How threat to set Vauxhall Nova alight almost lost Huff title-winning drive

Huff had hauled himself up the junior system through winning various young driver prizes in the early 2000s. He came first in the Jim Russell World Scholarship, claimed the Tim Sugden’s ‘Be a Racing Driver’ prize and then won Seat Cupra Cup, the baptism of fire ‘reward’ of which was to be Jason Plato‘s team-mate in the BTCC for 2004 in the RML-run Seat team.

With RML then set to join the WTCC for 2005 with Chevrolet, it wanted promising young driver Huff – who had at last scaled one of motor sport’s challenging peaks – to be part of the team. However, as he reveals for the first time to Damien Smith, he nearly lost his dream chance at the starting line.

“Chevrolet had agreed on the details of a three-year contract and RML called me in to sign,” he says. “I rang Dad and said, ‘Tuesday morning, take the morning off work, come with me, I’ve got something a bit special.’ A lovely father and son moment. We arrived at RML super-pumped. Then Ray [Mallock] said, ‘I’ve got a bit of a problem.’ The blood drained from Dad’s face.”

“They presented me with a copy of Autocar. They used to run a short, quick-fire Q&A with random questions, the last of which was, ‘If you had a gallon of fuel what car would you light on fire?’

“Growing up as a kid, I hated Vauxhall Novas because all of my mates had them – so I said, ‘Vauxhall Nova.’ I’d done this article six months ago, before I knew anything about Chevrolet. Who owns Vauxhall? And Chevrolet? General Motors. Someone in Zurich in the Chevrolet office had spotted this and a note had gone around. Now they were sitting there reading that I wanted to torch one of their cars! Unreal.”