Time to re-invent touring car racing (again)?

[Speed-King]

Lately I've talked to an American friend of mine - he's more into sportscars than touringcars - about the current state of WTCC and Touring Car racing in general.
Looking at the different series country for country, we agreed that Touring Car racing is - with a few exceptions - once again in a pretty bad shape.

While STCC, DTC and BTCC seem to work pretty well, at least from my outside-looking-in-point of view, the rest seems pretty bleak.
And if BMW really pull out of touring car racing, this might very well pull an important leg from under those series as well, given the number of privateers using the cars from Munich.

DTM is stuck with two manufacturers, ridiculous aerodynamics and boring races.
WTCC on the other hand, has become completely worthless by the politics of the different manufacturers and there permanent whining.
France doesn't even have a Touring Car championship today, but Italy has four, but all of them look pretty anaemic, and the same goes for ADAC-Procar.
In Belgium Belcar got rid of their (interesting!) touring division, and BTCS is now the main touring car series. While it certainly looks like an interesting series, it is mostly a recycling series for old cars from Megane Cup, French Supertourisme or Touring Cup (Solution F), with only a few cars being built for the series.

DTM and Super2000 are now both in their 9th year, and that's about as long as most other rule-sets lived in the last 30 years.
So have we reached one of those points where a clear cut is needed to re-invent touring car racing once again?

[werner]

I think S2000 is still pretty healthy, and the things that look bad are solvable I think.
About the cars: It looks like that if BMW pulls back from the WTCC, it would be a dull afair. However, that is the championship that will look bad, not the class. Because, although popular in every mayor championship, there would still would be fields worth watching if you pulled out every BMW tomorrow, exept for Danmark maybe.
The good thing about S2000 is also that it is possible to develop S2000-cars that are competitive, without having a factory joining the WTCC. VXR and Halfords have done so in Britain, Volvo, Honda and Audi have done so in Sweden, Peugeot in Denmark, and there are or where enhousiast privateers who have built Ford, Mercedes, Lexus, Toyota, Renault, Citroen and now Lada-S2000-cars.
So it is possible to have lot's of different cars involved in S2000 even without lot's of factory's involved. That should stay, so tweaks may be nescesary if a few manufacturers start building 'homologation-specials'. The current BMW is a bit like that, with an engine and a roof that is built in a very limited serie.
the basics are still the right ones: a 2l-petrolengine, or a 2l-turbodieselengine are the sorts of powerplants that are used in sporty but otherwise normal cars today. I would favor the possibility of smaller but turbocharged petrolengines and alternative fuels as bioethanol quikly, since they start to get common engines to.
About the championships:
-Procar is just to small to get a lot of professional teams in the S2000-class, since al of the attention goes to the superstars in DTM. Given that it is basically a secont-tier amateur-championship, the number of competitors isn't that bad.
-BTCS and the non-existing French championship: A little bit of the same story: the Belgian and French GT-series apparently have done better in attracting mediacoverage and professional teams and drivers, and there is not enought support for a second high-profile championship. Because S2000 may be reasonably reachable for a national serie, it is to expensive and complicated for amateur-racing.
In Italy they seem just not to be able to work together, 4 championships won't be good for any of them. I'm sure that some will break down, and hopefully Alfa Romeo will built an S2000-car soon on the basis of the 149, to have a great championship between JAS-Honda's, N-tech-Alfa's, ROAL-BMW's, and Seat Sport Italia-SEAT's. But that is just speculating...
-DTM seems to be evolving in a European Sportscar/Stockcar-serie. Interesting, but hardly touringcars anymore.

To summarize and conclude:
-S2000 is alright in general, and just needs a few tweaks here and there to keep it up to date. It's the WTCC-organizers that should stop giving breaks and other politics al the time.
-DTM is no touringcarseries anymore. It just needs to find a rulebook that makes at least 3 manufactures happy enough, and make sure that the enormous and very impressive mediaattentions stays focused at the series to make it worthwhile for sponsors and manufacturers. My advice to them; make sure the referees are clearly very independent from the marketingboys.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by werner

the basics are still the right ones: a 2l-petrolengine, or a 2l-turbodieselengine are the sorts of powerplants that are used in sporty but otherwise normal cars today. I would favor the possibility of smaller but turbocharged petrolengines and alternative fuels as bioethanol quikly, since they start to get common engines to.

Normally aspired petrol engines are something of the past. The Renault Clio RS and Honda S2000 are about the only road cars with such engine.

Downsizing, turbo charging and direct injection are the future for road petrol engines.

[stedevil]

I have pretty much nothing to add to Werners & gwyllions posts. It's not the rules that are broken, it's the politics around it.

In the rules them self it's really just the 2L Petrol that needs to be moved into the museum where it belongs to allow current engine tech already found on road cars today to take it's place. Racing should push the technological development by putting breath into new inventions, not be an artifical respirator for cementing already outdated technology.

[10tacle]

The perfect Touring Car Series would be like the V8 Supercars, Euro Superstars and S2000 (like the DTM till 1991 )

1. guarantee low costs that private Teams can race and win (most important)
2. use real cars with about 300-350 HP
3. split the proceeds fair to all privat teams (license, ticket prices, Broadcasting and something like this)
4. homologate different concepts (FWD, RWD, AWD) und engines before the saison starts (like in the FIA GT3) and block the development during the season. Touring Car is a "low cost" Motorsport not a develop series like the formula 1.

Thats my point of view

[werner]

Originally Posted by stedevil

Racing should push the technological development by putting breath into new inventions, not be an artifical respirator for cementing already outdated technology.

Hehe, tell that to the NASCAR and V8-Supercars-boys...

BTW, also the sporty versions of for instance the Peugeot 207/308, the smaller Alfa Romeo's and offcourse BMW have 4 clilinder 2l-engines without a turbo. I still prefer them as far as I can tell.

[gttouring]

Touring car is visually good fun- the BTCC in the 90's exemplified what touring car should be like, even now it isn't so bad
but for some reason it hasn't gripped the world as I feel it should- look at rallye (WRC) a similar production formula and it is wildly popular
I like S2000 as so many can get in the game.
perhaps superproduction might work better with turbos or some form of supercharging. the STC (speed touring car in the US) is awfully boring to watch (this is some type of superproduction rules so perhaps it won't work) 8/10 times, and i watch all of them - i love touring car, it is my favorite category but the grids are always spotty in depth of cars and talent...
touring car can use a solid global union so many series where locals can't join a big boy race and maybe this would be a good infusion for the series. I feel it is in the WTCC hands to allow for it.
how great would a Round of WTCC filled with 40-50 cars from the local boys and see where they land when he dust settles.
a common formula to let all comers joint the fray i think can help especially the wild card or dark horse.

but by and large look to the old BTCC in the UK they did it right

[Moneyseeker]

Actually I think the main issue that organisers probably didn't see coming is keeping everyone happy with equivalency. Multi make racing, whether it be GT's or saloons, has always had the issue of keeping different configurations of cars equally competitive.

With the onset of diesel cars, this is just another issue to legislate against and the plain facts are that you will nearly almost end up making one car less competitive against another somewhere along the line.

Also to maintain new entries, new manufacturers are nearly always going to need a rule break or weight break in order to get their cars in the mix from day one, which adds to the equivalency debate.

[racer69]

Originally Posted by gttouring

Touring car is visually good fun- the BTCC in the 90's exemplified what touring car should be like, even now it isn't so bad
but for some reason it hasn't gripped the world as I feel it should- look at rallye (WRC) a similar production formula and it is wildly popular

The good thing about rallying is that most countries seem to adopt the straight FIA rules around the world, be it for WRCars, Group N or Super 1600. They may have slightly different regs to allow for other cars to join, but they are still based around the FIA machinery.

Touring Cars though has been very 'territorial' though since the mid-60s, and particularly since the early 90s when Europe decided to go for small cars (bar the DTM), while the likes of Australia who have always had a large car scene were forced to write their own regulations.

A global set of regs encompassing all cars from around the world would be fantastic (we had that with Group A, but the rules were flawed regarding turbo cars), but i don't see it happening anytime soon.

Originally Posted by gttouring

how great would a Round of WTCC filled with 40-50 cars from the local boys and see where they land when he dust settles.
a common formula to let all comers joint the fray i think can help especially the wild card or dark horse.

That was feature of the original WTCC in 1987, each round featured big grids complete with local drivers filling the fields, especially in the Australian & New Zealand rounds of the series that year.... just a pity Bernie punted it....

[Dead-Eye]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Normally aspired petrol engines are something of the past. The Renault Clio RS and Honda S2000 are about the only road cars with such engine.

That was good one

Unless you were actually serious and meant to say that those engines are the only one of their kind in the 200 hp-bracket...which is true, but not really relevant to the development of a racing version

[stedevil]

Originally Posted by Dead-Eye

... but not really relevant to the development of a racing version

Development of a racing version? Both Chevy and Lada is running with 20 year old engines. Sure, it's a testament of a really good design, for the first 10 years. But year 11-20+ just points at the complete and utter stagnation of development.

[gttouring]

really the 2.0 in the chevy is 20 years old?
i thought it was a new eco tec engine.
that thing is tough too, 6 bolt main caps skirted block just for the production version wicked stuff.
direct injection would really make this cool

well in order to fix things just what is wrong with the WTCC or Speed TC or BTCC to begin with ..? (i have an idea but what do you all think?)

[10tacle]

I think Chevy uses the Aluminium L850 Engine from GM (, not the old Opel X20XE or C20XE based.
btw, the old Opel engine is still a very good thing in motorsports.

[stedevil]

Well, according to Martin Haven and the new Eurosport commentator John Cleland it's the old engine. And John should know, he was developing it 20 years ago.

[JAG]

350bhp 2.5l atmo, or restricted 1.6-2.0 turbos.

Freedom to use fwd, rwd or 4wd.

Group N like chassis regs.

[redshoes]

So what if it's 20 years old. The A-series engine first appeared back in the 1950's and was still winning races well over 20 years later. Porsche 997 is still a competitive package and that's based on a 40 year old design.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by gttouring

well in order to fix things just what is wrong with the WTCC or Speed TC or BTCC to begin with ..? (i have an idea but what do you all think?)

WTCC: politics, politics and politics.
Speed TC: Costs getting completely out of hand, 16 cars for the last round at Watkins Glen, 10 of those from two teams.
STCC: 18 cars this weekend at Gothenburg, from the testing times, two of the old 320i bimmers seem to be quite a lot off the pace.
BTCC: seems to be in the best shape overall, the grids are still bolstered with a number of old BTC-type cars, but that's okay, I think.

I'm not really sure, but I think -apart from the neverending equalisation-story - the other problem with S2000 is that it's a bit too expensive for most wealthy amateurs and so series have to rely on professional teams. This is per se pretty good, but it makes -apart from England - for comparatively thin grids.

I must say that I am pretty impressed by the (showroom-stock endurance) Koni Challenge in America, which regularly gets 70+ cars between their two divisions. The cars are of course not that spectacular, but the introduction of production- or after-market rear wings has helped the cars a lot, and M3s and Mustangs look even in showroom-spec better then most S2000 cars.

[stedevil]

Originally Posted by redshoes

...based on a 40 year old design.

Based on, but much improved. For starters, it has a turbo.

Regulation limitations and relative manufaturer uninterest for spending development money on NA 2L petrol is without a doubt 1 of the reasons why so few car brands bother with the WTCC. That is the problem.

[PorscheFanNo1]

To drive one lap with a modern S2000 car cost about 1000€ in maintenance cost (so they say), consider that this weekend alone at Gothenburg they will do about 100 laps each I reccon all sessions combined if not more (3 x 45 min test sessions, 20 min qual, superpole, 40min race), thats quite a high price for anyone to pay for just one weekend. You can understand why theres only 18 cars in STCC right now, 16 of them however looks to be within about 0.8 sec at this track, I'd consider that quite a sharp edge but with no real depth to the grid. We've got to the point where the big investment is no longer to buy the actual car, but rather to buy the spare parts that needs to be changed after every weekend (Engine rebuild, trivetrain, breaks - all very expensive stuff). Thers no easy fix for this problem, its embeded into the S2000 rules, the BTC-spec cars where much better at this very point and thats why you still see quite a few of those runing around in BTCC even this year, and doing very well at some races, just cause its easy and cheap (-ish) to mentain and theres lots of those parts around.

I dont think I'm the only one that thinks that the S2000 regulations are rubbish and the sooner we get rid of them the better.

[racer69]

Originally Posted by PorscheFanNo1

I dont think I'm the only one that thinks that the S2000 regulations are rubbish and the sooner we get rid of them the better.

I agree to an extent, most of the problems though are with the constant rule-changing (particularly the ones to help along the manufacturers doing bad job, or who are racing an unsuitable car)

Originally Posted by stedevil

Development of a racing version? Both Chevy and Lada is running with 20 year old engines. Sure, it's a testament of a really good design, for the first 10 years. But year 11-20+ just points at the complete and utter stagnation of development.

If there is still development potential and the unit is reliable & competitive, why does it matter how old the design is?

[roachy101]

what the WTCC need to do is limit the number of cars a certain team can have coz the Seat lockout get boring after a while. the national series aren't looking too bad and the BTCC,STCC and DTC are going from strength to strength but could do with a little more manufacturer support

[redshoes]

Originally Posted by stedevil

Based on, but much improved. For starters, it has a turbo.

Only because the regulations allow a turbo. I'm sure Chevy's engine is very much improved from it's original 20 year old spec.

A racer69 said, is it's still reliable & competitive, who cares how old the design is.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by roachy101

what the WTCC need to do is limit the number of cars a certain team can have coz the Seat lockout get boring after a while. the national series aren't looking too bad and the BTCC,STCC and DTC are going from strength to strength but could do with a little more manufacturer support

I wouldn't call 18 cars on the grid in STCC "going from strength to strength". And IMHO manufacturers are the devil and will ruin every series if you let them. At least the national championships should go the way of FIA GT, i.e. ban factory teams, but let them sell customer cars.

And as PorscheFanNo1 stated above, S2000 has gotten really expensive, thus excluding wealthy amateurs and making for fields with a sharp and competitive front end, but without real depth.

[stedevil]

Originally Posted by racer69

If there is still development potential and the unit is reliable & competitive, why does it matter how old the design is?

I thought I already had explained, but seems not clearly enough. The 20 year old engine is just a symptom of a problem. The real problem is that there is so little development potential left in the current allowed 2L petrol engine that virtually no manufacturer bothers with developing it.

Of the 5 brands running in WTCC, 2 are running the same 20 year old engine, 1 has already made the switch to the only allowed alternative, diesel, and Honda has only 1 single car on the grid. So that pretty much just leaves BMW for real bothering with the 2L petrol.

I think we can all agree on that the very few manufacturers in WTCC is one of it's major problems, yet many manufaturers will not be joining as long as the format is a 2L petrol engine. Volvo eg has waited several years now on the since long overdue Ethanol regs ( http://www.fiawtcc.com/fiawtcc/sport_sto1147354.shtml )

[duke_toaster]

I think touring car racing needs evolution, not revolution. There aren't any particular problems, whilst 18 S2000 cars in Sweden doesn't sound good it's not exactly the largest market in the world (without wishing to be patronising).



BTC-T was a better set of rules however junking Super 2000 now is a silly idea, and if it is replaced with a 2.5 litre ruleset and there will be a need for everyone to develop a new car straight of the bat. And privateers will love that, won't they.

S2000 needs some more options. Firstly, I'd like to see lower capacity petrol engines with forced induction permitted. Of course they would require a pressure limit as well as the rev limit. The diesels could be squared up as well. 4WD could be made an option, as could fuels such as ethanol, LPG and so-on.