Hines means business.

By Andy Stobart

Making the step up to the big boys in the British Touring Car Championship in 2004 is reigning BTC Production Champion Luke Hines, who will be racing with 2002 and 2003 BTCC champions James Thompson and Yvan Muller this season. Crash.net found out more.

Crash asked the man most likely to give Vauxhall's PR machine headaches during the course of the season due to his like for wearing items of clothing not necessarily in the VX Racing colours about his step up for this season.

"Yeah, it's a big change," says Luke. "I was in production car last year, my first year in tin tops, won that, and now I'm in the VX Racing Vauxhall so it is a big step. It went well with the front-wheel-drive last year and testing so far's going pretty mega so I can't wait for the start of the season and get out there."

Luke's father is karting legends and Zip Kart boss Martin Hines, so Luke's got a pretty good racing history to look back on. "Did a few years in karts, won a few championships in karts, that's where all the to drivers go, you always start with karts," he explains. "All my life I've been involved with karting of some sort, or with the Zip Formula, and everything so everyday I've been involved in the sport and now it's all in my dream."

Luke has some pretty successful team-mates as he now partners the last two year's champions. "It's a bigger task for me to learn off them and try beating them," he says. "But the first year's obviously to learn off them and hope to beat them at the end of the year and they've actually been helping me quite well."

But what happens if the No.57 car starts beating the No.1 and No.2 cars? "Maybe if I beat them in one of the races I think all of the advice will go..." says Luke.

So, how much difference is there between the cars that Luke will drive this season compared to the car he drove to success in 2003? "There's about 3.5-4 seconds around a lap, say at Donington Park, so it's quite a lot of speed difference," he explains. "Otherwise, the gearbox you've got to get used to, it's almost like jumping from a Formula Ford to a Formula Renault, I could say it in that way, it's like that in a tin top, quite a big step, but nothing over the top."

So what do his team-mates think of him? 2002 champ, James Thompson, gives his take. "Obviously he's giving away a lot of experience but he's a good guy, he's from a fantastic pedigree of racing family, and I'm sure he'll be very competitive, I'm sure we'll see him win a race, and good luck to him."

First race is Thruxton, which is always a challenge for any driver, no matter how experienced. "I'd rather it be the last race rather than the first race! It's a track where you've got to be really confident with the car, and I'm still learning with the car, but I think we'll be up front, we'll be there."

Luke's target for the season? "My aim is to learn off James and Yvan, to get good results and hopefully a few podiums under the belt this year then start the next year in a big heave ho."