Alan Gow

Meet the BTCC boss who turned unknown drivers of souped-up repmobiles into household-name heroes of the racetrack

- Ben Barry

DISTIL THE 1990s British Touring Car Championship to its essence and it's a hard sell: four-door saloons usually driven by sales reps were thrashed around the racetracks of Britain by men that most of the population - at least initially had never heard of.

In reality, '90s BTCC became unmissably exciting. Humble Cavalier, Laguna and Primera bodyshells were among others dropped low over monster slick-shod 19-inch alloys, behind which you'd find sophisticated suspension, sequential transmissions, extensive carbonfibre and highly tuned 2.0-litre four-, five- or six-cylinder engines eventually pushed right back to the bulkheads and lowered to improve weight distribution. Every boy racer wanted the wheels, the single wiper, the sunstrip.

More than anything the racing was epic, helping BTCC drivers become household names (well, my mum can't reel them off, but you get the point), and they were soon joined by guest Formula 1 drivers. Even Nigel Mansell, who was reigning F1 World Champion when he suffered one of the biggest shunts of his career driving a Mondeo around Donington Park, surely an impossible scenario today.

Eight-figure budgets, huge crowds, big TV figures, the TOCA Touring Car Championship computer game, Murray Walker's frenzied delivery struggling to keep pace with the action and the offs... it was 'Go, go, go!' as the man himself would have said.

Alan Gow steered the championship from behind the scenes, and for fans the straight-talking boss remains as synonymous with the series as championship winners Harvey, Tarquini, Menu, Biela and Cleland.