► Month eight with our long term Ford Mondeo
► Its ancestors were so unbreakable they were outlawed from banger racing
► We take our 2015 Mondy back to its tough-guy roots
‘Sunday, 1pm. National Bangers,’ reads the fixture for a meeting at Arena Essex Raceway. ‘No Mondeos.’ If you’ve read anything about the new Mondeo you’ll already know that it’s one of the toughest cars in its class when it comes to keeping you out of trouble, and safe in a smash should the worst happen. Collision-avoidance auto-braking, lane-keeping assist and airbag seatbelts in the rear are all available as options, and all fitted to our five-star NCAP long term Titanium wagon. But it turns out toughness is in the blood. The original first-gen Mondeo is so tough it is effectively outlawed from ordinary banger racing classes to give the other cars a fighting chance.
Short oval racing rarely gets a mention in mainstream media, seen as the grubby, blue-collar poor relation to more glamorous (but often less action-packed) series like F1, or impossibly middle-class events like Goodwood. But there are races happening up and down the country every weekend. You’ll have seen the cars being hauled to races on the back of trucks; some of you might have seen the ‘Banger Boys’ documentary on the History Channel. Oval racing can be fast, exciting and it’s comparatively affordable, whether you’re watching or driving.
There are all sorts of oval formulae, from 1000cc Minis driven by 11-year old kids, to Brisca F1 stock cars – custom single-seat racers with thundering V8s and huge roof-mounted wings. You might be surprised to learn that it’s not all about destroying the other cars. Some series are non-contact, but bangers, though ostensibly a race to the line, has always been about the bust-ups.
We’ve come to Essex Arena near Purfleet, a stone’s throw from the Dartford Bridge, to find out more. Founded on the remnants of an old cement works site by legendary racer Chick Woodroffe, Arena Essex held its first car race in 1978, later adding speedway, and now drifting days too. Chick departed for the great oval in the sky a few years back, but his daughter Debbie meets us in the offices overlooking the track and points us in the direction of John Harris, who’s head is buried in the engine bay of a windowless Mondeo.
There’s the trusty Zetec motor under the bonnet, but what’s that? A twin-choke downdraught carburettor? John explains that you can run the original injection system, but it’s simpler to switch to carb-fuelling on a custom manifold, even if you have to stump up for a Megajolt ignition set-up to replace the redundant ECU. Other than ditching
the original fuel tank for a tiny cell behind the driver’s seat, and junking every bit of extraneous trim, the Mondeo appears exactly as it would have done when receiving its PDI two decades earlier – though with this much panel damage, we doubt it would pass.
So what is it about the Mondeo that makes it such a mighty banger? ‘I think it’s the subframe, and how it mounts to the car,’ says John. ‘The floor of the car will bend before the frame does. Youcan just keep going.’ Ironic that the very trait that helped relegate the original Mondeo to a middling three-star NCAP rating makes it a brilliant banger winner.
The Mondeo’s durability is a desirable trait in this sport because unlike the Sierra Sapphire stock car parked next to it in John’s yard, which effectively features a home-built box-section spaceframe chassis that extends beyond the bodywork, the banger comes with no additional metalwork to protect its radiator, wheels or suspension.
We head out on to the track, a quarter-mile oval buried beneath the natural banking that forms the spectating area for those not in the stands. This one’s a sealed surface but there are other venues around the UK still running on shale. John hurls the banger Mondy through a few fast laps while we wait at the side, finishing with a body-lurching hand-brake turn that morphs into a dramatic tyre-smoking burnout.
‘Jump in,’ he says through the glassless screen aperture, ‘I’ll take you round.’ I climb into the bog standard 1990s road-car seat then buckle up the proper racing harness, an odd mixture. There’s no dashboard, no instruments no other interior trim. That diet should help pep up the performance and tighten the handling, but if I’m honest, I’m not expecting fireworks. This is a bog-standard 20-year old Mondeo on a track so short you’d struggle to get out of second gear. I mean, how fast can it feel?
Answer: very. The rush of wind batters our faces as we tear down the straight before John pitches the car hard into the first right-hander. The back tyres slide wide and a giant puddle of filthy water from John’s footwell catapults straight over the tunnel onto, and into, my shoes. He gathers the slide neatly, right foot feathering the throttle on and off, on and off, to keep the nose tucked in tight to the giant kerb. Then it’s another short sprint up the opposing straight and into the other curve. We’re one car on the track and my heart is pumping. The thought of doing this with 30 cars fighting for every inch of this tiny stretch of tarmac, and another 10 dead ones strewn along the way, is hard to imagine.
John’s an old hand at this. Racing before the Mondeo was even a twinkle in Henry’s tool chest, as JD Bangers he runs a £90 Banger Stunt Experience with Debbie where you can learn handbrake turns, J-turns and the infamous pit manoeuvre beloved of banger racers and US pursuit cops, involving nudging the rear of the car ahead from the side, sending it into a spin. Spectacular, but safe.
Was it always so? Has safety improved since the days when Austin Cambridges were the banger of choice? ‘God, yeah!’ exclaims John. ‘These days the drivers have fireproof overalls and balaclavas, back then you could race in tracksuit bottoms, whatever you had on. To keep the insurance people satisfied we installed safety fences at the track and we have proper fuel tanks now. We used to use old fire extinguishers and turn them upside down. But the nozzles used to snap off and petrol would be all over the place.’
In his younger days John was a wrecker rather than a racer. ‘I never lapped, I used to like to turn round at the bottom bend and wait for the cars coming towards me. Anyone who gave me a hard time, sooner or later they’d meet me in the corner.’
The Mondeo sounds like it would be perfect for that sort of destructive mission but, despite its inherent toughness, the ubiquitous Ford seems to have changed the style of competition.
‘The Mondeos have killed it,’ says John. ‘People spending £400 on a set of tyres don’t want to get them punctured and you’ve got guys taking their cars to rolling roads to tune them up. You don’t want to put £600 into a car and have it trashed after half a lap.’ It’s less about crashing and more about racing.
Will new-shape Mondeos ever make it onto the banger circuit? John doesn’t think so, but with millions of first generation examples built and now available for a pittance, it doesn’t sound like the biff-’em boys are about to run out of donors anytime soon.
As for our car, it’s proved tough enough to stand up to 11k miles of abuse with just an underbody rattle from a misaligned fuel pipe that needed reshaping, and a sticky sunroof, the latter less obviously fixable say the techs, and requiring a two day headlining-drop investigation. Two days? Can’t imagine John’s crew standing for that. Maybe we should borrow from the banger. Bolt a steel plate over the top and be done with it.
From the driving seat
+ Impressively hushed cruiser
– Disappointingly American interior trim
+ Massive cabin space…
– …but boot space only fair
+ Strong mid-range punch…
– …but not great on fuel
– It’s a big car with a big turning circle. Optional parking sensors a must
Logbook: Ford Mondeo Titanium 2.0TDCi
Engine: 1997cc 16v diesel, 178bhp @ 3500rpm, 295lb ft @ 2000rpm
Gearbox: 6-speed dual-clutch auto, all-wheel drive
Stats: 8.7sec 0-62mph, 135mph, 130g/km
Price: £26,865
As tested: £31,135
Miles this month: 1638
Total miles: 11,495
Our mpg: 38.6
Official mpg: 56.5
Fuel this month: £208.54
Extra costs: £0