BTCC

JHS

Active Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2011
Messages
143
Location
UK
Any fans?

The championship returns this weekend on the new Snetterton 300 circuit. Also, you heard it here first. James Thompson, former double BTCC champion back to the championship.

Possibly.

Discuss away.
 
I'm thinking that people are hiding away from the constant stream of Plato-whinging and Neal-ramming-people-off-the-road. :lol:

without both, the BTCC would be rather dull though :p
 
I'm thinking that people are hiding away from the constant stream of Plato-whinging and Neal-ramming-people-off-the-road. :lol:

Hmm, like something similar doesn't happen in F1. :p

Shame seeing as never has the BTCC been more popular in the UK than it is right now, and the racing has been fantastic. Just take this for example.

 
I'm a fan of BTCC, I watch the races whenever possible. The racing is generally close (although the driving standards are appauling at times), the tracks are great for touring car racing (probably the biggest problem with WTCC) and there is a good variety of cars. Also, there's Ben Edwards who could make electric wheelchair racing exciting...
 
I wouldn't say the driving standards are that bad. Sure, Donington was a bit crazy, but I don't think they're anywhere as bad as a much higher profile series like NASCAR, where you've got guys in 200mph cars deliberately wrecking each other because one guy said another one's hair looked terrible or whatever.

As for Edwards - yeah, he's great. He's like Murray Walker in that respect.
 
The fact that driver conduct in NASCAR is on the same level as BTCC (and I'd say it's even worse on road courses) doesn't mean it would be good on BTCC.
 
The fact that driver conduct in NASCAR is on the same level as BTCC (and I'd say it's even worse on road courses) doesn't mean it would be good on BTCC.

I wouldn't say NASCAR's anywhere on the level of BTCC. NASCAR is much, much worse in my opinion. It's amatuer hour, really.

Thantos - there isn't a Volvo in the BTCC yet, although there's been talk of them joining for years. Basically, he split from Polestar racing in the STCC, and people are predicting that he might come back to Britain and race in a third Team Dynamics car alongside Neal and Shedden.

There's also talk that Motorbase could run a third car at some point for Johnny Adam who you may remember, raced a couple of seasons ago with them when they were using BMWs and did a pretty good job. My overriding memory of his season is seeing the in car footage of him getting soaked because the fire extinguisher had gone off for some reason at Knockhill. :lol:
 
I'm going to the Rockingham race on the 17th/18th Sept - after watching for years on the telly I've finally got my butt into gear to get to a race live! Can't wait.
 
Another fan here .
I discovered this championship some years ago , and i think it's a fantastic racing series.
For me it has been an alternative to the f1 races that i find boring .
 
I'm going to the Rockingham race on the 17th/18th Sept - after watching for years on the telly I've finally got my butt into gear to get to a race live! Can't wait.

Enjoy it!

I've been going since 2003 to BTCC races. The ones I attempt to make are Donington (which I went to earlier this year), Oulton Park (gave it a miss for Auto Italia this year) and Silverstone (all being well, I'll hopefully be there this year).

Do try and make the effort to get into the pits on the lunch break too. For me that is one of the highlights of the whole event, how open the championship is and how fan friendly it is too. Formula One could learn at lot in that area. Sure, the drivers in BTCC probably aren't the same household names as F1 drivers are, but the pit walkabout is always extremely busy and very popular, which isn't surprising when there's drivers as friendly as Paul O'Neill in the championship.

But I'd say the BTCC is in a great place right now. There's never been more people going to races or watching races live on TV here, or abroad where it seems there's small growing interest in places like America and Australia. Good deal of sponsors and new drivers coming into the champ too, and the new NGTC regs are certainly producing some interesting cars.

Thanatos - yep, here's a link to the story: http://www.touringcartimes.com/article.php?id=6522
 
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The latest news is that MG looks like it may well re-enter the series next year with the new MG6. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/93632

Now that really does take me back to when I started going to BTCC races. The MGs, especially in the black and green Hot Wheels livery were my favourites, and Anthony Reid and Warren Hughes were my favourite drivrs.
 
Here is the finished Proton Gen 2 that will be making its debut in the BTCC this weekend at the hands of Dan Welch.

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There's been a delay in proceedings. The timetable is running 25 mins late, so BTCC quali won't be at 3:45 as originally stated.
 
Due to a technical problem, qualifying wasn't shown online in the end, so apologies to anyone who tried to watch.

Plato tops the 26 car entry on the news Snetterton 300 circuit for the first race of the day.

1. Plato
2. Shedden
3. MacDowall
4. Neal
5. Nash
6. Chilton
7. Wrathall
8. Newsham
9. O'Neill
10. Onslow-Cole

I'll post a link to the complete times later. Great job by Newsham, and Wrathall as well. I made a prophecy at the start of the year that if an NGTC car won a race this season, he'd be the driver. That might still be a bit early, but if everything goes well, he could just sneek a podium in the final race of the day, the reverse grid draw. We'll see.
 
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