STEVE RIDER THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE
Throughout the growth of the British Touring Car Championship, there has been one man who has been there from the start and still enjoys the series as much as ever: Steve Rider.
He is a name and a face so recognisable to the motorsport fan, having fronted BBC’s Formula 1 coverage through the 1990s and also lending his weight to the transition of the BTCC from back-street national racing championship to front-page news.
Known as Mr Unflappable, Rider’s laid-back approach and vast knowledge of motorsport means he is the safest pair of hands out there in terms of handling a broadcast, but there is also a laconic style of humour which cuts right to the heart of issues others might not dare to approach.
Although he has sat in the hot seat for the Olympics and the football World Cup among other huge events, it is his interest in motor racing and the stories it can provide for the viewer that have brought him back to the discipline time and again. And he hasn’t stopped reflecting on the heritage motorsport already has in its locker, as you can read here.
While the BTCC battlers will be getting their heads around the new hybrid push-to-pass regulations and all that the 2022 competition has to throw at them, Rider will be there with a knowing eye watching it all unfold and delivering the drama to the public’s front rooms. We gave the viewers a chance to fight back with our MN readers’questions, and his story reveals quite some journey.
Question: Where did the motorsport passion come from in you?
Jack Crowther Via email
Steve Rider: “It came to me really. I started out as a jobbing local sports journalist in South East London and then went, through a couple of transitions through a sports agency, to eventually work with the London Broadcasting Company, but it wasn’t until I got to Anglia Television in the mid-1970s that I realised the kind of material you could get from a race circuit – and how privileged you were if you went there with a TV camera.
“East Anglia was, of course, a particularly fertile area for motorsport. There was Snetterton down the road and the Lotus Formula 1 team. Snetterton was the first circuit I really remember going to, although there is a murky memory of being taken to Crystal Palace when I was very young. But I didn’t really have anything to give me the bug until I was able to get the other side of the ropes, as it were.
“We started using any excuse to go to Snetterton and also to Silverstone, which was right on the edge of our patch. It was a time when you could turn up and there would be Barry Sheene, Mick Grant or anyone. The access was great. We were covering a lot of the [UK-based] Aurora Formula 1 Championship, but most of all, there was Team Lotus, Colin Chapman, Ronnie Peterson and Mario Andretti on our doorstep. We managed to forge a reasonably good relationship with Colin Chapman which enabled us to get behind the scenes a fair bit – that is really where it all started for me.”
MN: It wasn’t just sports reports: you did a documentary with Lotus, didn’t you?
“Lotus boss Colin Chapman was an unusual character”
Steve Rider
“Doing a documentary was half the intention. It was during the 1978 season and Lotus was dominating the grand prix year. We had been doing a lot of work with the team and Colin said ‘why don’t you come out to Monza, the race
