RACING driver Tony Worswick is about to show his rivals just who is the BOSS.

For the chartered engineer from Blackburn has just bought not one, but two Jordan Formula One cars to contest the European Aviation BOSS - British Open Single Seater - series.

Worswick, who currently races a Reynard F3000 in the same championship, now owns the Jordan 194 which was raced by Brazilian Rubens Barrichello during the 1994 Grand Prix season, and a 1993 car, as used by current Ferrari star Eddie Irvine.

"It's a dream come true," said Worswick.

"I started my racing career as a teenager in a Mini as a teenager, progessed into rallying with a Ferrari, but I reckon this is the pinnacle of my ambitions."

Valued at a cool quarter of a million pounds each when new, the cars arrived in Blackburn this week and marked the culmination of 18 months of negotiations between Worswick and the Silverstone-based Jordan Grand Prix team, who have only previously released their cars for show purposes.

"I'm very grateful to team owner Eddie Jordan, because this is a unique deal. It has always been their policy not to allow ayone to buy their cars to race," explained Worswick.

"I think they realised that I was very serious about the BOSS championship, and leading the Irish Super Prix last month probably clinched it."

As a front-runner since it was launched three years ago, Worswick has seen BOSS transformed into Britain's fastest-and most popular-single seater racing championships.

Designed to accomodate obsolete Formula One and F3000 cars, BOSS provides spectacular Grand Prix-style racing at a fraction of the cost-for competitors and spectators alike. And it was the arrival of Scandinavian driver Johan Rajamaki and fellow Brit Ron Cumming, both driving ex-Formula One Footwork Arrows cars, that proved an irrestible challenge to Worswick.

"Although I've done pretty well in my seven-year-old Reynard F3000 car, it gives away something like 200 horsepower to a F1 car.

"It was clear after the Ireland race that it was the car that was beaten, not me, and I needed something to compete on level terms," he explained.

Although three years old, the Jordan is one of the fastest Grand Prix cars of its era.

Regulations in 1994 allowed the use of hugely powerful 3.5 litre V10 engines, which when allied to sophisticated semi-automatic gearbox technology, meant cars were-and still are-capable of rocketing from 0-100 miles an hour in under two seconds.

Despite arriving without power units, Worswick is hopeful of finalising a deal soon which will see the installation of an original Hart V10 engine.

He said: "Over the next few weeks, the team and I will be totally stripping the car down, checking every component and rebuilding it in the colours of our sponsors, Taksmaster Tools and Production Equipment of Bolton.

"By the time we've finished, I reckon we should be able to show the opposition a clean pair of heels at our first race.

"In fact, I've already adjusted the rear-view mirrors to see how far behind they are!"

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.