Touring Car Masters

[sizzle]

Race 3 was a reverse grid hit and giggle not counting for points.
Only 1 and 2 counted for points.

[Kingair]

What has happen to the Greg Crick Charger?

Love to see the big Valiant racing again.

[Kingair]

Originally Posted by xrystl

I'm guessing that his ballast and rev limit handicap apply to him in the Mustang and not in the Torana and that when Junior ran the Mustang end of last year he was easy able to claim lap records off Bowe in the same car so I guess that the restrictions on the Mustang were lifted when Johnson was the driver .

Thought he may have used the Torana and Mustang throughout the season, depending on track configuration.

[Terry S]

Originally Posted by sizzle

Race 3 was a reverse grid hit and giggle not counting for points.
Only 1 and 2 counted for points.

I have looked up the TCM 2016 Regulations and now I am completely confused.

The Regs say each round shall have two series races and then a Trophy Race (the 3rd race)

Reg S11.2 (c) states each driver shall be awarded 25 points for each Trophy Race they start, and (d) says each driver shall be awarded 25 points for each Trophy race they finish.

So you would get 50 points for a hit and giggle. This is basically same as 3rd place in a Series Race. This seems hardly fair as you don't have to do anything in the Trophy Race just dawdle around at the back and stay out of trouble.

It seems to be the "race you have when you are not having a race".

Curious thing is on Natsoft's pointscore they have 120 for Ritter winning the first two races only. Have they been told something different to the Regs.

No use looking on the TCM website as they can't be bothered putting up the pointscores 24 hours later, or perhaps they don't understand their own Regs.

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by Terry S

The MAJOR problem for TCM is that it has become ridiculously expensive and seemingly completely out of proportion to its aims.

It seems to always start the year with a flourish but then peters out.

As example, at the very first race in 2015 there were 25 competitors.
They ended up there were ONLY 6 that competed at all 8 rounds.
Pretty poor for a national championship.

And the gentleman drivers are not always committed to every round of the series... while the paid ones usually are...

With the usual issues of spares coming up as well..

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Terry S

No use looking on the TCM website as they can't be bothered putting up the pointscores 24 hours later, or perhaps they don't understand their own Regs.

I think that's a little harsh - they are not a full-time professional category and no doubt the part-time category manager will update the site when he or she is able to - probably travelling today.

There may well be a problem with the regs on top of that, let's see what comes.

[peckstar]

Originally Posted by Terry S

No use looking on the TCM website as they can't be bothered putting up the pointscores 24 hours later, or perhaps they don't understand their own Regs.

considered putting your hand up to help out, you could be their webmaster?

[gtcapri]

Originally Posted by Kingair

What has happen to the Greg Crick Charger?

Love to see the big Valiant racing again.

Sadly Crick retired before the end of last season.

[GTRMagic]

Mr Miedecke leaving the category too it seems..

[one five five]

His association with the team goes back to late-90s in NASCAR as well.

Concentrating on his Aston now?

[Terry S]

Originally Posted by Terry S

I have looked up the TCM 2016 Regulations and now I am completely confused.

The Regs say each round shall have two series races and then a Trophy Race (the 3rd race)

Reg S11.2 (c) states each driver shall be awarded 25 points for each Trophy Race they start, and (d) says each driver shall be awarded 25 points for each Trophy race they finish.

So you would get 50 points for a hit and giggle. This is basically same as 3rd place in a Series Race. This seems hardly fair as you don't have to do anything in the Trophy Race just dawdle around at the back and stay out of trouble.

It seems to be the "race you have when you are not having a race".

Curious thing is on Natsoft's pointscore they have 120 for Ritter winning the first two races only. Have they been told something different to the Regs.

No use looking on the TCM website as they can't be bothered putting up the pointscores 24 hours later, or perhaps they don't understand their own Regs.

The TCM website has finally been updated to show Ritter on 170 points (which is in accordance with the above regs) but Natsoft is showing him on 120 points. Perhaps Natsoft aren' t aware of the point scoring changes.

[Reload]

Andrew Miedecke not running in anymore events this year in order to run the Aston in GT's with his son which unfortunately takes away one of the few contenders.
No word if anyone will take over driving the Camaro.

[mayhem]

But on the upside, it brings in a horn looking Aston to GT3!

[Richard Craill]

Originally Posted by Reload

Andrew Miedecke not running in anymore events this year in order to run the Aston in GT's with his son which unfortunately takes away one of the few contenders.
No word if anyone will take over driving the Camaro.

'takes away one of the few contenders'.

Sad days if Jim Richards, John Bowe, Glenn Seton, Greg Ritter and Eddie Abelnica at the pointy end of the field (all in different models of car) isn't enough to satisfy people!

[Terry S]

Originally Posted by Richard Craill

'takes away one of the few contenders'.

Sad days if Jim Richards, John Bowe, Glenn Seton, Greg Ritter and Eddie Abelnica at the pointy end of the field (all in different models of car) isn't enough to satisfy people!

Richard, as an oracle on TCM, do you understand/ agree with the logic of the new Trophy Race on Sundays.

It seems you only have to cruise around and finish that race and you get 50 points, irrespective of position.

This 50 points is basically the same as finishing 3rd in either of the first two races, but they are hard fought.

Surely this "Mickey Mouse" exhibition is not the best way to show the class to Sunday fans?

[Reload]

Originally Posted by Richard Craill

'takes away one of the few contenders'.

Sad days if Jim Richards, John Bowe, Glenn Seton, Greg Ritter and Eddie Abelnica at the pointy end of the field (all in different models of car) isn't enough to satisfy people!

With only about half a dozen contenders for an entire category, losing one is not ideal.

[Terry S]

Originally Posted by Richard Craill

TCM averaged 22 cars per round last year, with a high of 25 and a low of 20, which in this day and age is not poor for a national championship.

Richard, for interest are your numbers just for pure TCM cars, or do they include all the other cars they invite to make up a decent grid.?

[Terry S]

It would be interesting to know what car Richards actually drove in race 1 at Sandown. Was it the Javelin or Falcon Sprint?

On their website TCM show photo of Javelin and commentary says Javelin.
Then about 6 inches down they list the results and state he was in Falcon Sprint.

On Speedcafe they say he was in Javelin.

On Natsoft they list him as being in the Falcon Sprint.

This could be considered to be slightly confusing.

[Tourer]

Not really Terry. The way the Natsoft software works, each car/driver is stored in the system from the last time they were entered. If a different car is run, the timing team need to go in & make a change in the database - easy to miss the odd change or detail.

I'd go with the reports of Jum running the Javelin & accept the discrepancy on Natsoft as human error.

[bortall]

I can confirm Jim is in the Javelin.

[Umai Naa]

Images on Adcafe confirm that Mr Richards was in the Javelin as well.

[Terry S]

So what happened to Race 2?

No mention on Natsoft.

[bortall]

You can go here & watch the 2 races from Sunday:
http://www.touringcarmasters.com.au/...GAIN-ON-DEMAND

[Terry S]

It was interesting to see that in Darwin TCM races 2 and 3 that 6 out of the 21 starters were Torana V8's. This is 29%

With more Toranas coming does it indicate the races will be dominated by Toranas in future.

When we think back to what we watched in the late 1970's, the outright touring car fields were basically Toranas with a couple of Falcon hardtops thrown in.

So maybe the TCM fields are finally going to reflect the reality of those times.

[Tourer]

Maybe Terry - with so much damaged machinery from the last couple of rounds, it's hard to draw any firm conclusions from Darwin. Once the damaged cars (hopefully) all come back out to play, we'll have a better idea of how the field is made up.