[BTCC] BTCC 2018 Rumours & Silly Season

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by 850Estate

From Facebook. Can we read anything into that? Aside from the fact that they are exemplifying the fact that they're called Buntingford Motor Racing Racing.

The registered company name is BMR Racing Limited. Looks like a small branding exercise and nothing else.

[touring fan01]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Ditto, I am a big Tom fan. I suspect the cars will be minor updates from this years rather than major changes as the TCR entry must be keeping the Motorbase boys busy...

little birdie tells me they not entering tcr now and have their car for sale

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by touring fan01

little birdie tells me they not entering tcr now and have their car for sale

Interesting, IIRC they bought two VW's and Dave Bartrum made the point that with TCR regs they could race the cars anywhere, no dependent on the UK series.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Moneyseeker

Interesting, IIRC they bought two VW's and Dave Bartrum made the point that with TCR regs they could race the cars anywhere, no dependent on the UK series.

The way Dave Bartrum discussed their TCR option, it seems that TCR UK was never a plan - but other options were being considered.

Note he refers to TCR UK as 'they'....

'We’ve already seen the calendar for TCR UK [...]it will be interesting to see what work they do on the infrastructure of the championship to make sure it is put together in the correct way. I expect year one to be tough with a few teething problems, but if they get it right, then it could become a real force in years to come'

Are we certain it is the actual cars for sale - or a seat in the cars?

[touring fan01]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Are we certain it is the actual cars for sale - or a seat in the cars?

the cars

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by touring fan01

the cars

Rgr - interesting to see where they end up, if they sell at all?

[HopAlong]

I know the team (Briskly? Bliskey? Briskey?) that has joined up with Team Hard have scrapped their TCR UK plan and have the car up for sale.

The Tom Chilton announcement on TcT mentions that the Focus has been updated, I wonder if that just means the livery or whether the car has been revamped. Would facelifting a car count as one of the aero jokers the teams are allowed, or do changes to the same model not count in the off season?

Its always puzzled me why MG/888 never just pulled a car off the used car lot. Surely MG could have took the £3-4,000 hit to at least make them look less of an embarrassment. There must have been a surplus of MG 6's that never got sold sitting around too. Because I would have thought they would have wanted to try and push the MG brand as a whole rather than the MG6, like how manufactures use DPI.

Then again it seems like the lowest effort manufacturer program in all of racing. I don't even think the car ever saw a wind tunnel either, although Racecar Engineering could have been talking about someone else, but I would have thought the major competitor to TD in the 12/13 seasons would have been the MG.

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by HopAlong

Its always puzzled me why MG/888 never just pulled a car off the used car lot. Surely MG could have took the £3-4,000 hit to at least make them look less of an embarrassment. There must have been a surplus of MG 6's that never got sold sitting around too.

A few thousand for a new shell is only the start of things. You need to add best part of £100,000 for the specialist fabrication work to prep the shell, build the rollcage and convert into a usage race car.

[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by redshoes

A few thousand for a new shell is only the start of things. You need to add best part of £100,000 for the specialist fabrication work to prep the shell, build the rollcage and convert into a usage race car.

This indeed. If you have seen the amount of "new" MGs that are simply sat - and will stay sat - that will just rot away in time then the effective cost of a donor car is nil. Scrapping what is not wanted costs good money, hence leaving to rot in a disused factory.

[medius]

888 bought back Marc Hynes' car to replace the car damaged in Dan Loyd's Thruxton bump, but was then written off in the Croft crash. A fresh shell was started after the Thruxton crash and debracketed by Wille Poole but not finished, no cage installed as it was cheaper to buy the Hynes' car out of storage.

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by medius

888 bought back Marc Hynes' car to replace the car damaged in Dan Loyd's Thruxton bump, but was then written off in the Croft crash. A fresh shell was started after the Thruxton crash and debracketed by Wille Poole but not finished, no cage installed as it was cheaper to buy the Hynes' car out of storage.

Not quite.
The new shell was at Willie Poole's late 2016/early 2017 but never finished.

888 bought back the ex Marc Hynes car (chassis 3), which is what Taylor-Smith drove at the start of the year until written off at Croft.

Dan Lloyd started the season in the ex Neate/Tordoff/Jordan/Cook car (chassis 1), until crashed at Thruxton. Lloyd then used chassis 2, the ex Plato/Goff/Sutton car which hadn't been straight since Snetterton 2016. When Lloyd left, Cook took over that car.

When Taylor-Smith came back, he was in chassis 1, the car that Lloyd had crashed at Thruxton.

[mark_l]

So basically MG don't have an undamaged chassis left apart from the incomplete one.

[Alfisti]

Exactly that.

Not that it matters: they're not going to be on the grid next year; I will eat my woolly hat if I'm wrong about that.

[touring fan01]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Exactly that.

Not that it matters: they're not going to be on the grid next year; I will eat my woolly hat if I'm wrong about that.

hope your feeling hungry

[Liquoriceman]

Found one of TD's old Civics! Who's the new driver Gaz though?

https://twitter.com/ChorleyCouncil/s...21016770916352

Sent from my R7plusf using Tapatalk

[luckn002]

3rd HARD / Brisky driver to be announced on Thursday 28th December... HARD definitely winning the silly season championship!

[Jiiiiiiim]

Originally Posted by luckn002

3rd HARD / Brisky driver to be announced on Thursday 28th December... HARD definitely winning the silly season championship!

Well Jake Hill was close to getting his deal sorted and is mates with Brisky’s boss, so think he’ll be back with them 😊

[3marinadrive]

So if the rumours are true that Jake Hill will resign for 2018 - based on the success that Speedworks have had with Ingram - and knowing that Jake and Tom have been evenly matched in the Junior series - would Geoff Kingston be able to turn Jake into a front runner?

[Thundersports]

Let's hope so and I want a cut as I sold Jakes first child seat to his Dad.

[luckn002]

Originally Posted by Jiiiiiiim

Well Jake Hill was close to getting his deal sorted and is mates with Brisky’s boss, so think he’ll be back with them 😊

Simon Hill has also tweeted that there will be some BTCC news next week, so I think we can connect the dots here! Good to see Jake back, but kind of hoped he would have been picked up by one of the front running teams...

[AmD Tuning]

A Xmas conundrum for you! Looking forward to a busy 2018 in motorsport where we'll be running less race weekends, more races, less drivers but more cars!

[jsmee]

Originally Posted by AmD Tuning

A Xmas conundrum for you! Looking forward to a busy 2018 in motorsport where we'll be running less race weekends, more races, less drivers but more cars!

So...

No British GT. Thats two drivers fewer and numerous race weekends. And one car fewer.

1 extra BTCC entry perhaps means still one fewer driver compared to last year but the same number of cars?

Cheers for the challenge Shaun!

[KA]

Originally Posted by jsmee

So...

No British GT. Thats two drivers fewer and numerous race weekends. And one car fewer.

1 extra BTCC entry perhaps means still one fewer driver compared to last year but the same number of cars?

Cheers for the challenge Shaun!

So less series, hence less race weekends- but maybe running in some of the TOCA support series, which would give more cars and races, and some drivers appearing in more than one series, so less drivers and more cars?

I think I'm confused!

[S griffin]

Welcome Shaun, thanks for the heads up, can't wait to see the announcement in time.

[medius]

Originally Posted by AmD Tuning

A Xmas conundrum for you! Looking forward to a busy 2018 in motorsport where we'll be running less race weekends, more races, less drivers but more cars!

Evil man! see if this worms its way back to a certain Facebook group?