Does Touring Car Racing Need to be Relevant?

Ain't a single American with a push-rod eight cylinder Camry in their drive-way...

A DTM is little more than a blob of CF and alloy tubing with an exotic irreleant (if long life) race specific motor plonked in it...

The Chevy Lacettis in the Brasil Stock Cars share merely the bagde with the road going versions...

All three above series draw mega crowds!

F1 draws mega-crowds despite - in general - Formula racing like FRenault, F3 and RWS being an unpopular snooze-fest of odd-looking racing beasts with un-covered wheels for arbitrary historical reasons....

BTCC has marketable cars... yet crowds struggle to match the crowds of TOCA Super Touring era... somehow the punters were keen on sedans with over-size wheels and semi-automatic gearboxes....




And yet folks argue that WTCC and V8 Supercars should be similar to road cars to survive?



[ Falcon inline six turbo is fastest australian car ever, whipping any australian v8 powered car ever made... both engines liable ot be cut from production]

frankly i couldnt care less if tin-tops were relevant to their road-going (distant) relatives or not. however you gotta make sure the cars are affordable enough to allow the series to survive. moving towards 'relevant' technology just for the sake of making the cars more recognisable, however, is something i personally wouldnt support at all. if i want to see a BMW 3 series ill just go for a walk outside, thanks.

need to look and sound good, be cheap, and have good crashes ;)

It seems folks are happy to critise V8 Supercars even though it has each and every single one of the 'big name' teams and drivers it would be expected too... there are very few drivers who are of sufficient callibre who aren't in there - unlike the masses of drivers who missed on roles in the old ChampCar.

It seems illogical to attack V8 Supercars in this instance... they have biggish crowds and all the drivers and teams that could reasonably be expected to be there, every entry has real sponsorship from global brands asside from 1 or 2, and their cars are still less blob like then NASCARs. I can't see how folks could assume that their could somehow be a superior Australian Touring Car championships if it was a battle of Group A style cars Evo vs Sti vs RX8 vs Falcon vs Commodore, or somehow a superior championship if production falcons and commodores were raced, or somehow a superior championship if sponsored rounds in Bahrain or well attended street races like Hamilton were dropped, in order to have 'proper non shizenhausen racing at REAL BLOODY road courses with the same size crowd of 10,000 real bloody proper fans as per 1978 not some BS street race punters liable to line merchandise tills with excess $ .

As someone who is heavily into motorsport but dislikes V8 Supercars I have to say that the problem with Australian motorsport is there is no room for multiple categories. People who are really into motorsport are generally not big fans of the current marketing exercise also known as V8 Supercars. It has a following similar to NASCAR and is really just a sales tool for Holden and Ford. That is fine for all the Holden/Ford fanboys and girls, but it almost alienates all of those people who are not really into the 'convert a big fat family sedan into a "sports" car by throwing a big engine at it' concept.

I want to see Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Subaru in the sport, with low displacement turbo vs big displacement NA regulations. Lets face it the GTR, Supra, EVO, WRX etc. are all much faster and higher performance cars than the latest Holden/Ford V8 releases, they are seen every day driving on our roads, and I think would provide much more entertainment and a deeper fanbase for the sport.

Don't give me the excuse that Holdens/Fords are homebred either as most Aussies seem to conveniently forget they are American makes and use GM/FORD USA engines, parts etc.

No - but it should be fun..................

Originally posted by V8 Fireworks
The Chevy Lacettis in the Brasil Stock Cars share merely the bagde with the road going versions...

They are Astras, not Lacettis. I have pointed out in another thread a difference I see between stock cars series and touring cars series. For example, Stock Car v8 equivalent in Argentina would be TRV6 and not TC2000:

Stock car v8:

All cars share the same chassis and engines. They change the bodies.

TRV6:

All cars share the same chassis (developed by the series) and engines (Berta). They change the bodies. (Much better quality of construction than SCV8)

TC2000:

Different chassis, different engines, different bodies, they only share transmissions, suspensions and not much more.

I think the relevance depends on what part of the world you live in and what series you follow.

It seems to have been the case for a long time that Aus V8's and Nascar in the US polarises fans into supporting a certain manufacturer and that manufacturers drivers.

I personally find that rather sad, especially as when pay cheques are being waved around you'll find it hard in this era to find a driver who genuinely cares enough about a manufacturer to stick with them for life.

Being from the UK it's always been about BTCC and ETCC/WTCC when it comes to tin-tops for me, and to a lesser extent WRC.

I, and I think I share this with most of my compatriots, could not give a flying **** about the manufacturers involved or what cars they are using (promoting). As long as the cars are up to date I don't give a stuff which model a manufacturer chooses to use in any particular series. I think other than to Nascar fans the concept of buying a car based on a race result is completely alien.

If you're talking bog standard road cars then where's the incentive to do so? Anyone with half a brain knows that showroom cars bear no resemblance to their race versions. And there's nothing cool about owning a Chevvy Lacetti just because it may have won one or two WTCC races. It's not quite the same as owning a Ferrari and Ferrari winning an F1 race.

The problem is that like most car racing, tin-top racing has become just another marketing tool. The point of tin-top racing for me is that it's a different discipline to single-seater racing. It's a whole different way of thinking. But it's been hijacked by the manufacturers so yet again these questions come up where fans, manufacturers, teams, drivers, race series owners and governing bodies have to come up with some definition of relevance of the race-track versions of cars to their showroom versions.

For me it's doesn't have to be and should not be relevant at all. I personally think a tin-top should have a body shell on the outside simply because it would look daft not to have one. (Either that or it would be a Le-Mans car). From the viewers perspective there is no need whatsoever for these cars to have relevance to the product you can purchase.

For me automobile racing is about showing who makes the best componnets, period.
Spec. racing is pitifully boring crap.

They got it the wrong way around, road cars should be made more relavent for the racing cars!!!

God that would be nice to be stopped at the lights with a full on Holden Commodore V8 supercar on slicks, who knows what would happen when they go green

I don't think it absolutely has to be relevant, but I do like tintops to resemble the production cars they claim to be. NASCAR stock cars have looked ridiculous for years now, regardless of whether it's the big boxy current car or the previous-generation car with the nose warped weirdly to the left side to increase downforce. IMO the V8 Supercars and the WTCC cars look great.

Motor racing at all does not need to be relevant.

It is sport, fun, business, thrill, entertainment, a bit irresponsible and irrational. But not relevant.

Originally posted by giacomo
Motor racing at all does not need to be relevant.

It is sport, fun, business, thrill, entertainment, a bit irresponsible and irrational. But not relevant.

Car racing only exists in the US because it was relevant; the lack of relevance is displayed by the pathetic state of open wheel and road racing in the US.