BTCC » Bigger, turbo cars for 'half-price' 2011 BTCC

Ticks all the boxes does it?

Bigger cars - Great
Bigger engines - Great
More power - Great
No RWD - WTF????

Talk about making the rules fair for everyone! (Except BMW) What a surprise

Wow, some good news on the BTCC front!! I've just started watching videos of the racing from the 90's (1991 onwards), and still much prefer to watch these than modern-day tourers. The racing was incredibly intense, the dirvers had personalities, they had REAL cars (as opposed to little hatchbacks!) and above all it had ENTERTAINMENT. If they can start to match this again, then we are all in for a real treat - so long as dirvers are not penalised for making contact with others!! Roll on 2011!

Rich that days the M3 was a 2.3 4cyl, now a 4.0 V8, wich is a big difference. But in some point you're right. Touring car racing offers the possibility for different concepts (different cyllinder count, FWD vs. RWD, ...) to fight for the same piece of road and that I like most. The V8's are great, but it's not the way the industry is going. Neither are the two-litre turbos. From my point of view: o.k., let's do turbo, but smaller engines and the choice of FWD and RWD.

Respect to Alan Gow and the technical people at TOCA for proposing a set of rules that seem to make real sense. In these times of financial hardship, teams and manufacturers really need an incentive to take the plunge into the BTCC, and TOCA don't seem to be afraid of making some radical changes! I don't think that the idea of standardised parts will worry or prevent prospective manufacturers from entering, as a large part of the package will still come from the mother-car, and the success of the branding depends mainly on the series' popularity and your own achievements within it, rather than technological specifications.

Cavaliers and Carinas were pretty boring road cars, but that didn't seem to harm the racing. Exhibit A, your honour...(seems I can't post links, so Google 'btcc finale 1992 youtube' and see what you get)

Rich- I agree that the eighties touring cars were awesome, gotta love the cossie's. But I wouldn't call the current btcc cars silhouette cars (not like the DTM for example.) They are based on road cars, the problem is that they are based on boring road cars. Honda Civics? BMW 320? Please! They should be based on cool stuff like M3's like they were in the eighties. But that's not going to happen so I think these new rules are as good as it's going to get. better then S2000 anyhow.
I agree also that the WTCC seems doomed. Maybe thats not such a bad thing as the Manufactures and teams racing in WTCC would go back to domestic championships like BTCC.

I used to love the 80s touring cars, loud brash and based on what you could buy. I think this is where we need to get back to.. cars that are modified road cars... Sierra cosworth, BMW M3, Rover SD1 all could be bought and modified to a race spec. You can't do that these days, it's basically a silhoutte(sp?) formula

Rich

TOCA have essentially taken a gamble here. They are attempting to sell these regulations on to other champonships, meaning that a car can be developed for 1 series and sold to others. It didn't work in 2001, but they had to do something as only a handful of cars were running in 2000. At least this time the existing cars will still be valid.

The WTCC is on the verge of implosion, with constant wrangling over weight equalising and valid turbo boost - BMW look set to pull out, and SEAT could follow. If the supply of new S2000 cars drops off, the BTCC and other championships will suffer. Losing RWD cars is a shame, but perhaps these cars will be exciting and varied enough to watch in themselve

The size of the cars currently isn't what's wrong, it's the fact they bear less and less resemblance to showroom models with each passing year - the closer a car is to standard, the cheaper it should be to race. I know people bang on about it, but the days of Cleland, Hoy, Harvey et al were great - maybe stick to 2 litre n/a? How many major manufacturers have a 2 litre turbo petrol in their model line up? Vauxhall and VAG spring to mind, but beyond that? It'd be good to see as many manufacturers as possible taking part and not go down the two-horse Aussie or DTM routes (though kudos to the Germans for getting more women on the grid)

This worries me a bit. I remember going to BTCC races in 2000 and 2001 when the last set of rules changed. In 2000 the racing was great and there were plenty of manufacturers. In 2000 there were 4 Vauxhalls and some off the pace Alfa's and Peugeots. As I've heard someone else say here why fix something that isn't broke. I quite like the current cars and they sound great although the prospect of turbo cars does sound appealing!