Cleland and Soper, personally my two favourite BTCC drivers of the time. BTCC in the 90s contained some of the best, if not the best racing, ever to take place.
John Cleland and Steve Soper and Tim Harvey having a laugh even after this incident after all those years ago. This was the era when BTCC was fantastic and at its best.
Actually, in fairness to JC, in almost every proper, long-form interview I've ever seen with him on the subject, he will always point out that Steve not only did an incredible job getting back through the field, but also that the move he pulled to get Harvey through was a brilliant one.
0:45 : JC's face while Tim's getting things a bit wrong is an absolute picture. He's matured though; you can see him thinking "You're talking out of your arse, Harvey", but he waits until Tim's finished before diplomatically stating "That's not true". Also, I love how it looks like Steve basically lives in his race overalls...
@mitchdaytonam3- I think as a rule, most people don't sardonically hug people they hate. Of course JC was mightily pissed off at the time, as most drivers in that position would be - and he's not entirely over it (though I'm sure the BTCC win in 1995 helped), but the fact is that both JC and Soper were notoriously aggressive drivers, and that's part of what made that era so much fun!
Pardon my french but it just seems like they're all mates and they just being cunts to each other, probably the best way to describe the collision as "banter in a race car" they all drove like stunt men, even mansell got the thick end of it. It's what made it so great, it's was basically gladiator's but with racecars and they are all my hero's, although I always got the impression Harvey was a bit of a toff lol soper was my go to driver as a kid. Every body else would pick senna, Damon hill, mansell etc and I'd always be like Steve soper. I always thought he was Dutch as a kid though and only recently heard is voice. Guess I just was never interested at what he had to say. Race finished and straight to my toys to pretend I was Steve soper with my Matchbox cars
This happened right in front of me (if I'm not in shot at 0:12 in the stand, I'm only just out of it). It's good to see that Cleland has buried the hatchet now, but if he'd had one on the day it would've been buried squarely in Soper's head. He had to be restrained by a couple of marshals from pulling him out of his car, and I would've had to be too if I was him. Cleland was ahead by a margin when he started turning in, and Soper didn't even bother trying to make it look like he was attempting to take the corner. I'm surprised seeing this from behind that he braked at all.
There's no way Soper was making that corner, at that speed and on that line without a car on the outside to bounce off of, shocking unsportsman driving.
So what was that event prior to the final corner about where JC basically planted hes car on two wheels in Soper´s side and furthermore pushing him off the track? Ofcourse Soper was going to get even..
You can tell John doesn't want to be there with Tim hence why Steve is in the middle probably, considering Steve and John were the ones who collided, think John and Tim still have bad blood to this day.
is cleland full of shit about only having to follow tim over the line to win the title? because if he was, why was he attacking soper so aggressively in the first place? and why does murray walker clearly say that harvey is leading the championship as soon as soper lets him through?
No, he's wrong there. He needed to outscore both of the drivers to win the championship, and he was attacking aggressively to get back at Tim, who had overtaken him after Soper had. But he's from Wishaw and he was 59 when this interview happened, so I wouldn't blame him for getting muddled up.
