Production Touring Car Racing.

[J.A.W.]

Used to be that racing - minimally modified - production cars was popular..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc3X7D_q4YM

[Psyclone]

It was extremely popular.

Australian Touring Car Championship was raced to Group C improved production rules from 1965 - 1984
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_C_%28Australia%29


and something a little more modern

[J.A.W.]

Yeah,& how much deviation from showroom stock was allowed by rules ( or rule ..ah.. interpretation..) was part of it..

Here's a collection of shots from back in the day..

http://www.theroaringseason.com/showthr ... rt-2/page2

[J.A.W.]

& here are some interesting shots of production cars - with mild racing modifications..

http://www.theroaringseason.com/showthr ... 80-s/page2

[MOWOG]

Here in the US, the TransAm series may have presented some of the best racing ever and brought notoriety to several drivers and team principals whose names are still part of racing legend today:

Roger Penske
Carroll Shelby
Mark Donahue
Bob Tullius
Bob Sharp
PJ Newman
Mario Andretti
Cale Yarborough
George Follmer

And 100's more. Having lived through it, I remember it as a very exciting time in motor sports.

Front wheel drive cars pretty much killed it. Or maybe the Arab oil embargoes were to blame, as they are what led to FWD cars. No longer could someone take a stock production car, shoehorn in a big V8 engine and go racing.

Over the years, safety concerns have made it harder and harder to race a car that came to life in an ordinary factory. As land values rose during the economic good times, race tracks near metropolitan areas became too valuable for just racing. Most of them now are condos or strip malls. Noise restrictions are in place in many areas. And people's interests today tend toward "green" cars. kWh and range are the new buzzwords instead of cubic inches.

We are never going back to that storied time. BTCC probably does the best job of preserving the idea of racing "stock cars", mixing fwd and rwd cars with turbo and non-turbo cars in the same race.

Here's a look at some of those TransAm cars of yesteryear at an historic race weekend at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California.

[Facts Only]

All of the cars in the BTCC are Turbocharged and running to the NGTC rules which specify a standard front and rear running gear and boosting system, essentially only the bodyshell and base engine are free but the engine must be 2L and you can by a Vauxhall based stock engine rather than develop your own.

If anything the BTCC has moved much further away from stock cars than most other touring car series. Funnily enough the grids have been swelling and the competition increasing since the start of the NGTC era.

Some of the 750mc and CSCC series like Stock Hatch and Tin Tops are quite close to this kind of old school Production Touring car racing.

[J.A.W.]

Old school series production touring car race.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RDfvC3Edl8