VETERAN RACER NEAL ON THE BTCC ‘IT’S BEEN ONE HELL OF A RIDE’
One driver who could rival Jason Plato for his association with the BTCC is Matt Neal. Plato’s long-term rival made his series debut in 1991 and has won three championship titles.
The 63-time BTCC race winner, who is second in the all-time tin-top race-victor list, has also tackled Supercars in Australia, made a one-off DTM outing, raced in
ASCAR, Benelux TCR, the European
Touring Car Championship and is a regular in historic racing, but it’s the domestic touring car championship that he will always be linked with.
“I don’t regret having been in the BTCC for so long – it’s been one hell of a ride,” says Neal. “But there are things I would have liked to have done that have probably passed me by now. Le Mans would have been high on that list.
“But the reason I haven’t done those things is that we’ve had to fight for every penny to go racing. For us, this has been a commercial enterprise, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without those backers that we have had. We have to justify what we do to investors. If you move onto the world stage – be that the World Touring Car Championship or TCR – then it is almost impossible. I doubt there is a driver there who is solely funded by sponsorship alone.”
And that is a crucial point. For Neal, his career has been enjoyable, but it has also been a fight to maintain his position on the grid. Nothing has been gifted and everything has been striven for.
“There were four or five times in my career where I thought it was all over,” says Neal. “And on most of those occasions, there were phone calls out of the blue that rescued things for me. It has been a fine line sometimes, but I am one of the luckiest men in the sport in that regard.”