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“We were at Donington one year
and it was thick fog, and it got
to quarter past 12 and I wanted
to call it a day, but everyone else
said ‘let’s wait a little longer, until
late lunch’,” he remembers. “It
lifted while we were waiting and
it would have cost us, as a busi-
ness, £45,000 if we hadn’t have
done that one day’s racing, as
we would have had to pay for the
circuit hire, ambulances and so on.
So that’s how finely tuned it is.”
While Cottrell is used to being
trackside at the BRSCC’s port-
folio of championships, ranging
from the Mazda MX-5 SuperCup
to the TVR Challenge, he also
takes a keen interest in ensuring
the younger generation of racing
drivers are taking the right steps
towards a successful career in
the sport.
“One thing I remember is that
Bill Sisley, who owns Buckmore
Park Kart Circuit, asked me to be a
clerk of the course,” Cottrell says.
“I was told not to do it as I’d be
involved with the parents, but it
was the best move I ever made.”
With the Fiesta Junior Cham-
pionship on the BRSCC calendar,
Cottrell sees it as a good step-
ping-stone for anyone who is
ready to make the move up from
karting, but after his own experi-
ences in karting, he remains wary
of the role some parents play at
this level.
“Some parents are racing
through their kids,” he states.
“The thing about junior racers is
you’ve got to talk to them and not
at them. I always used to say to
the kids, ‘you have to go to school,
you have to go to work, but you
don’t have to do this, so if you
don’t want to do it, then don’t’.
And lots you could see didn’t.”
With this in mind, he suggests
we should all remember that the
key to motorsport is enjoyment,
regardless of which level you are
racing at, or what age you are.
As for Cottrell himself, the sat-
isfaction he still gets from motor-
sport is enduring, and he is relish-
ing what lies in store over the next
12 months. Looking ahead to 2016,
he says: “We have lots of exciting
championships taking place next
year, in the UK and abroad.” He
may have already given more than
40 years to this sport, but Cottrell
still has plenty left in the tank.
We run the World Endurance
Championship, we run the GT Open,
and it shows we are doing good things
I N T E R V I E W : B E R N A R D
C O T T R E L L , B R S C C