Q&A Mick Webb
AMC: Building a Mazda RX7 with a rotary
engine must have been quite different for you.
MW: I’d built the Stillwell Escort from whoa to
go, but this was a totally different thing to me.
I was a Ford V8 boy and knew nothing about
Mazdas or rotaries. I’d grown up with internal
combustion engines and I thought I was a bit
of a smartarse and could build anything, but all
of a sudden this little rotary – holy shit! In 1982
Mazda sent out a Japanese engineer from
America to show us how to rebuild the engines.
The fi rst one we pulled apart together I was in
absolute amazement because there were no
camshafts and no pistons and no rods. It just
blew me away.
AMC: What did you think of the car in the end?
M W: They were fantastic. I drove lots of
racecars over the years and that RX7 was
the loveliest little car, and Allan would tell you
the same thing. We worked on it, though. We
knew we didn’t have enough horsepower; we
worked so hard to get the best braking car in
the world and the best suspension. Allan wasn’t
too bad at setting the car up, and we had lots of
parts because our budget allowed us to have
umpteen sets of springs and bit and pieces, so
it was fantastic.
AMC: The big thing was getting it close to the
ground, wasn’t it?
M W: Oh, yeah! You had to go over a height
block in those days and at many circuits we had
to pack the springs up with balsa wood and
just push it gently over the bloody scrutineering
height bloke. I made sure the crew didn’t lean on
the car, just gently roll it through scrutineering.
On the warm-up lap it would drop down another
25 or 30mm. On the start line, the front spoiler
was nearly on the ground!
AMC: So the car wasn’t always kosher?
MW: I’ve been asked questions over the years
and I’ve been straight up and down. I don’t want
to throw someone under bus about being an out
and out cheat, but to me, we weren’t cheating,
we were just... The whole car was a monster,
but Allan was so confi dent that he had CAMS in
his back pocket. This was his business, and he
was fantastic.
AMC: Was the car light?
MW: Super-light! The homologated weight was
light anyway, and we could get it under that
easily. We made some aluminium components
and just painted them and whatever (to look like
steel), and nobody knew. People weren’t ready
for that in those days. Our technology, we were
years ahead of our time in some ways. We had
components made out of titanium because we
had the budget. We had a ‘plastic’ tailshaft from
America, probably carbon-kevlar or carbonfi bre.
Allan was petrifi ed to use it when we fi rst got
it, but it just weighed nothing and never let us
down.
AMC: How did you rate Allan as a driver?
MW: Brock and Jim Richards and Colin Bond
were different, they could drive anything, any
time, in any temperature, just jump in and drive,
where Allan had to sit there and psyche himself.
He was a different type of driver. He couldmatchanyof them,orbetterthanmostof them,
buthehadto reallyusehisbrainpower.
AMC: Some of the Mazda privateers
complained about poor treatment.
MW: Not many of the other competitors got on
with Allan because Allan was, well, Allan – he
was his own little hibernating self. But I would
slip things like gearboxes and diff ratios out to
people like McLeod and other privateers. Allan
wouldn’t have done that.
AMC: How did you get on with him?
MW: He was a bit of a prick, but he had one
focus in life, to win races and be competitive
in his motorsport. That helped me. He wanted
to be the best and he wanted to win races. We
went on umpteen overseas trips and once he
was on board that plane the weight would come
off his shoulders and he’d be into the Bloody
Marys. He didn’t drink much here, but when we
went away he was a different bloke.
AMC: Was it an enjoyable time?
M W: It was fantastic. I fondly talk about it. They
threw eggs at us in those early days because
we were racing a Mazda, but it was really
rewarding because we won races and I was
pumped all the time. We were beating cars we
should never have beaten, and we were reliable
and had super-dooper handling and stuff
because we had the budget. Money was never
an object. It’s a pity Allan didn’t keep some in
his pocket!