When a new car interrupted a perfect season of dominance

The Super Touring era marked the zenith for the British Touring Car Championship. But budgets had crept above eight figures meaning those 'Formula 1 cars with mudguards' were not long for the motorsport world. As the new millennium approached, manufacturers headed for the door and took many of the star-name drivers with them.

The BTC-Touring regulations, introduced for the 2001 season, were drafted to rein in the crazed excess. Out went the swathes of carbon fibre and aerodynamic appendages, in came standardised brakes, gearboxes and differentials.

After such a peak, some kind of slump was inevitable. To minimise the impact as far as possible, what the flagship national series and its new boss Richard West needed was a grid packed with entries and a multi-make, hotly-contested championship battle. Instead, what lay ahead was a series suffering through one of its lowest ebbs.

There was utter domination courtesy of the supremely potent Vauxhall Astra Coupe. Set aside the Production hatchback class - which, due to a rule quirk meant they had to do one fewer lap, on occasion allowed the likes of Simon Harrison, Roger Moen and Simon Graves to claim outright as well as class victories - the quartet of Triple Eight and Egg Sport Astras won 25 out of 26 races. That marks an imperious winning ratio of 96%, surpassing even the McLaren MP4/4 or any of the hybrid-era Mercedes F1 cars.

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As for everyone else fighting in the top class - the works Peugeot 406 Coupes run by Vic Lee and the independent Alfa Romeo 147s and Lexus IS200s - they stood little chance. Thankfully for fans, there was a distraction in the form of the dogged in-house fighting between Jason Plato and Yvan Muller at Triple Eight for the title spoils.

The fly in the otherwise perfect ointment for Vauxhall, though, came at Brands Hatch in the penultimate race of year, as Anthony Reid vanquished Luton's finest and ended the otherwise perfect score.

The two MG Sport and Racing ZS cars of Reid and team-mate Warren Hughes were late to the 2001 party, and only made their debut at Silverstone with three rounds to go. Even then, having made engine modifications during practice, they were relegated to the back of the grid. During the two races at the penultimate Donington Park round, they were busy fighting off the Alfa and Lexus competition - let alone the Peugeots or the Vauxhalls.

Lola, a byword for sportscar and single-seater success (excluding its under-baked F1 efforts), had bagged the contract to build the MG LMP675 Le Mans Prototypes, and with it the two ZSs. The focus was on the endurance programme, which resulted in the delay to MG's long-awaited BTCC return after its 1950s exploits with the Magnette.

Reid, the 1998 runner-up with Nissan and a championship challenger with Ford in 2000, recalls: "The [ZS] was being built throughout the year and around the Le Mans cars. We started testing towards the end of that season. The car had shown a great deal of promise, but it wasn't a race winner at that stage."

Dick Bennetts, the venerable boss of West Surrey Racing, was tasked with running the cars on behalf of Lola and MG. Whereas the Vauxhall competed with four-cylinder engines, the ZSs had to wade into battle with cumbersome V6s hanging out ahead of the front-axle.

"OK, [Vauxhall] had been the dominant car, they had won all the races so far, but they were rather presumptuously assuming they were going to win both races that day" Anthony Reid

"It was a heavy engine, but we couldn't do much about it then and the V6 did sound fantastic," Bennetts says. "I have to be honest, when we agreed to the programme, I went up to Lola for a meeting. Someone brought up twin lambda [oxygen] sensors.

"I said, 'Excuse me, why do you want twin lambda sensors on a four-cylinder engine?'. They looked at me and said, 'Hasn't anyone told you, it's a V6?'. We'd run the V6 [Ford] Mondeo during Super Touring and I thought, 'We're in trouble again'."

Happily, however, the BF Goodrich tyres - a Michelin derivation - of the time could cope with the bulk of the V6 in the dry and fared even better in mixed conditions, which helped tee up Reid's giant-killing win at Brands.

Before the races at Brands got underway, there was a chance for Vauxhall to celebrate its commanding 2001 form. The drivers and team posed for a photo opportunity, with all of the trophies standing in the foreground. Come Sunday, the Triple Eight cars even sported a special blue livery in recognition of winning the teams' championship.

"OK, they had been the dominant car, they had won all the races so far," says Reid, "but they were rather presumptuously assuming they were going to win both races that day. I saw all those trophies and thought, 'they must be super-confident'."

That confidence seemed well-placed come the end of qualifying, as the Astras of Muller, Plato and James Thompson naturally claimed the top three spots in qualifying. Hughes was best of the rest in fourth place and Reid lined up eighth.

Hughes made a sound enough start, but Dan Eaves had rocketed off the line in the 406 to grab the inside line into Paddock Hill Bend. With Thompson bogging down, it meant Hughes had to pull to the outside but, as he cut back across the track, he swiped across the nose of Phil Bennett's Astra and suffered a half spin.

Hughes was fortunate to keep his car on track (below) but fell into the clutches of the Production class as Reid nicked seventh.

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Hughes recovered well past the Alfas of Tim Harvey and Tom Ferrier, and then both MGs were dealt a lucky hand. Ferrier spluttered out of Druids with a blown engine, where he was tagged by Harvey, to give the ZSs some breathing space in the midfield. Up ahead, Muller latched onto the rear of Plato in their breathless battle for the race lead when rain started to spit.

Steve Soper fell foul and suffered a massive shunt in the 406 - from which he'd be forced to retire from his professional career on medical grounds - and the two MGs managed to avoid the stricken wreck in the middle of the circuit shortly before the safety car was called.

The interlude afforded the chance to pit for wet tyres. All bar three drivers duly obliged. In the Production class, Peugeot 306 pilot Moen and the Ford Focus of Mat Jackson opted to brave it on slicks.

Of the top-flight cars, only Reid chose to stick with the dry-weather rubber in a call that would prove decisive. This was noted by co-commentator John Watson, who prophetically said: "When a driver makes a decision like that, he's either going to be either a hero or a zero because conditions are deteriorating very quickly."

Hughes was ahead of Reid at the time, giving him first choice about if and when to pit. But he took his time deliberating, much to the frustration of the team.

"Because it was going to take such a long time to change tyres, there was no point having both cars come in as we had only one pit crew," says Reid. "I was going to be stuck behind Warren twiddling my thumbs for 50 seconds, so I decided to stay on.

"I remember the team manager Mike Ewan came on the radio and said, 'For fuck's sake, Warren, hurry and make your mind up!' I could see Warren was dithering and he was finally ordered into the pits as I stayed out."

"It was risky because of the aquaplaning with slicks on, but Reidy kept saying he was OK. He did a fantastic job to keep it on the road" Dick Bennetts

Bennetts, renowned in the BTCC paddock for his note taking, was quickly calculating from the pitwall. The short Brands Indy circuit, combined with the long pitstop times, meant if Reid stayed out he would potentially lap Plato and Muller if he banged in a quick enough time.

"Mike and I worked it out and thought it was worth a gamble," adds Bennetts. "It was risky because of the aquaplaning with slicks on, but Reidy kept saying he was OK. He did a fantastic job to keep it on the road."

The weighty V6 was suddenly working in the MGs' favour, pushing the tyres into the surface to find what little available grip there was. A brief scare came as Reid slithered out of control on the exit of Graham Hill Bend, but he kept the car pointing in the right direction.

His competitors were faring far worse. Muller had dropped off the back of Plato when his wipers packed up and then in quick succession Moen and Jackson - the only slick runners - pinged into the barriers.

Reid was left to go it alone on the dry compound as Plato, on the optimal rubber, tore chunks out of his lead. And the Vauxhall driver's pace proved too much as he slipped by for what seemed like yet another win.

But Lola, MG, WSR and Reid were given a late lifeline as Production runner James Kaye spun backwards into the gravel at Paddock Hill. With the Honda Accord beached, the red flag was waved. On countback, Reid had snared an unlikely victory by just 0.2s.

Reid says: "I didn't expect to win, and neither did Vauxhall expect me to. It was probably my flukiest win in the BTCC, but it happens. It was a great shot in the arm for the entire team.

"This was such an interesting project to be involved in: a British car manufacturer not only racing in British Touring Cars but also at Le Mans, too.

"It was a particularly satisfying thing to achieve at such an early stage in the project. It was the one and only time that a Lola-built chassis won a round of the BTCC, so that's in the history books. Martin Birrane [former Lola owner] was always rather fond of that result."

Bennetts adds: "We were absolutely over the moon, soaking wet, but we were out on the grid getting the trophy. That was the beginning of the new era with MG Sport and Racing."

Further MG success would have to wait. Hughes lined up on pole for the second race, but both he and Reid would retire. Incidentally, due to the deluge, the cars' fuses couldn't cope and tripped out.

There was a touch more misery to follow, too. The next morning, leaving the circuit, Birrane and MG were involved in a dispute over ownership of assets outside of the BTCC. The cars were loaded up in the team transporter, and Bennetts - having dined on a few beers - was fed conflicting instructions as to where the cars should be delivered.

Eventually, he decided that mechanical sympathy was the first priority and so had them returned to the WSR workshop.

He says: "I decided to bring the cars back to WSR because I didn't want to upset MG. Our contract was with them. I said, 'I don't know what's going on, but the cars have run in the wet and they need to be stripped. We'll bring them to WSR and you sort out your differences'. But then we weren't allowed to open the transporter!"

Another call followed, this time from MG with the order to build two new cars for 2002. The old Lola machines would run under the Team Atomic Kitten banner for the following season with Gareth Howell and future champion Colin Turkington behind the wheel.

Meanwhile, WSR had to work out how to navigate intellectual property restrictions and change enough parts on the ZS while not losing out on the new-found performance. The outfit pulled it off, however, and despite a renewed effort from Honda would win three races in 2002.

The MGs survived another four seasons - with four-cylinder engines from 2004 - and Turkington won twice on his way to third in 2006 before title sponsor RAC requested WSR enter a car that was still actually on sale in the UK. In came the kit to build the BMW 320si, kick-starting a relationship between WSR and the German marque that has lasted ever since.