After leaving college with a BA Honours degree in Graphic Design in 1981, Neil Randon began work as an illustrator and graphic designer.
His first full-time job in 1982 was as editorial designer at Pacemaker International, a monthly magazine on horse racing, a sport he has had a life-long interest in. During this time he exhibited paintings featured in a gallery in Floral Street in Covent Garden, London.
Five years later in 1987 he joined Racing Post as a layout sub-editor and illustrator and later became the newspaper’s F1 Grand Prix correspondent.
During his time at Racing Post he designed two horse racing books, The Guinness Guide to Steeplechasing and the The Guinness Book of Flat Racing, as well as Great Moments in British Sport.
Neil went on to design F1 Grand Prix car graphics for Autosport magazine and the Daily Telegraph, as well as circuit illustrations for F1 racing magazine. He was involved in the magazine’s launch in 1996.
He had his first experience behind the wheel of a BriSCA F1 stock car that same year during the European Championship weekend at Northampton driving an Ian Higgins Live the Dream hire car.
He continued his brief short-oval racing career in Rebels, with his best result a sixth place in the final at Wimbledon.
In 1997 Neil joined Haymarket as art editor of Motoring News before becoming editor in 1999.
It was during his editorship that the newspaper changed its name to Motorsport News and agreed to be associate sponsor for the BriSCA F1 World Championship Final in 2000 and 2001.
From 2002 and for the next three years he was press and public relations officer for the ASCAR oval racing series, based at Rockingham Motor Speedway, as well as a freelance journalist and graphic designer for a number of organisations, including Racing Post, the Racehorse Owners Association and The Independent.
He then helped launch the horse racing publication Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder in 2004.
Neil has written, designed and published two previous stock car books – The Sound and the Fury in 2000 and Shock and Roar in 2018.
Currently, Neil is assistant horse racing editor for Reach plc, covering three national newspaper titles, the Daily Mirror, Daily Express and the Daily Star.
He remains a passionate F1 stock car racing fan.
Neil also enjoys ornithology. He has written for Birdwatch magazine and writes a popular birding blog, Randon’s Ramblings.