Touring Car Rewind: South descended on Brands Hatch’s 1.2-mile Indy circuit with a broad spread of historic tin-tops across Pre-’66, Super Tourer, Pre-’83, and Pre-’93 classes — and while the 1990s machinery drew the loudest response from the spectator banks, it was the Pre-’66 grid that produced the weekend’s defining moment. A 16-lap battle between two Hillman Imps, resolved by 0.03 seconds, was the sharpest reminder that close-fought, unpredictable racing still thrives at the older end of the historic touring car spectrum.

How a 0.03-Second Finish Reflects the Wider Pull of Motorsport Results

Margins as small as those between Prebble and Ibbotson carry weight well beyond the circuit fence. The Rizik.hr Team, which monitors Croatian sports and betting markets, notes that a verdict this tight exemplifies precisely the kind of unpredictable, outcome-driven racing that compels fans to follow results round by round. Observing Croatian fan behavior from the outside, the team notes that in Croatia, where interest in motorsport results runs alongside a busy online betting scene, fans turn to Rizik Hr to follow race markets and outcomes tied to touring car and historic motorsport action.

“Proper close racing.”

That was Gary Prebble’s assessment immediately after the race, and the facts support it entirely.

Prebble, Ibbotson, and the Imp Battle That Defined Pre-’66

According to Autosports, Piers Grange took a double in Pre-’66 Touring Cars aboard his Ford Falcon, but the victories were harder earned than they might appear. The Lotus Cortinas of Ian Thompson and Simon Gusterson pressed him throughout, and Grange’s V8 provided just enough grunt to hold them off each time the twin-cam machines threatened to get through. Their own intra-Cortina fight played directly into Grange’s hands. The Saturday race was cut short after a couple of cars went off, but Sunday’s 16-lap encounter ran its full distance and produced something exceptional.

Gusterson moved past Thompson at Graham Hill Bend on only the second lap, a clean but decisive move that reshuffled the pursuit. Thompson responded with the fastest lap of the race and dove back ahead at Paddock Hill Bend on lap eight, reinstating himself in the order with a move that underlined how much was still at stake in the closing stages.

Behind the Cortina exchange, Gary Prebble and reigning champion James Ibbotson waged a separate war in their matching Hillman Imps. Ibbotson edged ahead repeatedly via the slipstream, but Prebble answered each time with an outbraking move that reclaimed the position. The sequence repeated itself across multiple laps. Former BTCC star Jeff Smith, having gone straight on at Druids the day before, charged from the back of the grid in a Mini but could work his way no higher than behind the leading quartet. When it was over, Prebble had held on by 0.03 seconds.

The Super Tourers Draw the Crowds but a Mechanical Retirement Steals the Story

The 1990s Super Touring cars remain the biggest draw for many who line the Brands Hatch banks, yet their complexity and expense constrain the grids. The Brands Hatch entry was bolstered into double figures by Super Production and Super 2000-spec machinery, providing the visual volume the class requires.

Race wins were split between Jason Hughes, who took Saturday’s victory in a Vauxhall Vectra, and debutant Robert Whelan, who won Sunday’s race in an Opel Vectra. Whelan’s car was the ex-Mike Briggs 1996 RML-built example his father John had raced at the previous year’s Super Touring Power 3 event. He pipped Hughes to pole by a tenth of a second.

The weekend’s most talked-about car, however, was a retirement. Michael Cullen’s BMW 318i E36 had not turned a wheel in competition since 1995, having spent the intervening years on display in a Yokohama Advan dealership. Dutch BMW specialist Mats van den Brand spent 700 hours recommissioning it. With Cullen unavailable for Brands Hatch, 2013 BTCC champion Andrew Jordan was brought in to share driving duties. Jordan qualified third, beaten only by later General Motors machinery, and offered a candid assessment of the car’s character.

“It’s a really, really nice car to drive. It’s a lot slower in terms of horsepower [than a modern car], but a lot lighter as well. This is much more up on its toes.”

A broken crank sensor trigger wheel ended the car’s Saturday race. With no spares available for the 30-year-old component, van den Brand was denied a Sunday run entirely.

A Self-Built Starlet and the First Outing for a Rouse Sierra Recreation

Beyond the main class battles, Touring Car Rewind: South drew a number of cars whose stories are inseparable from the people who built them.

Jason Waterman arrived with a spaceframe replica of the Toyota Starlet that George Polley drove to the 1987 National Hot Rod championship. Waterman first saw Polley’s original car at the discipline’s Brentwood Show when he was 15.

“I was 15 at the time, and it was like, ‘That is just stunning.’”

Decades later, Waterman built his own version from scratch, drawing on the practical skills of his garage business.

“I own a garage business so I taught myself to weld, I taught myself to paint. I built the spaceframe, which I’d never done before, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

The replica qualified ninth of 15 and finished seventh on Saturday before a head-gasket failure ended Sunday’s outing. Its reception at Brands Hatch made the effort worthwhile regardless.

“I just wanted people to see it again, and the reaction from everybody… they absolutely love it.”

Nigel Garrett brought a different piece of BTCC history to Brands Hatch for its first track outing. His recreation of Andy Rouse’s 1985 title-winning Ford Sierra XR4Ti is based on the North American Merkur model and uses a 2.3-litre turbocharged engine. The original car is believed to no longer exist in its original form, which provided much of Garrett’s motivation for building it.

“Someone needed to build it. I think there’s too many Cossies out there, basically!”

Garrett described the XR4Ti’s significance as the direct predecessor to the Sierra Cosworth, with chassis and suspension development carried straight over.

“It was the development platform for the Cossie. He [Rouse] developed the chassis, the suspension, then they took everything off and put it on the Cossie the next year.”

After the car’s first runs, Garrett was satisfied enough to leave competition behind.

“This could be a race car, but I’m retired from that. I’m happy to do the demo stuff.”

In Pre-’83 Touring Cars, current BTCC driver Charles Rainford raced a Group 1-spec Ford Capri run by his father Shaun’s CCK Historic squad. Rainford won his category on Saturday but was edged by Jonathan Corker’s Datsun 510 on Sunday.

Prebble’s two-word verdict after his Imp victory, “Proper close racing,” stands as the weekend’s most accurate summary. A 0.03-second margin across 16 laps, fought through repeated slipstream exchanges and outbraking moves, is exactly what keeps the Pre-’66 class at the centre of any honest conversation about historic touring car competition at Brands Hatch.

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