Anthony Reid

BTCC alumnus


Caption = Reid in 2003
Name = Anthony Reid
Nationality = flagicon|SCO
Team = Nissan, Ford,
MG
Championships = 0
Wins = 15
Podiums = 50
Poles = 17
Fastest laps = 28
First year = 1997
First win = 1998
Best position = 2nd (1998, 2000)
Last season = 2004
Last position = 4th (213 points)

Anthony Reid is a British auto racing driver, born on 17 May, 1957 in Glasgow, Scotland. Although Scottish he has a very upper-class-English sounding voice (received pronunciation), due in no small part to his education at private schools.He spent many years in Formula Three and other junior single-seater championships, winning the Japanese Formula Three Championship in 1992 and winning Japanese GT championship races, but his success has mostly been with a roof over his head, firstly in sportscars and later in Touring car racing. He actually passed a test drive with Jordan F1 Team in 1992 and would have competed in the following season but he couldn't raise sufficient sponsorship money, he still keeps the letter of acceptance in a frame on his wall.

In 1997 he first raced in the British Touring Car Championship, with Nissan, having raced for them in Germany the previous year. The speed he showed in this season was translated into consistent results in 1998, when he fought for the title up to the final round, losing out to Sweden's Rickard Rydell. In 1999 he joined Ford to help develop their Mondeo, again struggling in his first season before challenging for the championship in 2000, finishing second to team-mate Alain Menu.

For 2001 he joined West Surrey Racing (WSR) as they developed an MG, not racing until the end of the season but still finding time to win the final race of the season, although the team was not eligible for points. He drove for the team for the next 3 seasons, although for 2004 MG pulled out and WSR ran the car privately, only finding the funds to run Reid (whose contract was owned by MG rather than WSR) alongside the better-funded Colin Turkington a few days before the season opened. Against all odds this season was the closest he came to winning the title in this car, also winning the Independent's cup ahead of Matt Neal. For 2005 WSR was unable to find the funds for him to race, and his planned racing with MG in Germany was scrapped when the company folded.

Reid later turned to the Argentinian TC2000 series, helping Honda Petrobras to develop their Honda Civic for competition as well as racing it. He won the 200Km of Buenos Aires in 2008 racing with José María 'Pechito' López. [cite news
url=http://www.tc2000.com.ar/noticias_ingles.php?id=24
title=Reid worked on the development of the Civic 07
publisher=Home Page Oficial del Campeonato Argentino de TC 2000
access date=2008-01-01]

His Brother John is the head roboteer for Robot Wars favourite Terrorhurtz.

He had appeared in Top Gear series 10 episode 6 driving a nimble Toyota motorhome.

References

External links

* [http://www.anthonyreid.com/ Anthony Reid official website]