There will come a point, and I don’t know when it will be, that if Andy wants to carry on up the ladder then I will have to say I can’t get into the car anymore and have to manage it. The day I feel any performance of his is being compromised by not having the right amount of back-up and direction for him is the day I get out of the car as I feel it is my duty to give him the best opportunity.
I feel I have achieved more in my career than I ever dreamed I could. When I started, it was a dream to win a championship and I’ve had a ball doing what I’ve been doing. I haven’t enjoyed it as much along the way as I should have done because you are always thinking about where you got next. Like Carl just touched on, it is kind of sad because you get to this level and it does become work and become a job. A lot of people doing stockhatch or something would look at it and go 'How fantastic would it be to be a touring car driver?' but the pressure we are all collectively under, and we put it on ourselves, mean it is work.
Luckily, I was able to go and spend half a day in Wales last week with my rally car to just relax as my head was all over the place, so Andy and I had a blast with the old Escort. I love driving cars but this is work and it is very intense. But my focus is shifting a little bit because he can go a lot further than I’ve been.
Crash.net:
Is there now the pressure of family bragging rights to bring the results home for these guys?
MJ:
I think as a family, we aren’t like that. He didn’t like me nicking the place off him on the line in race one by eight-thousandths of a second though. I was having a laugh on the last lap as I caught up to him but I wasn’t going to give him the place. As I launched the car over the kerbs and got some traction coming out of the corner, I was grabbing the gears and thinking 'I’m going to do you here' and he was quite miffed afterwards which is good. The other way round, I’d have been amused but he was miffed and that shows the hunger that he has to win.
