1,000 Greatest Drivers: Thierry Tassin
Maybe the weirdest NASCAR crossover ever? But that's not why I listed him.
I originally had this scheduled for January 11, but I’ve really been struggling with it. Even though I knew 100% that Tassin needed to make the list, he is pretty obscure internationally and there has been very little written about his true legacy in English yet. His successes are far enough in the past that I was unable to find satisfactory recaps of any of his 24 Hours of Spa wins (and I suspect I’d probably have to subscribe to European newspaper archive sites to do that, which I don’t want to do yet), so one of the reasons this was a slog was that I struggled determining a best race for him. After I realized his second Spa win came in the same year as his gruesome injury, it became a lot clearer. Almost everything I found about him on the American newspaper archive sites was either about his very meh minor league open wheel career or his unusual Busch Series crossover in 1989, where he became the first European starter, and he actually outqualified all the Cup Series title contenders, who were all entered. It’s an interesting distinction but I feel I mentioned that too much and his actual legacy too little just because it was easier for my Americentric ass to find detail on his NASCAR career (irrelevant as it was) than his extremely dominant Belgian touring car career mainly because the Belgian Procar Championship no longer exists. I did my best, but I’m still not proud of it.
I’m thinking about porting seanwrona.com to my Substack since I know I’m a better writer at this point than I am a coder or especially as a graphic designer. Not only do I want to place more emphasis on this and attract more traffic (and I bet my eponymous site still might attract more traffic based on my typing fame than this does), but also Substack’s interface is just more professional-looking than anything I imagine I will ever produce. Obviously, some of my typing fans will probably be disappointed and I’ll need to make sure none of the really old content on there is lost when I do this, but I feel like my typing career is effectively over anyway and Nerds per Minute was my swan song. I honestly regret being lured back into making typing videos a few months ago to pander to my audience. I want this to be my main content, but I probably can’t make my existing base of YouTube subscribers care about it…
THIERRY TASSIN……………...BELGIUM
Born: January 11, 1959
Best year: 1995
Best drive: 1986 24 Hours of Spa
Arguably the greatest Belgian touring car driver, Tassin won four championships in his homeland, is tied for second with four 24 Hours of Spa wins, and leads all Belgian drivers in my touring car model. Tassin initially pursued an F1 career and briefly served as a McLaren test driver in 1981, but earned his first Spa win in 1983 on the side. His F1 ambitions effectively ended after a crash at the 1986 Formula 3000 season-opener at Silverstone. As his car broke down, he removed his belts and began to exit the car while it was still running, which resulted in him being struck by Dominique Delestre, nearly being thrown from the car, and suffering a badly damaged arm.
Although this effectively ended his open wheel career, he made a miraculous recovery. Less than four months later, Tassin won his second 24 Hours of Spa with Altfrid Heger and Dieter Quester. However, he didn’t race much as he spent most of this period rehabilitating in Australia. While there, he discovered oval racing and decided to give it a try. Believing his arm wasn’t strong enough to handle F1 cars and that he didn’t have enough connections to find a CART ride, he made an unusual move to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to pursue a NASCAR career, having learned from his onetime housemate Roberto Guerrero to not try to simultaneously race on two continents. He became the first European Busch Series starter at Nazareth in 1989, where he qualified fourth, actually ahead of Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, and Ken Schrader. However, he wouldn’t attract much American interest and soon returned to Belgium.
In the ‘90s, he became the biggest star of Belgian touring car racing, winning 34 races in the Belgian Procar Series from 1991-1999, including the 1993-1995 and 1999 titles and the 1994 and 1996 24 Hours of Spa, which counted as a Belgian Procar race. All four of his Spa wins came for BMW and he only had one repeat teammate Alexander Burgstaller, which firmly established that he was the linchpin of those teams. This tied Jean-Michel Martin’s record for the most Spa wins before Eric van de Poele eventually broke it. Information on Tassin’s domestic wins is a little sparse online, but I rate him very highly since he ranks in the top 2% of all drivers in my touring car model.
I suppose many people would rate van de Poele higher because he had a lot more success outside of Belgium including a DTM title, two 12 Hours of Sebring overall wins, and three Le Mans class wins. I think I prefer Tassin since he had a much higher sustained peak and a much higher touring car rating even if van de Poele faced better competition. I’m also impressed that Tassin had almost all his success after the injury. His junior open wheel record indicates he likely wouldn’t have been a strong F1 driver anyway, so I think he made the right choice to return home.
Touring car model: #32 of 1676 (.355)
Teammate head-to-heads: 44-18 (1-0 vs. Gerhard Berger, 1-0 vs. Johnny Cecotto, 1-0 vs. Alain Cudini, 21-14 vs. Marc Duez, 1-0 vs. Alain Ferte, 1-0 vs. Altfrid Heger, 1-0 vs. Ingo Hoffmann, 2-1 vs. Jean-Michel Martin, 0-1 vs. Yvan Muller, 7-1 vs. Michel Neugarten, 1-0 vs. Alain Peltier, 1-0 vs. Emanuele Pirro, 1-0 vs. Roberto Ravaglia, 1-0 vs. Herve Regout, 1-0 vs. Freddy Semoulin, 1-0 vs. Dany Snobeck, 1-0 vs. Gordon Spice, 1-1 vs. Joachim Winkelhock)
Year-by-year: 1982: C-, 1983: C, 1984: C-, 1986: C+, 1991: C, 1992: C+, 1993: E-, 1994: E-, 1995: E-, 1996: C+, 1997: C, 1998: C+, 1999: C+, 2000: C-