RE: PH Blog: what's the point of BTCC?

[Dave Hedgehog]

I lost interest in the BTCC when the cars started running half the power of my road car and had pretend spoilers on the back

I like watching fast cars not old ladies shopping trolleys

Bring back the RS500

[jezhumphrey75]

80/90s saloon cars is btcc not stupid hot hatches

[willowbeem21]

These were the good old days , thanks for showing them ,i remember whatching these great memorys ,made me feel young again , cheers

[big_rob_sydney]

I used to love the old days of group a racing. I dont care about the minimum numbers built (whether its 100, 1000, or 5000 makes no difference to me), but the beauty was that you could actually buy the same cars, and feel a connection to them.

And sure, the race cars may have had tweaks, but then as an owner of the road cars, you could similarly tweak them too.

Todays racing just seems like its disconnected from whats available to buy. Wheres the emotional bond? Not there for me, I'm afraid.

[AMD87]

I think its right what one of the previous posters said,the excitement is pretty much down to the commentators you still see proper racing in aussie v8's and btcc.

Aussie's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nflj21etu5E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc6_-BKyaXg&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK5w0co8_fE

BTCC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6z0zttU1vk&lis...
http://www.darcyf1.com/download.php?z=9702

[JenkinsComp]

Great topic.

BTCC is now totally pointless, as manufacturers don't have to build or tune their own engines, and use a spec unit instead. Unless cars are allowed to properly compete with each other, you may as well have a one make series for the famous drivers that fans want to come and see crash into each other.

Also, as with the WRC & FIA GT (or any other not-one-make race series purporting to be road based cars racing each other), the BTCC should be based on cars you can go and buy. Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday.

There is no such thing as a 4WD Ford Focus or Fiesta, nor is there a 4wd Turbo Citroen DS3, nor is there a turbocharged 2 litre BMW 3 series.

In GT racing, we see a 2WD normally asp V8 Nissan GTR, and a V8 BMW Z4. Where do we buy these cars?
If manufacturers are simply going to build silhouette specials, why aren't silhouette specials allowed to compete (for example Mosler, Ultima in FIA GT) as well? Afraid of competition perhaps?
These are not real cars, they are meaningless nonsense that ruins any remnant of "sport" from motor sport, dumbing it down into cynical "motor entertainment".

If the marketing idiots that work for FIA GT, WRC and BTCC think that they are going to gain "fans" by dumbing down motor sport with stupid regulations and "balance of performance" they will find that what they gain are empty stands. They lose the value of being able to say "we won because of our great design" and we lose the chance to buy fabulous homologation specials like the Ford Escort RS1800, Sierra RS Cosworth, Lancia Delta Integrale, original BMW M3 Evo, Audi Quattro Sport...
Now what we get is a f###ing front wheel drive Focus with a torque steer problem, for nearly 40 grand.

I say make racing racing again by only allowing a roll cage and safety equipment changes, and base the BTCC on proper cars such as Jaguar XFR, Merc C63 AMG, BMW M3 V8, Audi RS5 Coupe, Holden Monaro, Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, Ford Mustang Boss 302, Dodge Challenger RT etc etc. Now those I would pay to see race. There is no reason why a safely race modded car based on one of these should cost a fraction of a white goods based BTCC car that costs 250k even in supposed cheap build NGTC form.

[P I Staker]

Firstly the NGTC cars where designed with a target build price of £100k.

Secondly the reason you cant buy the cars you see racing is because homologation is expensive, just like it was on the last page and the page before.

[DanDC5]

AMD87 said:

I think its right what one of the previous posters said,the excitement is pretty much down to the commentators you still see proper racing in aussie v8's and btcc.

Aussie's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nflj21etu5E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc6_-BKyaXg&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK5w0co8_fE

BTCC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6z0zttU1vk&lis...
http://www.darcyf1.com/download.php?z=9702

That is true. The Aussie V8 commentators are brilliant, the current BTCC commentators are 50/50. Tim Harvey is a good expert but a better lead commentator is needed.

[MG CHRIS]

JenkinsComp said:

Great topic.

BTCC is now totally pointless, as manufacturers don't have to build or tune their own engines, and use a spec unit instead. Unless cars are allowed to properly compete with each other, you may as well have a one make series for the famous drivers that fans want to come and see crash into each other.

Also, as with the WRC & FIA GT (or any other not-one-make race series purporting to be road based cars racing each other), the BTCC should be based on cars you can go and buy. Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday.

There is no such thing as a 4WD Ford Focus or Fiesta, nor is there a 4wd Turbo Citroen DS3, nor is there a turbocharged 2 litre BMW 3 series.

In GT racing, we see a 2WD normally asp V8 Nissan GTR, and a V8 BMW Z4. Where do we buy these cars?
If manufacturers are simply going to build silhouette specials, why aren't silhouette specials allowed to compete (for example Mosler, Ultima in FIA GT) as well? Afraid of competition perhaps?
These are not real cars, they are meaningless nonsense that ruins any remnant of "sport" from motor sport, dumbing it down into cynical "motor entertainment".

If the marketing idiots that work for FIA GT, WRC and BTCC think that they are going to gain "fans" by dumbing down motor sport with stupid regulations and "balance of performance" they will find that what they gain are empty stands. They lose the value of being able to say "we won because of our great design" and we lose the chance to buy fabulous homologation specials like the Ford Escort RS1800, Sierra RS Cosworth, Lancia Delta Integrale, original BMW M3 Evo, Audi Quattro Sport...
Now what we get is a f###ing front wheel drive Focus with a torque steer problem, for nearly 40 grand.

I say make racing racing again by only allowing a roll cage and safety equipment changes, and base the BTCC on proper cars such as Jaguar XFR, Merc C63 AMG, BMW M3 V8, Audi RS5 Coupe, Holden Monaro, Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, Ford Mustang Boss 302, Dodge Challenger RT etc etc. Now those I would pay to see race. There is no reason why a safely race modded car based on one of these should cost a fraction of a white goods based BTCC car that costs 250k even in supposed cheap build NGTC form.

The most ill enformed post on ph that ive read.

First point there is only 1 full backed manafacture in the btcc honda which use honda engines.
The other teams
aon, motorbase used ford based montune engines.
Chevrolet/rml, es racing use there own engine, vauxhall based.
Toyota off dyno-jet uses a toyota engine.
VW/amd, audi/RAR, seat/str uses a vw based engine.
Vauxhall/888, pirtek, thorney uses a vauxhall engine
BMW/WSR uses a bmw engine not sure what engine gsr uses.
Proton, toyota of speedworks and a few other teams that use turbo engine uses the toca unit which is a vauxhall unit.

Not all run turbo engine.

So that by my understanding 70% of the field mayby more uses engines from the manafacture of the car.

Second point homolgation is expensive thats why very few manafactures want to go racing. Also most btcc cars you couldn't buy the same version in the shop and most btcc cars are heavly modifeid to go racing.

Third point not a bad point but the same applies to gt racing as btcc being most teams are independent teams and most people don't reliases that the gtr or bmw that races has a different engine to the road going version and most couldn't care. They watch the race for a good battle between the teams and drivers.

Fourth point the dumbing down you say and stupid regulation and performance equality by the organisers will lead to empty seat right so how is btcc seeing an increase in viewing fiqures and more people going to watch on the track.

Last point how many of thoese cars do you see on the road the last 4 ive never seen on the road apart from organised runs. 1 good thing there is a series that does use the cars you stated called superstarts series mainly run in italy but does come to britian. Ngtc cars cost £100,000 base price not £250,000 that was the s2000 cars and that is cheap compared to old super tourers that cost upwards of 2 million and even the 80,s rs500 cost more than the btcc cars of today.

SO do some reaserch before spouting rubbish on here to people who actually now what they are talking about.

[Vocal Minority]

Speaking as a fan rather than someone with an actual clue.

I did prefer the super-tourer era, principally for the manufacturer backed teams.

The type of cars don't bother me, with regards to the post above about AMGs and M3s, XKRs etc, that has always been the preserve of the continentals (and the 80s to a certain extent).

The 90s (when I was a lad and as such the era I look upon with much rose tinted misty eyed fondness) was the era of the ordinary saloons which in many ways was what the BTCC had always been about (be they racing cars in loose disguise by this time).

It still produces good racing, but from a hopelessly biased romanticised point of view...it's not as good for me.

[The Wookie]

JenkinsComp said:

If the marketing idiots that work for FIA GT, WRC and BTCC think that they are going to gain "fans" by dumbing down motor sport with stupid regulations and "balance of performance" they will find that what they gain are empty stands.

In an era where manufacturers aren't running their own race teams and rely on privately funded customer teams to represent their motorsport interests (and turn them a profit), manufacturers aren't playing off eachother the same way and making constant updates to their cars.

In this situation, balance of performance is (unfortunately) necessary to stop series becoming dominated by one type of car, and to stop the cars from being prohibitively expensive for a given level of performance.

It also adds to the diversity of the type of cars on the grid, a good example being GT4 where you've got M3's, Evoras, 370Z's, Ginetta G50's, Corvettes, Camaros, etc all racing competitively despite being fairly disparate in terms of value and road car performance.

Also to be honest I don't think BOP damages the 'image' of a series if it's done right, it certainly damages a series less than two or three cars of the same type running rings round the rest of the field.

It's only if the whole ordeal is being played out in public that it damages the series, and that's usually an indication that it's being done wrong. Or in a few cases that a single driver is being a total arse and trying to gain an unfair advantage. *cough*.

[Twincam16]

P I Staker said:

Firstly the NGTC cars where designed with a target build price of £100k.

Secondly the reason you cant buy the cars you see racing is because homologation is expensive, just like it was on the last page and the page before.

Homologation might be expensive, but it sure sold cars!

I wasn't going to suggest 'homologation' per se, more a suggestion that the cars had to be based on mass-production machines. So rather than the cost implications of trying to homologate a batch of 200/500/1000/5000 etc, they would just have to prove that a certain proportion of components came from the road car.

Then there could be showroom cars with hot engines and racer-lookalike bodykits, and thanks to the motor-racing effectively being a free ad, they'd sell like hot cakes.

But at the moment there's an absurd situation where these madcap turbocharged Honda Civics blitz their way to race victory, gaining loads of fans in the process, but you can't buy a turbo Civic in the showroom. If this was the '90s, there would be a BTCC edition sorted out post-haste (bearing in mind the racers bore no resemblance to the road cars other than in bodywork), with an optional lookalike-livery paint option.

Ford is the only manufacturer who does this, with the Focus ST, and the fact that this sells so well compared to its rivals speaks volumes.

[MG CHRIS]

Twincam16 said:

P I Staker said:

Firstly the NGTC cars where designed with a target build price of £100k.

Secondly the reason you cant buy the cars you see racing is because homologation is expensive, just like it was on the last page and the page before.

Homologation might be expensive, but it sure sold cars!

I wasn't going to suggest 'homologation' per se, more a suggestion that the cars had to be based on mass-production machines. So rather than the cost implications of trying to homologate a batch of 200/500/1000/5000 etc, they would just have to prove that a certain proportion of components came from the road car.

Then there could be showroom cars with hot engines and racer-lookalike bodykits, and thanks to the motor-racing effectively being a free ad, they'd sell like hot cakes.

But at the moment there's an absurd situation where these madcap turbocharged Honda Civics blitz their way to race victory, gaining loads of fans in the process, but you can't buy a turbo Civic in the showroom. If this was the '90s, there would be a BTCC edition sorted out post-haste (bearing in mind the racers bore no resemblance to the road cars other than in bodywork), with an optional lookalike-livery paint option.

Ford is the only manufacturer who does this, with the Focus ST, and the fact that this sells so well compared to its rivals speaks volumes.

The reason why there is only 1 type of engine or will be ie 2.0 turbo is that its hard enough to balance 2 types of engine case in point the constant changes to get performance parity this year. To have just 1 engine type is so much simplier to manage than having the cars running with engines that are in the road car.

During the 90s when the 2.0 n/a rules come in most of the cars in the series road based version had 2.0 engines now you got the trend to go turbo engines instead. Also the other reason btcc gone turbo charged is that its easier to get 300-340bhp from a turbo lump than straining a n/a 2.0. So the cost of the engines is reduced and reliability is imporved too soo to buy the engines are less and to maintain it is less. Its the way the btcc has to go to keep the independents in and more teams joining because i can't see many manafactures entering in the near future.

[TRUENOSAM]

I used to spend saturday afternons watching BTCC in the 90's and co incidently some of my cars have included

x2 Primeras
e36 3 series
Alfa 155
Peugout 406



Influenced much?