Tag: Britcar Endurance Championship

Britcar & Classic Touring Cars set to take centre stage at Silverstone

The British Automobile Racing Club descends on Silverstone this weekend (April 24/25) for the first of four visits to the Home of British Motor Racing over the course of 2021, with both the Britcar Endurance Championship and Classic Touring Car Racing Club set to take centre stage.

Marking the start of the new season for both categories, edge-of-the-seat entertainment around the International layout of the Northamptonshire venue is all-but guaranteed – and a moment won’t be missed as it will be streamed live online via the Club’s Facebook and YouTube channels.

Capacity grids feature in both the Endurance and Trophy championships of Britcar this year, with welcome returnees being joined by a host of new competitors at the wheel of some exciting machines.

The title-winning Praga marque gets its own category this year as it competes within the Endurance races for a discrete championship and it boasts the 2020 joint title winners. Jem Hepworth is back behind the wheel of a Praga whilst co-champion Danny Harrison has switched to a Nissan GT3. With a joint grid of dozen Pragas and eclectic mix of GT3, GT4, Cup, Challenge and TCR machinery, a spectacular show awaits.

Despite being launched in the midst of COVID restrictions last year, the Trophy category proved to be an unmitigated success and 2021 promises to be even better with many new entries pushing the envelope of grid capacity as former exponents of sprint-style one-make and tin-top series adapt to the challenge of the endurance format.

Elsewhere, the Classic Touring Car Racing Club is poised to set a new record as it fields the biggest entry in its illustrious 45-year history.  Home to some of the most iconic saloon cars across countless decades, variety is the spice of life when it comes to the CTCRC where there is something for everyone.

Taking fans on a spirited trip down memory lane is the Poultec – Classic Race Engines Pre ’66 Touring Cars, Shell Oil Pre 83′ Touring Car Championship, Laser Tools Pre-93 Touring Cars Championship, Simply Serviced Pre-2003 Touring Cars Championship, Burton Power Products Blue Oval Saloon Series and Edmundson Electrical Classic & Historic Thunder Saloons Championship.

In addition to all that nostalgia, one new series that is joining the CTCRC ranks is the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club Saloon & GT Championship; showcasing the best of models from the iconic manufacturer.

The Mini 7 Racing Club has become a popular guest series to feature during BARC race meetings down the years and for good reason too with wheel-to-wheel thrills and spills normally taking place around every corner. Small in stature but packing a real punch under the bonnet, the Miglia and Se7en encounters will  likely produce some of the closest finishes you will end up seeing all weekend.

Notable names to keep an eye on include former BTCC champion Andrew Jordan, Nick Padmore, James Colburn, Aaron Smith and Scott Kendall, amongst a host of others.

Capping off the weekend’s action will be a pair of races from the Goodyear Touring Car Trophy. Giving driver’s the opportunity to drive outdated BTCC machinery at an affordable price, the series has gone from strength to strength in recent years and 2021 looks to be no different.

You can watch all of the action across both days  at Silverstone via our live streams on both YouTube and Facebook.

To find out more information on this weekend’s race meeting at Silverstone – including links to live timing, timetable and final instructions – click here.

Britcar Endurance excitement ramps up ahead of new season

The 2021 Britcar season will not just be a good year – in deference to our newly-rebadged major partner Goodyear – but a great year, with capacity grids for both our Britcar Endurance and Britcar Trophy Championships.

The successful Praga marque get their own discrete championship this year, run within the Britcar Endurance races, and reigning co-champion Jem Hepworth is likely to return, as are ex-servicemen Martin Compton and Warren McKinlay, while a healthy mix of established drivers and novices, interspersed with a number of high-profile driver coaches andguesting celebrities from the sporting and high-achievement world will ensure some great racing from these stunning machines.

Danny Harrison, reigning co-champion with Hepworth, moves to a beefy Nissan GT3, and will be a major contender for the Endurance title again, partnering Richard Wheeler, head of long-time sponsor Fox Transport, though Will Powell has signaledtitle aspirations in the Motus One McLaren 650S he will share with Dave Scaramanga, and for race wins, veteran campaigner John Seale, assisted by Jamie Stanley in a Lamborghini Huracan, cannot be discounted.

A good string of results from a car in the classes below could bag the crown, however, and in Classes 2 and 3 we will see representation from Ferrari, Porsche, BMW and Ginetta. Mike Moss’s BMW 1M has overall race-winning credentials, and last season’s Class 3 champions, Marcus Fothergill and Dave Benett, will be up against stiffer competition in their Porsche 991 now that the class system has been re-jigged. That stiffer competition will no doubt include the Digiplat and CRH BMWs, further Porsches from SG Racing, Valluga and Team Hard, and an FF Corse Ferrari 458 Challenge.

Class 4 now caters exclusively for GT4 and TCR machines, with last year’s title-winning Reflex Racing Ligier JS2-R returning, as is, with renewed vigor, the Newbarn Racing Jaguar F-Type, while the Woodman/Byford SEAT Cupra will be taking the fight to the RWD cars, which will feature Peter Erceg’s Cayman and the Team Brit Aston Martin Vantage.

The Britcar Trophy Championship has enjoyed enormous pre-season interest, with record registrations ensuring full grids for all rounds in this coming season, including a shed-load of new faces. Multiple entries from J W Bird and their VW Sciroccos, and the BMWs of Simon Green Motorsport in Class T1 will be up against some specially-constructed BMWs – the Team BRIT M240, and Simon Baker’s 1-series Coupe, built by Woodrow Motorsport, who claim to have a potential class winner.Potential, maybe, though with a number of returnees – the Smith/Campbell Peugeot, the MacG Racing Mazda RX8, Rob Baker’s Smart 4/4, and the infamous “Kester Fiesta”, they will have their work cut out.  Class T2 is no less competitive either; the “two Amigos” Richard Bernard and Anthony Hutchins are joined in the Porsche Boxster brigade by old hands Leigh Smart/Kevin Hancock, while the Ginetta G40 contingent will be led by returnees Peter Spano/Andrew Bentley and Charlotte Birch/Adriano Medeiros, and Saxon Motorsport return with a brace of SEATs, plus the Woodard Mini too. Class T4 features an eclectic mix of Alfa, Honda, Mazda, and the diminutive Ginetta G20, with father and son duo Steve and Edward Cook looking to repeat their 2020 class success in their Civic, against Team BRIT’s Luke Pound and Paralympian Nerys Pearce’s BMW 118, while the standalone Clio class sees multiple support once again from the prolific Westbourne Motors stable, and a concerted effort to succeed from Darren Geeraerts, now under the auspices of Anton Spires.

In the face of COVID adversity, the Britcar championships have never looked healthier as they enter their sixth season under the current management. The opening rounds will be onSilverstone’s International circuit on April 24th/25th.

WORDS: Steve Wood