And what of Formula Saloons? I confess to having lost contact with club racing over the past decade. Is it still going/been renamed ?
I looked on Google and references seem to stop around 2005 when it was mostly ex BTCC Supertouring cars by the look of it.
I rather wish I had stayed in touch as it carried on some of the spirit of Thundersloons.
Formula Saloons started in 1996 the year after Thundersaloons ended (i think it was those years), and several cars went into Formula Saloons from the start, such as the Carlton and Pontiac Trans-am of Andy Chester. Andrew Mackenzie had a nice Opel Omega ex-DTM car, as well as a few Cosworths. Andy Clarkin was the first to run a touring car, with his Cavalier, but Brian Chatfield had a couple of DTM Mercedes as i said above. Gary Woodcock started racing in the series in the late 90's in a RS500, and when he got involved with organising the series it started to pick up more cars, etc.
Some of the Thundersaloons stopped racing, but only after Ric Wood used the rebuilt Thundersaloon Calibra Mk2 (4-speed nascar box amongst other upgrades) in 1997 ( I think) to win the Championship. Gararth Lloyd won the series in his very modified Escort Cowsorth, but by now the Super TOuring cars were coming into the series more. Gary and borther Michael both had Honda Accords, and Keith Butcher an early Primera in the 1999 series. If you search youtube for 'Escort cosworth - brands hatch' you will see a race from 1999 i think.
CCC tried to help with a magazine article in each of the first few years on the series, so they liked the big banger stuff as much as they did in the 80's when Thundersaloon started up!
In 2000 even more Super Tourers were present, and i think Ric Wood had his Holden Commadore from Australia trying to mix it with the other cars. I think Rod Birley came out a few times in his Honda Thundersaloon at various points. The Woodcock brothers switched to the Primeras in 2000 with more coming out all the time. several people joined fromt he BMW championship to get an extra race to boost the grids. John Muir came down from Dunfermline in his Cosworth powered Toyota Starlet, which i think ran in Thundersaloons in class B??
By 2002 there were double figures of Touring cars running. There were still several cosworth carrs running (Brodie, Papworth Dougall), and Andrew Mckenzie came back and put a 6litre V8 in the front of the Omega he had!! Ric Still had the Holden, which worked great around Snetterton but struggled with its weight most other places. In 2003 Papworth finally got a super touring mondeo, and retired his Sapphire Cosworth, and generally even more Toureres were out.
But back to theme of ThunderSaloons. Ric Wood for 2003 brought back his Calibra, with another rebuild to get it to 6litre class limit, with a few other tweaks. He put the Holden front bumper assembly on the car, but actually had to add a couple of inches of width to it to make it fit the Calibra!! Andrew Chester returned with the Chevrolet Camero, which had appeared in British GT, but is now painted yellow. Both of these cars dominated CLass A for the big power cars. Peter Thurston brought his Ford Escort Mk1 V8 special saloon out as well to play as well as the cosworths, which worked great at Snetterton for a lap or two ont eh straights but could not keep with the big V8's or the SuperTouerers.
But from mid season 2003 the championship started to struggle with grids dropping slightly, and in 2004 only one race at Sliverstone happened before the series was canned. Some people did not like spending lots of money on the cars to keep the competative in Formula Saloons, and a couple moved to other series, like the Dutch Super Cars and LMA saloons.
And that was the end of a big banger race series in the uk. Ric still uses his Calibra sometimes in the North West sports and saloon series, some Cosworths are still around as well here and there.
There was one race only for SuperTouring cars at Snetterton, but plans were to do 2-3 race meetings a year but this never happened. Only in 2009 with the David Leslie race at silverstone did a large number of SuperTourers reappear.
I know so much as I wrote the race reports for the website from 2003, and loved the big bager stuff from the old thundersaloon days.
Hope that helps a bit!!!
Edit: Just seen your post Gregor.
Yes Gerry Marshall became president of the series, and he was at Brands Hatch in 2004 with Baby Bertha, and Bill Blydenstien (and others i think). They opened the pit lane at lunch for people to come see the cars, and it was packed!!!!!
Gerry went out and did a few laps in Baby, and wowed the crowd.
I have a photo of Gerry with baby Bertha next to its relation in Ric Woods Calibra somewhere......
Edited by TonyS, 19 November 2009 - 20:53.