“It’s relit my fire for motorsport again,” reflects Carl Boardley after winning the TCR UK title at his first attempt last season in a self-entered Cupra Leon Competicion.
Following four years in the British Touring Car Championship, Boardley spent 2022 largely on the sidelines, demoralised by a difficult 2021 campaign. A ride alongside title winner Ash Sutton in the Infiniti line-up had promised much but failed to deliver. It took a switch to the burgeoning TCR UK series to revitalise the Suffolk racer and deliver his first championship success since an ultra-successful National Hot Rod career.
A long and varied path for the 48-year-old, who has defied doctors’ expectations and battled ill health, began in the non-contact short oval formula of Stock Rods as a teenager, after growing up watching from the terraces of Ipswich’s Foxhall Stadium.
Moderate success followed, before Boardley made his mark in National Hot Rods. Within a year of his debut, Boardley had qualified
