the golden age of BTCC
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31-03-2012, 09:56 AM
#8
PassionFord Post Whore!!
its poop now ye, i remember everyone i knew were mega excited etc to watch touring cars, but now its boring cars...
31-03-2012, 11:26 AM
#11
I get the impression that I'm not the only one who holds the opinion I hold...
I don't have a list of things that the organisers should do, but I can think of a few things that might help it.
Encouraging manufacturers back would be a nice way to go, rather than all these satellite teams that have virtually no links to the manufacturer. Works teams make a championship great, whatever the sport.
To my mind, the whole point of touring car racing, is that it's your dad's car, racing your friend's dad's car. This leads to a few problems with the current regulations.
As I recall, I can't walk into a Vauxhall/Honda/Chevrolet dealership, and buy a car that has a big chunk of extra body work hanging around it's lower half, or a wing the size of a house nailed to the back of it. Even the body modifications at the end of the super touring era were pushing it a bit, but I could let a front splitter and rear wing slide I suppose, as they introduced for 1995. Anyway, the point is, the cars should at least look like the production model, even if there has been some "easing" of the arches to get the wheels in. The early 90s cars were about right really, as they looked basically like a road car, which really helps people relate to the formula, and goes back to it being like your dad's car.
They also need to kick this NGTC crap to touch right now. This is a problem throughout modern motorsport, and I'm getting sick to the back teeth of it. BTCC is NOT a one make series, and they should stop trying to turn it in to one. For decades, BTCC was different manufacturers slogging it out to prove who had the best car. In the 60s and 70s there were Minis and Escorts trying to better big old Jaguars and Mustangs and things. In the 80s, Rover Vitesses tried to batter Capris, and then Sierras battered M3s. Then, in the 90s, every manufacturer under the sun was there battering each other. If they're all the same car, with control suspension and engines, what's the point? We might as well just pack it in now if that's what they want to do, as it's totally lost the meaning of the series. If I want to watch a one-make series, I'll watch the Clio Cup or something.
BTCC is suffering from what an awful lot of motorsport is suffering from; idiotic regulation. The same happened in rallying in the late nineties when the WRC regulations were brought in. Like the BTCC in 99/00, the WRC was hemorrhaging manufacturers, so some bright spark decided to introduce new technical regulations to try and encourage manufacturers into the sport. They were allowed to dramatically change the design of the car, altering running gear and all sorts. And, 15 years down the line, what's happened? WRC has one proper works team; Citroen, one badly funded satellite team; Ford, and one team that is hardly even working; MINI. The same happened in BTCC. They introduced Super 2000 to try and get manufacturers back, but it just didn't work, and they've ended up with a load of privateer teams, much like the WRC has.
There is an obsession with trying to make motorsport cheap, which is just stupid. Motorsport isn't cheap, people need to get over it. What would benefit these championships is proper promotion, proper marketing, intelligent use of new media to get the best out of them, and proper, terrestrial, Saturday/Sunday afternoon TV coverage on BBC1/BBC2/ITV1/C4, to ram it down people's throats and generate interest. Couple that with sensible technical regulations so people can actually relate to the cars (i.e. go down to their local dealership and buy something that looks the same) and it might actually start to make sense again.
However, it's a pipe dream really. It will never happen sadly. We can only look back at the old days and remember what we had
I don't have a list of things that the organisers should do, but I can think of a few things that might help it.
Encouraging manufacturers back would be a nice way to go, rather than all these satellite teams that have virtually no links to the manufacturer. Works teams make a championship great, whatever the sport.
To my mind, the whole point of touring car racing, is that it's your dad's car, racing your friend's dad's car. This leads to a few problems with the current regulations.
As I recall, I can't walk into a Vauxhall/Honda/Chevrolet dealership, and buy a car that has a big chunk of extra body work hanging around it's lower half, or a wing the size of a house nailed to the back of it. Even the body modifications at the end of the super touring era were pushing it a bit, but I could let a front splitter and rear wing slide I suppose, as they introduced for 1995. Anyway, the point is, the cars should at least look like the production model, even if there has been some "easing" of the arches to get the wheels in. The early 90s cars were about right really, as they looked basically like a road car, which really helps people relate to the formula, and goes back to it being like your dad's car.
They also need to kick this NGTC crap to touch right now. This is a problem throughout modern motorsport, and I'm getting sick to the back teeth of it. BTCC is NOT a one make series, and they should stop trying to turn it in to one. For decades, BTCC was different manufacturers slogging it out to prove who had the best car. In the 60s and 70s there were Minis and Escorts trying to better big old Jaguars and Mustangs and things. In the 80s, Rover Vitesses tried to batter Capris, and then Sierras battered M3s. Then, in the 90s, every manufacturer under the sun was there battering each other. If they're all the same car, with control suspension and engines, what's the point? We might as well just pack it in now if that's what they want to do, as it's totally lost the meaning of the series. If I want to watch a one-make series, I'll watch the Clio Cup or something.
BTCC is suffering from what an awful lot of motorsport is suffering from; idiotic regulation. The same happened in rallying in the late nineties when the WRC regulations were brought in. Like the BTCC in 99/00, the WRC was hemorrhaging manufacturers, so some bright spark decided to introduce new technical regulations to try and encourage manufacturers into the sport. They were allowed to dramatically change the design of the car, altering running gear and all sorts. And, 15 years down the line, what's happened? WRC has one proper works team; Citroen, one badly funded satellite team; Ford, and one team that is hardly even working; MINI. The same happened in BTCC. They introduced Super 2000 to try and get manufacturers back, but it just didn't work, and they've ended up with a load of privateer teams, much like the WRC has.
There is an obsession with trying to make motorsport cheap, which is just stupid. Motorsport isn't cheap, people need to get over it. What would benefit these championships is proper promotion, proper marketing, intelligent use of new media to get the best out of them, and proper, terrestrial, Saturday/Sunday afternoon TV coverage on BBC1/BBC2/ITV1/C4, to ram it down people's throats and generate interest. Couple that with sensible technical regulations so people can actually relate to the cars (i.e. go down to their local dealership and buy something that looks the same) and it might actually start to make sense again.
However, it's a pipe dream really. It will never happen sadly. We can only look back at the old days and remember what we had
Last edited by massivewangers; 31-03-2012 at 11:29 AM.
31-03-2012, 11:34 AM
#12
By some miracle, as you wanted, during my rage, I have come up with some direct ideas on how to impove it, and even reduce costs to attract works teams:
Ban sequential boxes. Instantly you've halved transmission costs, and made the cars more relative to the real world.
Ban major changes to the vehicle body work. No spoilers, splitters or arches that weren't available on a production car. The only body modifications permitted are strengthening of the shell, and minor wheel arch modification to allow tyre clearance. That means no wind tunnel testing, no silly body kits and, again, reduced costs, whilst making the cars more relevant.
I'm a genius
Ban sequential boxes. Instantly you've halved transmission costs, and made the cars more relative to the real world.
Ban major changes to the vehicle body work. No spoilers, splitters or arches that weren't available on a production car. The only body modifications permitted are strengthening of the shell, and minor wheel arch modification to allow tyre clearance. That means no wind tunnel testing, no silly body kits and, again, reduced costs, whilst making the cars more relevant.
I'm a genius
31-03-2012, 01:05 PM
#13
No, you're not the only one with that opinion, many share it. But a lot of the hardcore that attend most races all think that it's better now than ever and I have to agree.
Like I said, for me, 2007-onwards has been my favourite period of BTCC history. After that I'd say 1994-1998 was the best, so I'm not trying to argue they weren't great days, but definitely best left in the past as that was the period when things got very silly.
If you want to look at Touring Cars in their purest form you have to go back to the early days of the BTCC when the driver turned up on a Sunday in his own road car, stuck a number to it raced against everyone else that turned up. In those days the cars literally were exactly what you'd buy in the showroom 'cos that's exactly where they had been bought from!
Of course, things have changed over the years as with all motorsport, things have got more advanced, sponsors and TV have dipped their bread in etc etc etc we all know that, but while there was good racing throughout the '60's, 70's and 80's, aside from some of the great cars Touring Car racing spawned we can pretty much forget about the racing side as things only started getting tasty in 1991. You say that Minis and Escorts raced against Jaguars and Mustangs, they didn't. There were various classes for the different cars all on the track at the same time. The overall winner was whoever got most points across all categories. Same with RS500's against M3's, they weren't racing against each other. The RS500 racers had about 560BHP, the M3's had about 230BHP, obviously the Sierras were going to be quicker. The cars were great, but different classes on the same grid never has, or never will work for me. In 1991 we got a grid full of 2.0 cars, comparable power and the racing got closer, and rougher and more exciting. But a privateer ended up winning the Championship and other privateers were mixing it with the big boys, which never really happened during the mid-90's silly season of the BTCC, but started happening as soon as we started to switch to today's style.
Anyway, by 1994 the amount of manufacturers on the grid had grown, and it had attracted some of the big name overseas drivers from other Touring Car Championships. Alfa come in and cause controversy with their wing and by the following season we saw more aerodynamic aids on all of the cars and that grew and grew, but it was always going to implode within a couple of years and during the 1998 season (lots of rumours going round while I was at Oulton Park) things started going badly wrong and most of the manufacturers said they were pulling out and other top drivers were leaving more successful teams at the time to join Ford and Vauxhall or go overseas, as Ford and Vauxhall were the only two teams who had plans to stay beyond the 1999 season.
But what you say about the cars being more like their road-going counterparts, maybe at the start of the 2.0 era, but whilst they may have resembled the cars they were based on, the BTCC cars of today or certainly a couple of season ago have far more in common with their road-going counterparts than some of the mid-late '90's car. For the best example take a look at the 1997 BTCC Laguna. When one of those come up for sale they fetch a hell of a lot more than any other Ex-BTCC car. It really is a work of art, but it's so far removed from what an actual 1997 Laguna is it's hilarious. Each year from 1994 onwards the manufaturers spent ridiculous amounts of money trying to keep up with each other it was never going to be sustainable, and when Renault turned up with the backing of the Williams F1 team and a budget rumoured to be around £15 million for the season that's when things got really silly.
And then in 1999, Nissan made Laurent Aiello the highest paid Touring Car driver in history with a multi-million pound one season contract to win them the Championship as one last hurrah. Then in 2000 the grid looked very depleted and only Ford were competitive, then in 2001 there was hardly a grid at all. Then they brought in the production class which was a waste of time. Would have been great as a standalone support race, but like I say, different classes on the same grid never works and that was taking it to extremes.
Again, the privateers in the Mid-90's never stood a chance. They weren't allowed the same tyres or anything that the factory teams used and factory team's budgets were a joke. I think it's brilliant that everyone can operate on a (fairly) level playing field. The BTCC is still expensive to enter and be competitive enough to make it worthwhile, but it is far more accessible and "real world" than before. In other words, it's expensive enough to keep the no-hoper playboys away, but accessible enough for drivers with a real talent to stand a chance of getting the backing they need and getting in.
In the early 2000's the series was really in the doldrums, although it was still exciting racing, the grids etc were depressing and the tinkering with rules to try and spice it up (Sprint and feature race was ok for one season, production class was a joke etc etc) didn't work. So they brought back Alan Gow who was in charge during the boom period and today it's awesome. The Reverse Grid system is perfect. It gives everyone the chance to win a race, keeps things close and competitive, but doesn't penalise the faster drivers for being faster in as much as the first two races keep the fastest cars at the front, only the third race grid is reversed and only the top 10 at most. It's also impossible to really "cheat" the system as the draw for Race 3 is done after Race 2 and can be any number from 6 to 10, as opposed to the WTCC where they always reversed the top 8, so you'd get teams shuffling their cars round to suit themselves, which detracted from the racing.
As for the aerodynamic aids, cars from 1995 onwards all had aerodynamic aids which you never got on their roadgoing counterparts. Sure, some of the cars have much deeper front bumpers and big rear wings, again you pretty much got that from 1995 on anyway, but I don't need to take a second glance to see that a BTCC Vectra is a Vectra or the MG6 is an MG6 or the BMW 3-Series is a BMW 3-Series or the Focus is a Focus or the Civic is a Civic etc etc. They still look more than 75% like the car they're based on. I mean, the 1994 Mondeo, Laguna, 155, Primera, E36, Carina, Cavalier etc were all plastered in sponsor decals and big racing wheels, which were never dealer options on the real thing. But you still recognised them, that was the big thing.
And anyway, the point is, ignoring the cars, the racing on track is still as exciting, as close and as rough as ever. More so in fact, and the fact that it is more "real world" with the Milltek Golf and the Thorney Insignia being built in the corner of their workshops and small racing teams owned by proper blokes in (big) sheds like Motorbase and Eurotech winning races and being competitive rather than Williams Renault spending £15 million on what was essentially something unlike any Touring Car you'll ever see, which just happened to be wrapped up in a Laguna shell makes it far more appealing to me. I loved the '90's Touring Cars, but they're best left in the past and living on DVD's forever.
But the point is, the organisers wouldn't want to change anything because it's hugely successful. And how are they going to attract manufacturers back? In the end, manufacturers spending massive amounts of money on the BTCC wasn't sustainable and ended in tears. Manufacturers are backing teams more and more now, but in a far more sustainable way. Team Dynamics is now a factory backed Team Honda outfit, the RML Chevrolets were last season, the new MG team is factory backed, Team AON last season were fully backed by Ford.
NGTC regs are designed to halve the cost of the cars, which is a necessity. No point pricing people out of the market or you'll have a depleted grid again. When the reigning Champion at the time (Turkington) couldn't return to defend his title the following season due to not having enough financial backing then something has to be done. Alan Gow is a genius. He oversaw the 1990's boom and he returned to drag the Championship back from the gutter into what it is today. And I challenge anyone to go to a few races and tell me it's anything short of amazing.
Regardless of whether you prefer the Hollywood excess of the Mid-90's or the more real world BTCC of 2012 or the grass roots of 1958, I can't see how anyone can say that the racing on track is any less exciting than it has been at any point.
As for the aerodynamic aids, that's a nothing cost to be honest, pales into insignificance compared to the savings of NGTC spec cars. As for sequential gearboxes, fine, I've got no problem with that, potentially a good idea, although compared to the budgets I don't think savings would be that significant. Teams who run sequential boxes incurr a weight penalty.
Like I said, for me, 2007-onwards has been my favourite period of BTCC history. After that I'd say 1994-1998 was the best, so I'm not trying to argue they weren't great days, but definitely best left in the past as that was the period when things got very silly.
If you want to look at Touring Cars in their purest form you have to go back to the early days of the BTCC when the driver turned up on a Sunday in his own road car, stuck a number to it raced against everyone else that turned up. In those days the cars literally were exactly what you'd buy in the showroom 'cos that's exactly where they had been bought from!
Of course, things have changed over the years as with all motorsport, things have got more advanced, sponsors and TV have dipped their bread in etc etc etc we all know that, but while there was good racing throughout the '60's, 70's and 80's, aside from some of the great cars Touring Car racing spawned we can pretty much forget about the racing side as things only started getting tasty in 1991. You say that Minis and Escorts raced against Jaguars and Mustangs, they didn't. There were various classes for the different cars all on the track at the same time. The overall winner was whoever got most points across all categories. Same with RS500's against M3's, they weren't racing against each other. The RS500 racers had about 560BHP, the M3's had about 230BHP, obviously the Sierras were going to be quicker. The cars were great, but different classes on the same grid never has, or never will work for me. In 1991 we got a grid full of 2.0 cars, comparable power and the racing got closer, and rougher and more exciting. But a privateer ended up winning the Championship and other privateers were mixing it with the big boys, which never really happened during the mid-90's silly season of the BTCC, but started happening as soon as we started to switch to today's style.
Anyway, by 1994 the amount of manufacturers on the grid had grown, and it had attracted some of the big name overseas drivers from other Touring Car Championships. Alfa come in and cause controversy with their wing and by the following season we saw more aerodynamic aids on all of the cars and that grew and grew, but it was always going to implode within a couple of years and during the 1998 season (lots of rumours going round while I was at Oulton Park) things started going badly wrong and most of the manufacturers said they were pulling out and other top drivers were leaving more successful teams at the time to join Ford and Vauxhall or go overseas, as Ford and Vauxhall were the only two teams who had plans to stay beyond the 1999 season.
But what you say about the cars being more like their road-going counterparts, maybe at the start of the 2.0 era, but whilst they may have resembled the cars they were based on, the BTCC cars of today or certainly a couple of season ago have far more in common with their road-going counterparts than some of the mid-late '90's car. For the best example take a look at the 1997 BTCC Laguna. When one of those come up for sale they fetch a hell of a lot more than any other Ex-BTCC car. It really is a work of art, but it's so far removed from what an actual 1997 Laguna is it's hilarious. Each year from 1994 onwards the manufaturers spent ridiculous amounts of money trying to keep up with each other it was never going to be sustainable, and when Renault turned up with the backing of the Williams F1 team and a budget rumoured to be around £15 million for the season that's when things got really silly.
And then in 1999, Nissan made Laurent Aiello the highest paid Touring Car driver in history with a multi-million pound one season contract to win them the Championship as one last hurrah. Then in 2000 the grid looked very depleted and only Ford were competitive, then in 2001 there was hardly a grid at all. Then they brought in the production class which was a waste of time. Would have been great as a standalone support race, but like I say, different classes on the same grid never works and that was taking it to extremes.
Again, the privateers in the Mid-90's never stood a chance. They weren't allowed the same tyres or anything that the factory teams used and factory team's budgets were a joke. I think it's brilliant that everyone can operate on a (fairly) level playing field. The BTCC is still expensive to enter and be competitive enough to make it worthwhile, but it is far more accessible and "real world" than before. In other words, it's expensive enough to keep the no-hoper playboys away, but accessible enough for drivers with a real talent to stand a chance of getting the backing they need and getting in.
In the early 2000's the series was really in the doldrums, although it was still exciting racing, the grids etc were depressing and the tinkering with rules to try and spice it up (Sprint and feature race was ok for one season, production class was a joke etc etc) didn't work. So they brought back Alan Gow who was in charge during the boom period and today it's awesome. The Reverse Grid system is perfect. It gives everyone the chance to win a race, keeps things close and competitive, but doesn't penalise the faster drivers for being faster in as much as the first two races keep the fastest cars at the front, only the third race grid is reversed and only the top 10 at most. It's also impossible to really "cheat" the system as the draw for Race 3 is done after Race 2 and can be any number from 6 to 10, as opposed to the WTCC where they always reversed the top 8, so you'd get teams shuffling their cars round to suit themselves, which detracted from the racing.
As for the aerodynamic aids, cars from 1995 onwards all had aerodynamic aids which you never got on their roadgoing counterparts. Sure, some of the cars have much deeper front bumpers and big rear wings, again you pretty much got that from 1995 on anyway, but I don't need to take a second glance to see that a BTCC Vectra is a Vectra or the MG6 is an MG6 or the BMW 3-Series is a BMW 3-Series or the Focus is a Focus or the Civic is a Civic etc etc. They still look more than 75% like the car they're based on. I mean, the 1994 Mondeo, Laguna, 155, Primera, E36, Carina, Cavalier etc were all plastered in sponsor decals and big racing wheels, which were never dealer options on the real thing. But you still recognised them, that was the big thing.
And anyway, the point is, ignoring the cars, the racing on track is still as exciting, as close and as rough as ever. More so in fact, and the fact that it is more "real world" with the Milltek Golf and the Thorney Insignia being built in the corner of their workshops and small racing teams owned by proper blokes in (big) sheds like Motorbase and Eurotech winning races and being competitive rather than Williams Renault spending £15 million on what was essentially something unlike any Touring Car you'll ever see, which just happened to be wrapped up in a Laguna shell makes it far more appealing to me. I loved the '90's Touring Cars, but they're best left in the past and living on DVD's forever.
But the point is, the organisers wouldn't want to change anything because it's hugely successful. And how are they going to attract manufacturers back? In the end, manufacturers spending massive amounts of money on the BTCC wasn't sustainable and ended in tears. Manufacturers are backing teams more and more now, but in a far more sustainable way. Team Dynamics is now a factory backed Team Honda outfit, the RML Chevrolets were last season, the new MG team is factory backed, Team AON last season were fully backed by Ford.
NGTC regs are designed to halve the cost of the cars, which is a necessity. No point pricing people out of the market or you'll have a depleted grid again. When the reigning Champion at the time (Turkington) couldn't return to defend his title the following season due to not having enough financial backing then something has to be done. Alan Gow is a genius. He oversaw the 1990's boom and he returned to drag the Championship back from the gutter into what it is today. And I challenge anyone to go to a few races and tell me it's anything short of amazing.
Regardless of whether you prefer the Hollywood excess of the Mid-90's or the more real world BTCC of 2012 or the grass roots of 1958, I can't see how anyone can say that the racing on track is any less exciting than it has been at any point.
As for the aerodynamic aids, that's a nothing cost to be honest, pales into insignificance compared to the savings of NGTC spec cars. As for sequential gearboxes, fine, I've got no problem with that, potentially a good idea, although compared to the budgets I don't think savings would be that significant. Teams who run sequential boxes incurr a weight penalty.
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