About Andrew

Anyone with a nickname like “Mad Andy” is not just another racing driver. Andrew Miedecke never seriously troubled the scorers in the Australian Touring Car Championship, but he was more than quick enough to make an impact. And he often made headlines.

Miedecke blasted into touring cars after a fast and spectacular career in open-wheel racing, leading Bathurst in a low-budget Ford Sierra before being snapped up as Peter Brock’s teammate.

He often qualified well, had some good results and a couple of wicked crashes, but never made the fulltime proffesional ranks. He eventually won a NASCAR title before he left serious motorsport to concentrate on business, then returned in his sixties to again face-off against Jim Richards and John Bowe in the Touring Car Masters Series while backing his son, George, in V8 Utes then stock car racing in the USA.
Miedecke’s best championship place was only eighth in 1988, but he proved his pace and consistency as late as 1997 with a third at the Bathurst 1000, sharing a Mitre 10 Falcon with Mark Larkham.

“My modus operandi was that I gave it absoloutely everything, every time. I reckon that’s how you’ve got to be.” Miedecke said. But he admitted it was a high-risk stratergy. “I wasn’t perfect. I ran out of talent sometimes. And equipment sometimes.

”

Miedecke was born in Tasmania and got the motor racing bug early, even wangling a job in the timing box at Longford when he was only 15. He got serious when he moved to Sydney and, while selling cars on Paramatta Road, made some money in property sepculation.

“In the very early 1970s I asked my mother for money to go moto racing. She said no but said she would lend me money for the deposit on a house. By 1974 I had enough money to buy a brand-new Formula Ford.”

In the Ford, he was second in the Driver to Europe Series and that gave him a springboard into more than a decade of open-wheel racing, mostly in Formula Two and Formula Pacific cars. He was a regular overseas racer too, competing in Britain, Macau, Malaysia, and New Zealand against a wide range of rivals including Bowe. 
But it was a Kiwi, Steve Millen, who gave Miedecke his “Mad Andy” tage while he was racing a March in Formula Pacific.

“Steve was a good guy but I went over there and raced in the New Zealand Gold Star and he felt, because he was a New Zealander, that he had the right to win every race.

There was a race at Bay Park, where Steve was very good but I was quicker. He got in front at the start and was baulking for the whole race. There was a race to win so we had a very determined wheel clashing, Neither of us was damaged, and Steve at the end got the win. The crowd were up and cheering like they’d never seen before, but he was offended that anyone could take that to him.” “He refused to race at the next race.

”
The “Mad Andy” tage stuck thanks to some spectacular open-wheel crashes that were not always his fault. He turned his car into a canoe in a giant crash in Macau in 1980 and, in 1984, went through a trackside billboard at the New Zealand Grand  Pix at Pukekehoe.

“I was driving one of Graeme Watson’s  cars. I lined up on the second or third row for the second heat, dropped the clutch and got a good start. As I got into the braking area I accelerated. The car went upside-down and I took the “R” out of “Castrol” in a giant billboard.

”
It turned out a rock had jammed the throttles.
“In Harry Galloway’s car I had a crash in practice for the NZGP and broke both my legs.  One was broken in 20 places.”
Touring cars might have looked safer, but Miedecke was really looking for a way to turn professional.

“I had been in single-seaters a long time, but I could see there wasn’t going to be any money – ever. If I was going to be able to drive professionally, apart from going up to Asia, it had to be in touring cars. In late 1986, or it might have been early 1987, I went to NZ and rented a Ford Sierra. A few of the Kiwi boys had them. They were early Roush cars; they had the 2.3 Pinto engine.”

On the plane back to Australia, Bo Seton – father of Glenn – came up to Miedecke and suggested a way to go racing in a Sierra.

“He doesn’t talk much but he said, “ A mate of mine, Don Smith, has got these Cosworth Sierras and is getting dudded,” and told me to give him a call.”
It didn’t take Miedecke long to forge a partnership, using some of the money he had made with a new car dealership in Port Macquarie.

“So that was the ’87 touring car championship. The deal I struck with Don was that I bought a Sierra from him for $125,000 and he paid all the expenses to run it, with OXO sponsership. We were pretty competitive. That first year I remember we were the dominant Ford Sierra team.

“That year probabley really made my name as a touring car driver.”
But there were troubles – including a disqualification from second place at Surfers Paradise – as he finished 15th in the series with a best of seventh place.
“Just before Sandown we got the RS500 with the big turbo and I put it on pole straight away. Don and I were driving together, and he rolled it over at the end of the main straight.

”
But Bathurst was a boomer. He qualified on the front row and led easily, although he always knew Smith – more than five seconds slower in practice – would not be able to sustain a serious run.

“I think that first OXO Sierra wasthe best touring car I drove. It really was good that day in ’87 at Bathurst. I think I was driving as well as ever had. I was sitting on the grid thinking, “I’m really looking forward to this”, and it’s not every day you can say that.

”
When Smith decided to sell up, Miedecke had a new team and some suprising names in the line-up.

“Ross Stone came over to work for me from New Zealand. And Jim too. I used to race against Ross, when he drove in a self-built Fomrula Pacific car called the Cuda – that was a scaled down McLaren M23, because Jim had worked at McLaren.”
There was backing from Yokohama and Kewood, as well as a second car, and his best race result was a third. But the series only brough him eighth.

“The problem right through that year, and the next year, was that, while we were quick, we didn’t have enough money to do it. We wanted to have a red-hot go. That was how we decided to do it. We hada lot of DNFs, but when we were going we were quick.

”
Miedecke also lost a car at Lakeside in 1989 in one of the most fiery and spectacular crashes of the Group A era.
“Brock and I were racing really hard and I touched another car we were lapping. I ended up in the fence, and they didn’t stop the race, and then Glenn Seton went into the car. And they still didn’t stop the race, and then Murray Carter hit us. And my car was completely incinerated.

”
Miedecke crashed again at the Australian Grand Prix meeting in Adelaide – “I got punted by a competitor who should be nameles, but it was Dick” – and could not compete a planned race in Japan.

By the end of the year, Miedecke was wondering what to do when he was approached by Brock’s team manager, Alan Gow, at Advantage Racing to race a second Mobil Sierra in 1990.

“I knew the Brock team revolved around Peter, but I did a deal with them. I was going to get paid and take the pressure off myself. I went to Brocks and the first two or three races were fine. Peter and I were on the same pace. Then Alan came to me and said, “I’m off to England to run the BTCC.”” Then Brock got a break at Symmons Plains and Miedecke was left behind.

“I remember the boys went to the airport to pick up a new ECU [engine control unit] and Brock was on pole and disappeared. I never did get that ECU.”
For much of the year Brock also had better tyres from Bridgestone.
“Finally at Mallala I got some tyres, not the good ECU or the boost, and we were back relatively on the pace.”
But a tangle with Boew in the race, as he ran interferance for Johnson, saw Miedecke flip his Sierra.

“There was atouch-up on the pit straight and my car ended up riding over John’s wheel and rolled over. [Team manager] Neil Lowe came up and apologised afterwards. It was the culmination of a tough year.”
When Brock decided to return to Holden, it meant a new deal with Larry Perkins and Miedecke – as a Ford dealer – was left behind.

“I wasn’t the only person to get poorly treated at Brock’s thing. And that was the end of my fulltime career. I really only did the long-distance races from then on.”
Miedecke did two years in Brock’s team, then was recruited by Allan Moffat. But it was a low-budget effort in a Falcon that didn’t even have fuel injection on the engine. “That was the caburettor car. The thing was just hopeless. It actually handled pretty well but it was hopless up and down the hill. But it was all I had and I got on fairly well with Allan and I drove that for a couple of years.” 
Miedecke continued at Bathurst with Paul Romano and eventually Dougal McDougal, but the highlight was the podium in 1997.

“That year I was with Mark Larkham, when we came third. And that was good. Ninety-seen was a tough race but we were on the pace all the way through. We drove that car, the two of use, really quite well.”

So things wound down and Miedecke concentrated on his car dealership. But he had plenty of great memories and a competative fire that took him back to Touring Car Masters and tarmac rallying.

“I enjoyed everything I’ve driven. Single-seaters were always the love, especially the last Ralt RT4. It was the best car I ever had. We always gave it a good shot. Looking back, to do everything I was trying to do at the time, it was never going to work. But I gave it a shot anyway.
“I’m not at all dissatisfied with what I’ve achieved. I don’t think it was too bad an effort.”

WHY HE’S A LEGEND

• Fast in anything he drove
• Never let a good crash get him down
• Suprising Bathurst leader in a Sierra

Born:
18 December 1949 in Melbourne, Victoria.

Career Highlights:
1979 - Malaysian Grand Prix Winner

1988 - Pukekohe 500 Winner

1989 – Oran Park 300 Winner

1990 – Nissan Mobil 500 Series Winner New Zealand

1994 – Targa Tasmania Winner

2001 – Australian V8 Stock Car Champion
2nd,
1974 – Formula Ford Series
3rd,
1982, 1983 – Australian Drivers Championship
3rd,
1990 – Nissan 500, Eastern Creek
3rd,
1995 – Eastern Creek 12 Hour
3rd,
1997 – Primus 1000 Classic, Bathurst
4th,
2010 – Touring Car Masters Series
5th,
1976, 1981 – Australian Grand Prix
7th,
1991, 1992 – Bathurst 1000
8th,
1988 – Australian Touring Car Championship

Australian Touring Car/V8 Supercar Championship Series stats:
Debut:        1971 Oran Park

Round Starts:    37
Race
Wins:    0
Round Wins:    0

Pole Positions:    1
Podiums:    1

Championship Results:
1987    OXO Supercube Motorsport    15th

1988    Miedecke Motorsport        8th

1989    Miedecke Motorsport        13th

1990    Mobil 1 Racing             12th

Note – Only competed in one round at Oran Park in 1971. And didn’t appear in championship again until 1987. Only competed in six rounds in 1989 due to a fire at Lakeside that destroyed his his car, and again only six rounds in 1990 after a roll over at Mallala damaged his Sierra. Was an endurance driver only from 1999-2002.