Neil Hudson: “It’s a fantastic thing to be a part of it”

My first recollection of touring car racing is rather vague. I was into the cars, not the names. I remember watching Ford Sierras, BMW M3s and Vauxhall Astras all battling out in a complicated two-class system.

The racing was fun, and these were cars that people could buy… Well, to me, the road-going counterparts were far from reachable, coming from a family that would never pay more than £500 for a car, and given that I was many years away from being able to drive, so a touring car to me those days were probably as unreachable as a Formula 1 car is now to ‘us grown-ups’.

Motorsport’s greatest years were a few years away, and from the mid-90s, I became a motorsport addict. It was actually kickstarted off by Formula 1. I developed a rather intense interest in the sport after watching my first Grand Prix on television, the German GP at Hockenheim in 1995, with Michael Schumacher taking his first home victory in the Benetton Renault.

However, I quickly “re-found” touring cars after that, with the echoes of the names and cars I had been watching a few years earlier and had Matchbox toys of. It all came back to me as I watched it on the BBC, promoted alongside the channel’s F1 coverage. It was the year John Cleland took his second and final British Touring Car Championship title with the Vauxhall Cavalier, in the same yellow and white Vauxhall racing colours that I remember seeing that Astra in a few years earlier.

In the late 90s, Formula 1, the BTCC and the CART World Series were unmissable TV for me, but it wasn’t until things went a bit haywire that I was compelled to actually get off my chair and attend my first race…

The circuit – Brands Hatch; the year – 2001; conditions – absolutely pouring with rain. A rookie mistake on my part was taking no radio, so I had no idea who won the sprint race when everyone had to start messing around with tyres. I’d thought for a while I’d seen Phil Bennett take a rare victory in the Triple Eight Vauxhall Astra, but actually I’d been present for West Surrey Racing’s first win with the MG with Anthony Reid, breaking what could have been a 25 race winning streak. The next race, and as more rain fell, I played witness to Jason Plato winning his first BTCC drivers’ title, as Yvan Muller’s Astra cruised around Druids in front of me with flames bellowing out of it as we’d briefly ducked out from the trees to watch the race before returning to our cover.

Throughout the 00s, I saw many more feats in touring cars. Rob Huff’s exciting first win for SEAT at Brands Hatch as Muller and Plato again battled it out, again watching from “my spot” at the inside of Druids. I was there when Dan Eaves achieved the first hat-trick at Thruxton for Team Dynamics. I also saw James Thompson take his second European Touring Car Championship win and his first in front of his home crowd and Donington Park for Alfa Romeo in 2004.

For some reason, and I can’t work out why now (no, really!), I started scribbling for TouringCarTimes in 2009. At first, just getting my hands dirty covering the championships I had no chance of attending (American and Canadian touring cars). My first visit as trackside media was back to Brands Hatch for the thrilling 2009 finale, watching as Jason Plato took the BTCC’s second hat-trick with RML, while Colin Turkington took his first drivers’ title with West Surrey Racing, stealing it from a rather disappointed Vauxhall, who left the BTCC with their tails between their legs.

Since then, I’ve had the privilege of travelling to various championships across the world: V8 Supercars, the Belgian series, the German series, Swedish, Italian, European, and mostly of course these days the World Touring Car Championship. I believe touring cars is the best platform for manufacturers to show off their product, partly because you see (a version) of the product racing (I’ve never considered going to Benetton for my car); but also the racing is spectacular. Touring cars has some of the greatest sports people and personalities in the world, hidden away from the excesses of other overblown sports. It’s a fantastic thing to be a part of it.