Touring Car Racing - Overview

Touring car racing is an auto racing competition of advanced racing cars. This sport is very popular in many countries like Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Norway. However, its speed cannot be compared with Formula One.

The touring car series consists of one or more endurance races with time duration of 3-24 hours. Basically, the event starts with a standard body shell but racing equipment like engines, suspension, brakes, wheels, and tires are permitted.

Races of touring cars are conducted on road courses and street circuits. There is a very little technical difference between racing cars and touring cars. A casual observer can never point out the difference between the two. Touring cars come from family cars like sedans, hatchbacks and do not support high technical level.

Just like any other racing game, all the riders participating in this game focus on covering the road track within the shortest time span and be the first one to win the game. The riders have to be quick and sharp as there can be a margin of less than one-tenth of a second between the first three finishers.

History

The British Touring Car (BTC) Championship, commonly known as touring car series, was founded in 1958 as British Saloon Car Championship and was renamed in 1987. This car racing series is conducted every year in the UK and is governed by the TCA.

The Touring Car Series Championship is following numerous national and international regulations like FIA Group 2, FIA Group 1, FIA Super Touring and FIA Super 2000. Earlier the championship was held by the merger of different classes on the basis of their engine capacity and racing simultaneously.

The BTC Championship adopted its own set of rules in 2001. In 2009, BTC launched the details and specifications of the Next Generation Touring Car to be introduced in 2011. These regulations were made to minimize the design, build, and running costs of the car engines.

Participating Countries

The Touring Car Championship is held in the UK every year. The drivers from different countries take part in this championship. Presently, there are five championships for every season. Following is the list of countries where World Touring Car Championship has been held.

First championship was held in 1987 at European Touring Car championship. The other places where the event was hosted are −

• Bathurst in Europe
• Calder Park Raceway in Australia
• Wellington in New Zealand
• Mount Fuji in Japan

The World Touring Car Cup was first hosted in between 1993 and 1995. The last World Championship was held in 2005. There were 25 drivers who took part in this FIA World Touring Car Championship. The manufacturers of these cars are BMW, Chevrolet, Citroen, Ford, Honda, Lada, SEAT and Volvo.