The highlight of the season was winning the European Championship at Northampton using a new Frankie Wainman Junior-built tarmac car for the first time.

In January 2000, Rob was voted 47th in a Motoring News poll to find the world's top 100 racing drivers.

He beat names such as Nelson Piquet, Jacques Villeneuve, David Coulthard and Mika Häkkinen.

He was disqualified from the World Final for using outside assistance in the form of another car on the centre green to straighten a bent nerf rail.

He also competed in the World Finals in 2012 at Barford, 2013 at Taunton (where he started from pole position) and 2014 at Cowdenbeath, all of which he failed to finish and were dominated by his battles with Moodie, particularly 2013 which saw the pair clash spectacularly in a battle for the lead and resulted in Speak's tarmac chassis being written off in the crash.

Then a year later, the duo had a run-in again, where Rob appeared to "brake test" Moodie on starting the second lap as he came to pass him, and this held both up.

The pair did not meet on track until 11 months later when they both qualified in the same World Championship Semi Final at Skegness.

The following year saw him primarily a single-surface competitor on tarmac, in 2014 Speak raced both surfaces and won the National Points Championship.

At the beginning of the 2002 season, Rob was given a full-time drive with the Colin Blower ASCAR team, it turned out to be a frustrating year with no podiums.

In 2002, Rob raced in a National Hot Rod, driving Dick Hillard's spare Peugeot 205, finishing tenth and eleventh in heats but not completing the final due to a 15-car pile up.

Driving a Granada under the GMP banner and was soon up into the top half dozen but progress was stopped when the engine packed up and that was the end of his night.

Next stop Ipswich where he won a heat & started from the back of a 70 car final, he led with a quarter of a lap to go when he was T-boned by a rival from the centre green.

He is not to be confused with the driver of the same name who competed in a couple of British Touring Car Championship endurance races in the late 1980s.