JEFF ALLAM RACING AT THE TOP LEVEL WAS A PRIVILEGE
Jeff Allam never won the British Touring Car Championship and that still stings him. The winner of 16 BTCC races and the kingpin of Tom Walkinshaw’s European Touring Car fiefdom,Allam was at the very forefront on tin-top racing in the 1980s and 1990s.
He dallied with sportscar racing – and briefly single-seaters, as you will discover here – but knew that his heart was in tin-top racing.And he raced at the greatest tracks with some astounding team-mates.
The modern generation might rememberAllam as being the foil to John Cleland’s glory days with Vauxhall in the two-litre BTCC days, but the Epsom car dealer was so much more than that.
He took some time out of his very busy motorsport schedule to tackle the MN readers’questions, and his answers are fascinating.
Question: What fired the interest in motorsport for you?
Damien Doherty Via email
Jeff Allam: “There was a little kart track that I cut my teeth on at Surbiton in southwest London. It was just a rent-a-kart place but eventually my dad brought me my own kart through a friend.
“I wouldn’t say I followed racing religiously, but dad had two young lads working in his garage – they were doing the petrol pumps – and they were into motorsport and they offered to take me when they would go off to Brands Hatch of Silverstone. They loved touring cars and it was the Wiggins Teape-sponsored series then. I remember seeing all these Chevrolet Camaros and lovely old BMWs. I fell in love with it and I was always a touring car man. Being in the car trade we all loved our tin-tops and I never ever thought about going down the single-seater route, ever.”
MN: So, when did you finish karting and take up racing?
JA: “When I was late 17 years old. We built up a Vauxhall Viva HB from a fairly standard car and eventually we got it faster and faster. I was doing Modified Saloons and I was up against the likes of Nick Whiting and Gerry Marshall within my first season of motor racing.”
Question: How much fun was Production Saloons?
Jack Crowther Via email
JA: “You had to be on top of your game straight away. I had a Vauxhall Firenza [in the mid-1970s] and a Magnum for Production Saloons. The racing was so close and you had all these different classes of cars.
“It was brilliant: there were all sorts of weird and wonderful cars from all kinds of different manufacturers. We had massive grids and the competitiveness was off the scale. I didn’t manage to win a title, but I had a couple of near misses.”
Question: Did Jeff ever want to try single-seaters?
Oliver Whyte Via email
You drove a March 793 in
