British Touring Car Championship

[Austin Maxi]

It recently celebrated it's 50th birthday, but the BTCC was memorable for some of the cars and drivers in the '70s, '80s & '90s.

Probably the stand-out years were the late '80s into 1990 when the Ford Sierra RS500s dominated (Group A), driven by touring car legends such as Andy Rouse, Dave Brodie, Tim Harvey, Robb Gravett, Mike Newman, Laurence Bristow - even Damon Hill raced one in one round. BMW M3s and Vauxhall Cavaliers in the smaller engine class would provide some interesting squabbles with Frank Sytner, John Cleland and Jeff Allam amongst the drivers.

Some of these drivers raced through the '80s (and before that), in various machinery - Rover SD1s, Jaguars and Ford Capris in the early '80s, Triumph Dolomites, BMWs, Vauxhall Firenzas, and Ford Escorts in the '70s.

There has always been great variety, and the 1994 season saw no less than 10 manufacturer-backed teams entered at the start of the season - Volvo even raced their 850 estate car that year.

Any other fans out there?

[Richard1978]

Re: British Touring Car Championship

I quite liked watching BTCC in that period, mostly on Saturday afternoons on Granstand before the football results started coming in.

[Austin Maxi]

Re: British Touring Car Championship

From the late '80s through to the mid-'90s, the BBC's commentator of the BTCC was the inimitable legend Murray Walker.

Who (who saw it) could forget the 1991 race at Snetterton when Jonathan Palmer's BMW M3 tagged the similar car of Swedish female racer Netten Lindgren, putting them both in the gravel, and the latter marched over to Palmer's car to give him a few choice words on the matter - Murray put it perfectly - "Hell hath no fury like a woman rammed!"

[darren]

Re: British Touring Car Championship

From the late '80s through to the mid-'90s, the BBC's commentator of the BTCC was the inimitable legend Murray Walker.

Who (who saw it) could forget the 1991 race at Snetterton when Jonathan Palmer's BMW M3 tagged the similar car of Swedish female racer Netten Lindgren, putting them both in the gravel, and the latter marched over to Palmer's car to give him a few choice words on the matter - Murray put it perfectly - "Hell hath no fury like a woman rammed!"

i never realised murray walker commentated on btcc.
always though he only did F1.
never really got into the btcc in a big way.

names i remember are jason plato.

[Richard1978]

Re: British Touring Car Championship

Murray Walker used to commentate on almost all the motorsport events at one time, but started to stay mostly on F1 by the 1990s, even if he didn't travel out to the ones held outside Europe when he switched to ITV.

[Austin Maxi]

Re: British Touring Car Championship

Jason Plato is still in the BTCC, and as I write, is currently leading this year's championship in a Chevrolet Cruze.

Although I'm a massive fan of Formula 1, I've always loved the BTCC for it's close racing and (usually) plenty of action. The Sierra years of the late '80s were especially spectacular as the RS500s were enormously powerful. It was their dominance that lead to the changing of the rules down to a single class series in 1991.

[lee wild]

Re: British Touring Car Championship

The btcc was brilliant andAny Rousse was my favourite driver but the 70,s cars were great also especialy Jerry marshall in the old nail firenza and clarke in the escort .Ialso loved group b rallying and bought a renault 5 turbo 2 mid engine about 3 years ago but sold it as nostalgia sometimes isn,t a good thing