One of the most missed drivers of the past decade has to be Danny Fiske, a man with a well-deserved reputation for giving every race 110% effort, a man who would rather tear all the wheels off trying to win than settle for second.
Well now he’s on the comeback trail and those of us on the safe side of the barriers are undoubtedly going to be in for a treat.
For those who may have only recently begunfollowing the Nationals, we started by asking Danny about how he got started in racing and what sort of pressure being the son of Derek Fiske (world champion in 1975) might have entailed.
“It was hard! Especially when he keeps telling me how to do it! It’s not like I can say to him ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’ – he does know! Also, he sometimes might say, ‘when we used to do it, we did it like this’, but of course, things have changed a little bit now. But luckily, I’ve got a very good relationship with dad.
“I started off in karting when I was a boy, we used to race in Beccles at Ellough airfield and then progressed to Cadets and TKM, and raced all round the country really, we did Super Onesand the British championship, we were out nearly every single weekend. I raced until I was about 17, and that’s when I got a 2.0 Hot Rod. Alan Dent built my first car.”
So how come the switch to oval racing?
“Well, most of the kart boys, they stayed on the circuits but, I was quite tall, I’m a little bit too tall for a formula-type car; I’m kind of ‘borderline’. And then there’s the question of track time. I went to watch the 2.0s at Ipswich and I just thought, with the amount of track time you get, you get so much more value for money on the ovals. Also, as a driver, whether you’re startingat the front or the back, you’ve always got someone to chase, whereas with circuit racing it can get a bit boring, for the spectators as well as the drivers. On an oval, no matter what formula you’re doing, you’re always catching someone, there’s always something to do!”
How did you acquire your nickname, ‘The Wildman’?
“You’d have to ask [Mark] Paffey that! I have always been a little bit mad! I seem to remember they strapped a camera in my car, when I was a 2.0 driver, at Wimbledon – a Best in Britain. And Will Reed and I had a bit of a ding-dong, and I think he came up with it then. And when I started Nationals, we were at Northampton one time and I overtook [Paffey]up the inside. I thought I gave him a bit of room but I got told by other people I squeezed him up the wall, causing him and myself a little bit of damage. After that he called me Wildman and it’s kind of stuck.”
You do have a reputation of never settling for second…
“Always – one hundred percent. If I’m sitting behind a car for more than a lap I want to get past it.”
So how was your time in 2.0s?
“Well I won the English, actually on my twenty-first birthday, and I think I won the East Anglian at Yarmouth, and I won the points and got the silver roof. I never won the World though.”
But you always looked pretty sharp in the 2.0s…
“Yeah, well I had Mark Peck! Because after the Alan Dent car, Mark asked me to drive his car. And then later on Carl Boardley offered me a deal on a National. So that’s when we sold the car to the Woolseys and I remember I had to miss speedweekend because we didn’t have a car.”
You quickly established yourself as one of the men to beat in Nationals and it seemed like everything was going really well for you – and then you suddenly stopped racing– what happened?
“I really enjoyed it. But it got to the point where it was taking over my life. And I'd just been made a partner at work in dad’s company, plus I had a new girlfriend, and the racing was simply taking up too much time. That was why we took a back seat for a few years. But it’s been ten years this year – it was only supposed to be a few years break! And I’m now married, to Lisa, and got two children, Fia and Darcy, and the business is all good so…
“I didn’t go to the meetings because I miss it too much. Dad still goes to every race. And to be honest, it was a factor in me coming back, because he said that, while he’s still fit enough and able to get to the tracks, he’d love to see me racing again.”
So other than that, why now for the comeback?
“Ah, well we had a problem at work with the motor on our brake roller, and no-one could fix it. But I spoke to Carl Boardley and he said he could. So when he’d sorted that and I went to pick the part up, there was a Ginetta sat there – Jack [Barnes] was busy building one, and he said, ‘why don’t you sit in it?’, and I said I don’t think that’s a good idea! But I did sit in it, and the rest is history, we’ve now got one on order. So it’s just a waiting game now.
“I’ve spoken to Pecky and a few guys from the old team – Pecky knew the call was coming – I think he’d just been waiting for the day! So I’m lucky that he and everybody else are back on board. We’re going to keep the car at my dad’s house. It won’t be run by Meede Motorsport this time, the team will be Danny Fiske Motorsport.Fortunately I have my really good sponsors back with me too, Steve Porterhouse of Porterhouse Fire Solutions - he’s on board big time - and Guy Nicholls of True7. Plus we will of course have Derek Fiske Van Hire on the car somewhere.
“I’m going to try and keep it as a hobby as best as we can…it’s not like I can be in the shed like we used to be, four and five nights a week. It’s going to be a juggling game, I know that. But I have promised Lisa that we’re going to stick to it being a hobby. She’s from Ireland, Kerry, so although it won’t be this year, it would be nice to go to Tipperary and race over there.”
So perhaps the question most people, especially those who used to cheer for #304, are going to want answered is: when do you expect to be out?
“Carl won’t give me a date! He said originally, sometime in May, so we might be out in June, I don’t know. I suppose we might be out for the Hednesford in May, I’d like to be out for that. I’d like to get a few meetings in and try to get into the National weekend.
“I’m just a bit worried about whether or not I’ve still got it - we’ll soon find out!”
With thanks to Graham Brown for the interview & article.
