Andy Rouse

Andrew "Andy" Rouse (born 2 December 1947, Dymock, Gloucestershire) is an English racing driver, most notably in the BTCC.^[1] He won the BTCC in 1975, 1983, 1984 and 1985.

Andy Rouse is regarded by many people as one of the most successful drivers ever to appear in the BTCC. His 60 overall wins in the category was the highest total by any driver for many years, until being overhauled by Jason Plato at Brands Hatch in the opening round of the 2011 season.

Coming from an engineering background, Rouse was originally an apprentice with an agricultural engineering company. He had been interested in motor sport from an early age and had run self-built autocross specials in his teens and then Formula Ford. In 1971 he funded his racing activities by working for Broadspeed, the race car engineering company set-up by Brummie Ralph Broad. Rouse's combined engineering and driving talent soon became apparent to Broad, who then encouraged his motorsport career by providing him with assistance to race in other championships.

His first step into saloon car racing came in 1972, when he entered the Ford Escort Mexico series. He won this one-make championship in his first year, and soon stepped up into the British Saloon Car Championship. Over the following years, Rouse was successful in a number of Broadspeed entered cars (including Ford Escorts, Triumph Dolomite Sprints and Ford Capris) winning his class in 1973, 1974 and taking the title in 1975.

In 1976, Broadspeed ran the works Jaguar XJ12C cars, for which Rouse was both driver and race development engineer. Great results were expected from these powerful cars but unfortunately British Leyland stopped the program the following season following a string of poor results. With no works deal for 1978, Ralph Broad sold his stake in the company and Broadspeed soon went into liquidation.

In 1981, Rouse set up his own engineering company, Andy Rouse Engineering, taking many of the ex-Broadspeed employees with him. His success on the track continued with Championship wins in 1983 and 1984. He also won the Willhire 24 Hour in 1981 and 1983. Ford then gave him the 'works' contract to build and drive their next generation touring car, the Sierra Cosworth, which was to dominate the BTCC until the end of the decade. Rouse won the championship again in 1985 driving a Sierra XR4Ti,^[2] but this was to be his last overall title, although he won Class A again in 1988 and 1989. He was third overall in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991, before setting up the works Ford Mondeo team for 1993, hiring Paul Radisich to drive alongside himself. He retired from driving at the end of 1994, hiring Kelvin Burt as Paul's team-mate for 1995. He also ran a semi-works Nissan team in 1996, and later built a Super Touring specification Toyota Corolla which failed to find a racing team.

Since the demise of his touring car teams, Rouse has spent several years trying to promote a rival series to the British Touring Car Championship; his "Supercar V8" proposal was based around a spaceframe chassis, normally aspirated V8 engine, and bodywork modelled on medium to large saloon cars. This series has not yet materialized.

Racing record

Partial British Touring Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position - 1973-1990 in class) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap - 1 point awarded ?-1989 in class)

1. ^ – Race was stopped due of heavy rain. No points were awarded.

‡ Endurance driver.

References