1,000 Greatest Drivers: Andy Rouse
The venerable British touring car driver delivered many rousing performances.
Hahaha, get it, “rousing”? You may commence throwing tomatoes at me. That pun was so good I used it in the actual driver capsule too. Rouse had a wildly productive career and I couldn’t even cover everything here. In addition to his 60 overall wins and 4 titles, he also has 21 class wins and 5 class championships. In a bizarre series where some of the top drivers intentionally raced in less competitive classes for better championship placement (including Rouse sometimes), these wins are certainly part of his legacy as well, but the classic BSCC/BTCC points system which rewarded drivers who dominated less competitive classes is as arcane and bizarre as anything NASCAR’s ever come up with. Rouse’s two-time teammate Gordon Spice scored the most overall BSCC wins three years in a row from 1978-1980 but never won a title because other drivers not competing for overall wins dominated other classes by more. While this is a stupid way to determine a champion, there’s no denying that Rouse was one of the most legendary touring car drivers of his time. While I think he’s overrated a bit by English-language touring car fans who overrate BTCC when I think DTM and Supercars had better competition, he’s underrated in general because the BTCC doesn’t seem to get much attention outside of England, or even in England for the most part. Autosport ranking Ashley Sutton 36th last year was ridiculous in a year he tied for the most BTCC wins in a season ever (considering that series was formed in 1958), and I ranked him 2nd. While I’m sure most people would say I overrated him, I think my ranking likely holds up to better scrutiny. I didn’t give Rouse any top five seasons because I don’t think he was as good as Sutton and I now think Sutton is the goat of BTCC, but Rouse deserves to be a household name amongst race fans even though he really isn’t.
