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Stephen Brunsdon: “It didn’t take me long to get addicted to the panel-bashing nature”

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I first discovered touring cars in the heyday of Super Touring, in the late 1990s. As a fan of various racing disciplines, it didn’t take me long to get addicted to the panel-bashing nature of the British Touring Car Championship on TV and seeing the same kinds of cars going toe to toe on iconic circuits as I would see on the streets appealed even more to me.

Although Formula One took my heart by the end of the decade, my interest in tin tops returned, ironically, at a time when the BTCC was at one of its lowest ebbs, in 2003.

Nevertheless, the racing was still some of the best in the country and it wasn’t long before it became a centrepiece of the weekend, converting even my father (a long-time motor racing sceptic!) to a BTCC fan.

For all of my hours of watching racing on television, I hadn’t attended a race in person until 2005 at my local circuit, Knockhill. For those who remember, that year’s BTCC round at Knockhill was as close to a washout as you could get, but the sight of Yvan Muller and Matt Neal duking it out was incredible entertainment. After this initial toe in the water, I attended every Knockhill BTCC round since (with the exception of the 2020 edition due to the pandemic).

Having decided that a career in journalism was what I wanted to pursue, I somewhat landed on my feet in motorsport. I joined TouringCarTimes in 2016, having covered a variety of national club racing championships in the UK for print publications. My first real assignment for TcT came the following year when I covered the STCC on-site as the series made the bold move to TCR regulations. Since then, I have covered almost everything between Supercars and TCR Europe.

To think of TcT existing for almost as long as I have is quite astonishing, but it stands as proof that the website has been at the forefront of touring cars and continues to lead the way.

Even in the relatively short time since I got into touring car racing, to this day, the discipline has changed inexorably and will continue to do so. National and regional series are still the heartbeat of touring cars and the future for these remains positive.

What the category looks like on a world scale is hard to say, with a full-blown manufacturer-led world championship and customer-focused TCR-based world tour both falling by wayside. This points at deeper problems for the global appeal of touring cars, but that’s not to say that it will never recover.

Someone out there will no doubt have an answer and I am sure that a top-level, global touring car championship will once again be on the cards.