BTCC at Croft

[emicen]

Yes, I know its a touch early with over a week to go, but this morning's breaking news seemed to make it justified:

Paul O'Neill back on the grid racing with Speedworks in an NGTC Avensis
http://btcc.net/html/generalnews_detail.php?id=303...

Great news as far as I'm concerned!

No Clio Cup means guest series will be needed to plug the gap, Scottish Classic Sports and Saloons and the Celtic Speed Scottish Mini Cooper Cup will be in attendance

Edited by emicen on Wednesday 13th June 14:35

[Victoria VW]

Couldn't find an intro section so making my first post here instead.

Glad to see he's back in a car, I don't need to worry about running in the opposite direction if I see him walking around with a microphone like I was doing at Oulton.

Looking forward to Croft

[mnkiboy]

Excellent news about the guest series, great to have a bit of variety.

Hoping for better weather than last year, when it absolutely hammered it down in the morning.

[DanDC5]

Shame it's only going to be for the one round but good to see him back in a BTCC car. I'd swap him with Adam Morgan or Tony Hughes permanently to be honest, the team would get better results and save a small fortune in body panels. Morgan seems determined to destroy at least one side of the car at each race meeting.

[MonkeyHanger]

On past experience the Scottish Classics & Mini Coopers might well steal the show.

My tickets arrived this morning. Really looking forward to it after a great weekend at Oulton Park.

[IainW]

DanDC5 said:

Shame it's only going to be for the one round but good to see him back in a BTCC car. I'd swap him with Adam Morgan or Tony Hughes permanently to be honest, the team would get better results and save a small fortune in body panels. Morgan seems determined to destroy at least one side of the car at each race meeting.

Give Morgan a chance, he must be a decent driver if he won the G55s last year. He's been playing catch-up ever since he was punted off at the first corner of the season. Be interesting to see how the Avensis goes with a proven driver in it. I still think the Toyota-powered version of Wrathall is a better car than the Swindon one. Good to see Paul back.

Supports will be worth watching for a change!

[Mark Benson]

emicen said:

No Clio Cup means guest series will be needed to plug the gap, Scottish Classic Sports and Saloons and the Celtic Speed Scottish Mini Cooper Cup will be in attendance

Bit miffed actually that the series I race in (Northern Saloon & Sports Car Champ.) wasn't included, since we're based at Croft and run by the local race club.

We also have over subscribed grids every meeting, which might make the BTCC grid look a little sparse...

[MG CHRIS]

Great news to see him back hopefully he will replace tony full time. Give adam a break he onlt had 3 seasons in racing and to get where he is now isn't from crashing and the incidents this year haven't been his fault.

Good to see the classics and minis back they had great racing at knockhill last year makes it a bit different and are normaly fuller grids than the support races.

[MonkeyHanger]

Mark Benson said:

Bit miffed actually that the series I race in (Northern Saloon & Sports Car Champ.) wasn't included, since we're based at Croft and run by the local race club.

We also have over subscribed grids every meeting, which might make the BTCC grid look a little sparse...

I've always said they should have a local championship round as a guest race at each circuit. It will never happen though.

[rdjohn]

Sorry this is off-topic but I missed any TV explanation - just a comment from Matt Neal at the end of the late programme.

Why were the Honda's boot pressures reduced? I thought the who point of NGTC was that everyone was equal.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick, or something?

Thanks

[egor110]

DanDC5 said:

Shame it's only going to be for the one round but good to see him back in a BTCC car. I'd swap him with Adam Morgan or Tony Hughes permanently to be honest, the team would get better results and save a small fortune in body panels. Morgan seems determined to destroy at least one side of the car at each race meeting.

Ah but they both pay to race so put money into the team, o'neil couldn't get the budget so couldn't get a drive.
Endurance racing is where the money is , rich type wants to go racing sets up a team and now needs a good driver to partner him.

[MG CHRIS]

They haven't it's just matt neal talking st again. TOCA will change the boost levels depending on performance after 2 races the last one was donny-thruxton where honda and mg recevied a slight reduction and the rest had a slight increase but it's hardly noticable and lets be honest honda did win the last 5 races in a row so it's not like they are at the back of the grid struggling to get past chris james.

[rdjohn]

MG CHRIS said:

They haven't it's just matt neal talking st again. TOCA will change the boost levels depending on performance after 2 races the last one was donny-thruxton where honda and mg recevied a slight reduction and the rest had a slight increase but it's hardly noticable and lets be honest honda did win the last 5 races in a row so it's not like they are at the back of the grid struggling to get past chris james.

Thanks for that. I had not realised that boost and weight penalties were being applied. I had sort of got the message that Honda had been unfairly penalised.

Having just thought about this some more; don't you think this would be a great way to equalise things in F1 when the new turbos come into being? It would certainly keep down development costs because as soon as a constructer gains an (unfair) advantage by spending £squillions, they loose engine power to compensate.

Edited by rdjohn on Wednesday 13th June 20:00

[MG CHRIS]

rdjohn said:

MG CHRIS said:

They haven't it's just matt neal talking st again. TOCA will change the boost levels depending on performance after 2 races the last one was donny-thruxton where honda and mg recevied a slight reduction and the rest had a slight increase but it's hardly noticable and lets be honest honda did win the last 5 races in a row so it's not like they are at the back of the grid struggling to get past chris james.

Thanks for that. I had not realised that boost and weight penalties were being applied. I had sort of got the message that Honda had been unfairly penalised.

Having just thought about this some more; don't you think this would be a great way to equalise things in F1 when the new turbos come into being? It would certainly keep down development costs because as soon as a constructer gains an (unfair) advantage by spending £squillions, they loose engine power to compensate.

Edited by rdjohn on Wednesday 13th June 20:00

No problem it the usual comment from honda which has carried on from last year i personal wouldn't mind if they were being unfairly penalised to the point they can't win races and are at the back but they not. I don't normaly get bothered about the technical parts of the btcc it's the racing that i want to see not bh fighting between teams and drivers.

On the f1 part it could work but in f1 there's more to the car than the engine so the team that spends the most will still win via clever aerodynamics saying that the tyres seem to be doing that job this year aka williams wining a race.

[cptsideways]

Good one Paul, shall be cheering you on from behind the telly

[MonkeyHanger]

mnkiboy said:

Excellent news about the guest series, great to have a bit of variety.

Hoping for better weather than last year, when it absolutely hammered it down in the morning.

Croft BTCC weather is usually red hot on Saturday and tossing it down on Sunday. It's all part of the fun

[SmoothCriminal]

MG need to get rid of Neate seriously shocking

[IainW]

egor110 said:

Ah but they both pay to race so put money into the team, o'neil couldn't get the budget so couldn't get a drive.
Endurance racing is where the money is , rich type wants to go racing sets up a team and now needs a good driver to partner him.

Morgan isn't a pay driver, he's sponsored by Ginetta. This is his prize drive for winning the Ginetta Supercup last year. GTs is definitely the way to go like you say. Jonny Adam's realised that and is doing alright for himself.

[LiamM45]

i'll be there all weekend, can't wait!

[Cyder]

SmoothCriminal said:

MG need to get rid of Neate seriously shocking

Agreed, I can only assume he must be bringing a fair wedge to the team for that seat!