The Observer

What a story to kick off the new season. Before Brands Hatch, the best that two-time British Touring Car Champion Matt Neal was hoping for was a modest top-six finish. No-one could expect his hastily built-from-scratch Honda Civic to be on the pace. This was going to be a weekend simply to get through.

During the Autosport podcast, recorded a few days before Brands, I questioned whether Neal might even be facing a win-less season. That's how up against it he looked. Well, my question was answered! In the last of the three races at Brands, Neal took the lead at the start - and won. Incredible!

Incredible because Team Dynamics only committed to building this car three short months ago. The switch to the Super 2000 regulations had been forced on them by the decision for the series to fall into line with the World Touring Car Championship, and they had looked long and hard at all their options.

Matt Neal (Team Dynamics Honda Civic) © LAT

It would have been easier to buy a proven chassis from BMW, Alfa Romeo or even arch rival SEAT - all of which were investigated. But Dynamics chose the harder road.

To abandon their ultra successful BTC-spec Honda Integra must have been hard enough. But to start from scratch with an unfamiliar set of rules and a different model in a ridiculously short time frame looked almost foolhardy.

It certainly appeared so at the BTCC media day, held at Rockingham two weeks before the first race. Neal and his new car were there - the only problem was the Civic was missing its engine. The team had been working around the clock to finish the car, but time had beaten them to get it ready for what was to be the only official pre-season test.

Neal had to be content with a very limited amount of testing elsewhere in the run-up to Brands - but only after the series organisers extended the pre-season curfew to allow them to do so.

When you're up against proven SEAT Leons and BMWs, plus Vauxhall's new S2000 Vectra with a proper and successful winter test programme behind it, this is hardly the right preparation - especially for a team defending back-to-back titles.

But massive respect to Team Dynamics! Against huge odds, they pulled off the unthinkable.

At 40, and with 15 years of experience at this level, Neal is an old hand. His famous overall win at Donington in 1999 as an Independent against the might of the factories will probably always be his career high. But this win at Brands must certainly rival it.

No wonder he said on Monday: "Our win with a car that has barely done a day's testing is a bigger shot in the arm than winning the title. The relief inside the car when I crossed the line was something else."

Thanks to an already surprising podium in race one and a fifth in race two, Neal is only nine points behind two-time Brands winner and strong title favourite Jason Plato. Who'd have thought it?

Neal's amazing win capped a great season-opener for Britain's premier race series. We all know the BTCC has been through some hard times since the end of the Super Touring era at the start of this century - but the signs are that another great era is just beginning.

Jason Plato (SEAT) leads a dense field at Brands Hatch © LAT

Ok, so the 26-car grid at Brands could be described as a bit 'clubbie' beyond the first half-dozen rows, but what does that matter? Readers of autosport.com will know who the make-weights are, but all the TV broadcasters will care about is that there are loads of cars.

The same goes for the majority of the 25,000-odd fans who turned out at Brands (my guess at the crowd size - the circuit won't give out a figure). The people on the banking and in the grandstands don't necessarily care that there is essentially a second division of drivers in the BTCC - especially if they get in the way and cause mayhem when being lapped!

We were spoilt during the heady days of the 1990s. No-one can expect the series to repeat its golden era and match the number of manufacturers and world-class drivers it attracted then.

Anyway, before the Super Touring boom, BTCC grids were always filled out by club-level drivers - and there were still a few at the back during the mid-1990s, too.

There is little point harking back to the 'good old days'. The motorsport world has changed since then and the BTCC is building up a new momentum nicely. The impressive crowd at Brands proves it is still a draw, as does the renewed ITV deal - even if not all the rounds have live terrestrial coverage as was the case last year.

For me, the most encouraging thing about Brands was that the big crowd enjoyed three entertaining and highly competitive BTCC races, plus the usual excellent package of support races.

The works SEATs of Plato and Darren Turner are clearly the benchmark in terms of performance, but anyone who expects them to run away with the championship might have to change their tune now. Plato will probably win the title, but the evidence suggests he will be made to work for it.

Along with Neal's shock form, the Team RAC BMWs, run by WSR for Colin Turkington and series newcomer Tom Onslow-Cole, were surprisingly on the pace from the start, with Turkington taking pole position on Saturday. Both the orange Bimmers could be race winners this season.

The same is certainly true of tin-top superstar Fabrizio Giovanardi and young Tom Chilton in Vauxhall's new Vectra, while SEAT Cupra graduate Mat Jackson and single-seater convert Adam Jones showed that privateers can still mix it with the works teams. They were true stars of the show at Brands.

And don't forget Mike Jordan, one of the few drivers still running an old BTC-spec car. Jordan could repeat his breakthrough victory from last year - although the message that would send out might not be the best. After most teams have invested in developing S2000 cars, it would be a kick in the teeth to have one of the older spec cars beating them.

It genuinely seems there could be around 10 potential race winners on the grid in the BTCC this year. The series has plenty of car variety, a healthy mixture of new and old stars and the right balance between entertainment and purist motorsport.

Now that is a match for the golden days of the mid-'90s.