in RWD karts for a decade or more.

He had to get his head round FWD but was grasped it straightaway, so we decided that was way to go as the budget was sensible, the racing was good and it was on the TOCA package.

He was top rookie in his first season with TCR, who were a great team, and won a race at Snetterton which was great. In the second season the aim was to win the championship, but it went to Dave Newsham. Sam would have taken second but missed the last round to do a one off with Triple Eight and the Vectra at Brands Hatch, which was brilliant for him.

We were fortunate enough to get a sponsor in Gardx who allowed us to do that weekend, and they have gone on to sponsor Sam ever since. He scored some points despite being roughed up a bit, which was good, although it made us realise that he was too young and inexperienced to go into touring cars at that stage.

TouringCarTimes:
So why move to the Carrera Cup rather than have another run at the Clio title?

John Tordoff:
We’d done the Clio thing and it made sense to move on. Where we went next was always going to be a difficult decision but as a business we are big into Porsche, with three dealerships, so it made sense to us to look there.

Sam applied for the scholarship and got to the final stages, and we were gutted he didn’t win. But I remember that on the way back home, he said that was all the motivation he needed; to beat those who were selected.

In his first year, he was top rookie and beat both scholars and credit to him for doing that and using the motivation he had given himself. In the second year he finished third behind Michael Meadows and Ben Barker, which is no disgrace at all. Meadows had already won the title by that point and Ben has gone on to become an accomplished GT.

At the end of that second year, we reached a crossroads over what to do again; should we follow the GT route or look at something else.

We had long talks with Gardx and they wanted to be on the TOCA package, so we realised we needed to be in the main game. Sam’s manager Tim Sugden got involved and we came up with a package to join Triple Eight with Jason Plato in the MG and signed on the line.

TouringCarTimes:
How well did it work for Sam to be partnered with Jason as obviously he has huge experience, but was there also a sense of him wanting to be number one?

John Tordoff:
In the first year, it really helped. Jason is Mr BTCC and has more wins than anyone else in history – everyone knows the story. In the first year, Sam really benefitted from that and it helped him a lot, but I think Jason soon realised that Sam wasn’t there to make up the numbers.

In his first season he was top rookie again and beat Jason a few times, and the aim was to really have a go at it in year two. Sadly we had one issue after another and it was a disappointment to us all. I was disappointed, Sam was disappointed; there was too much going on behind the scenes.

We decided we would look for a new team and the chance to talk with WSR came up. We met with Dick and David Eggleton, and quickly realised that they were the team we wanted to go with and the deal was struck.

TouringCarTimes:
Sam joined WSR as Colin Turkington moved on as champion. Were they big shoes to fill?

John Tordoff:
I don’t think people saw Sam as Colin’s replacement; Andy Priaulx joining at the same time kind of filled those shoes and I think that took pressure off him.

Andy was viewed as the Turkington replacement, and with Rob having raced with WSR for years, Sam was something of the junior driver in the team. As in the Porsches, I think that was all the motivation he needed and he beat both Andy and Rob in the points even though he was learning the ropes with the car and the team.

I remember at one point, Sam’s engineer John Waterman – who has been with him since his first meeting with Triple Eight and the MG – turned round to me and said ‘John, I think he has a shot at the title next year’. My response was just ‘Yeah, whatever’ but he turned out to be right.

TouringCarTimes:
Sam was much more consistent in 2016. Do you think he changed as a driver?

John Tordoff:
He improved as a driver. He has always been quick and clean, and he doesn’t get involved in anything he shouldn’t. The way he matured was that if the car was capable of winning or was right on the money, he would push it – like in race three at Oulton Park where he was a mission in the final laps and in race two at Rockingham.

Where the car is quick, he is very good at getting every ounce from it, and where it is less quick or not as well suited, he learned that rather than push too fast and get involved in an accident, he had to bank the points that the car was capable of.

He will be the first to admit that he isn’t the most spectacular driver out there but he has always been fast, and he certainly matured during 2016.

TouringCarTimes:
What do you see as his best achievement and what makes you most proud?

John Tordoff:
I get a huge sense of pride from watching Sam go about his business. He has been racing in the BTCC on a weekend and then has back in office on Monday morning at his desk working in the family business; he just knuckles down and gets on with it.

Of course, if he had won the BTCC title this season he would have been up alongside some very famous names, but as a family, we are no less proud because of the fact he finished the year as runner-up.

Win or lose, we are as proud as ever of what he has achieved during his career to date.