I (Phil) started watching stock car racing in about 1984 when I was introduced to Aldershot stadium by my brother Chris. He was an Eddie George fan but it didn't take me long to decide that I preferred the driving style and antics of Deane Wood. However, we were both agreed on one point which was that the Southern saloon and banger drivers were far superior to their East Anglian and Scottish rivals.
In 1987 I joined British Airways as an aircraft engineering apprentice and met Andy who was from Southport in Lancashire. I also met Keith Lowthian, who also came from up North(St Helens to be precise). The three of us became more and more involved with the Stock cars, travelling all over the country and continent to watch them. In 1988 we decided to start building a car for myself to race and a Mk 2 Escort was procured. Although it took the best part of two years to build,we completed it without any prior knowledge of welding or car construction. A Mk 1 Transit flat bed was bought from banger driver Geoff Priestly and the car was debuted at Ringwood in their independant version of the formula in October 1990. That November, during the annual pilgrimage to Cowdenbeath to watch the Superbowl, a chance conversation with Mark Mills at 2am in the Mossmorran Hotel bar after many pints of Heavy, resulted in Andy buying the #98 Toyota Starlet. Yep, that's right; he bought a car in Scotland, from a man from Somerset, without even seeing it first! The AM.PM. Racing Team was born.
In 1991 we both raced at Ringwood with the occasional trip to Andy's local? track, Barrow-in-Funess in Cumbria. I was more successful at Ringwood taking the points Championship in my first full season of racing and Andy was more successful at Barrow with a couple of wins on the shale. We only had about two meetings at Ringwood in1992 before the saloons were dropped for low turnouts so we all went down to Taunton to take on the locals and generally liven up the racing. At the same time Andy and myself did a full season up at Barrow finishing the year as blue and red grades respectively. Not bad for a track 325 miles from home! 1993 was much the same until I joined Spedeworth in mid season, by which time I had aquired the ex #18 Mark Brett Mazda 323. We made our last visit to the Barrow shale before it closed it's doors with Andy in his Saloon for the last time and myself in a banger, our old Cortina tow car, at their first meeting of 1994. From then onwards, Andy joined my brother Chris, known as Mr Oi, and Keith, known as Smiler, in the ranks of mechanics as we raced first for Spedeworth and then for Autospeed following the demise of the saloons on the Spedeworth tracks. Meanwhile the new Barrow tarmac track opened with an AM.PM. Racing machine winning the first ever race there!
The team suffered a serious blow in 1998 when Andy decided to move back up north making his mechanicing role very difficult to maintain. However he does still make it to a few meetings a year.
A Sapphire was built in the 2000/2001 closed season, and this has now been added to with the construction of a 2 door Sierra, for tarmac use in 2005
That brings us up to date, June 2005, not much to show results wise over the last few years in the National Saloons, 5th in the 2003 European being about the best, but we're still having fun and that's all that matters.