Video: How historic racing saved Matt Neal's BTCC career | Goodwood Masters

09th August 2024

Simon Ostler

Three-time BTCC champion and all-time touring car great Matt Neal’s career has been intrinsically linked to the Team Dynamics team that was founded by his father Steve Neal and Ray Bellm in 1991. He first raced for the team in the BTCC in 1993 as an Independent entry, and scored points at the first time of asking at Silverstone on the way to a maiden Independent’s championship victory. He remained with the team through much of the 1990s and won three more Independents’ championships in ’95, ’99 and 2000.

Racing as Team Halfords in the mid-2000s thanks to a major sponsorship deal, Neal, together with Team Dynamics, became the first Independent to win the overall BTCC championship in 2005 and he and the team retained their titles a year later. That success eventually led to a partnership with Honda, and Team Dynamics became a works entry for the first time in 2010, winning another championship with Neal in 2011.

The team remained competitive throughout the rest of the decade, winning three further drivers’ championships with Gordon Shedden and five teams’ championships.

But before all the success, there was a lot of hard work that went into building this great team. From the early days in a 1,300 square-foot pre-fab building, Team Dynamics has gradually upscaled over 30 years to eventually find itself in a home that Neal says the likes of Honda would be proud of.

Neal eventually fell out of love with racing and retired from the BTCC at the end of 2020, but a visit to the Goodwood Revival relit the fire, and there is now a sector of the Team Dynamics factory dedicated to building and preparing historic racing cars.

Along the way, the team engaged in several side activities to try and bring in more money, including developing the ‘Mean Mower’, which Honda used to set a new world speed record for lawn mowers. There’s a whole lot more to Team Dynamics than their efforts in the BTCC, and we got a tour of the factory to see exactly what goes on behind the scenes.