MOTORSPORT: Second coming for 2.0-litre tourers

A new, official move is afoot for 2.0-litre touring car racing in Australia.

The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) has signed a five-year agreement with WSC Ltd, the company behind an international category called TCR - an acronym for Touring Car Racing. CAMS is now seeking expressions of interest from entities interested in managing the category commercially in Australia.

Applications for those expressions of interest close on Friday, March 16, and CAMS says discussions will be held with interested parties over the following three weeks.

A private attempt to introduce TCR in Australia a couple of years back ran into a dead end, with those behind that effort claiming to have been blocked by CAMS.

Australia had a 2.0-litre touring car series in the 1990s, called Super Tourers, which was based on the success of another format overseas, especially in Britain - where expatriate Australian Alan Gow has long been its driving force. Gow was instrumental in the creation of Super Tourers in Australia and more recently has been chairman of the Motor Sport Association in Britain and president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Touring Car Commission.

In the days of Australia's 2.0-litre series the champions included Tony Longhurst and Paul Morris in BMWs and Brad Jones in an Audi. There were even a couple of Bathurst 1000s for the Super Tourers in 1997 and '98, separate from the V8 Supercars, during a famous 'great divide' in Australian motorsport.

One-time BMW Australia chief Ron Meatchem was a key player in Super Tourers and had boldly predicted that the category would become bigger than the Olympic Games. However, Australian fans showed a strong preference for V8 Holdens and Fords and, with few more watching the Super Tourers than had seen the Tasmanian Tiger, the category folded.

WSC chief executive Marcello Lotti says that TCR is "a different concept" to the kind of 2.0-litre racing that Gow has been involved in.

"The British Touring Car Championship is another level," said Lotti - 'another' meaning higher.

TCR is cheaper and not for factory teams, but with manufacturers allowed to give technical support in running front-wheel-drive, production-based cars with turbocharged engines of up to 2.0 litres and with maximum torque of 420Nm and about 350 horsepower.

The World Touring Car Championship, which never had the standing in fans' eyes of some national touring car championships, especially, the BTCC, is now running to TCR regulations and is being called the World Touring Car Cup, while touring car series in many other countries are running to the same rules.

And CAMS says TCR is "ready to land Down Under" - and it expects it to begin next year.

"TCR is an exciting, international category, featuring a wide range of world-renowned vehicles, many of which would be a daily drive for motor sport fans," CAMS said in an announcement this week.

"Iconic brands such as Alfa Romeo, Audi, Fiat, Hyundai, Honda, Kia, Mercedes, Subaru and Volkswagen race in TCR series around the globe."

CAMS chief executive Eugene Arocca said the agreement with WSC was "an exciting development for Australian motor sport".

"TCR Australia will provide the opportunity for affordable, competitive action in cars that are direct derivatives of popular road-going cars," Arocca said.

"We are looking forward to working with manufacturers and competitors to ensure the success of this category.

"The worldwide interest in TCR has been very encouraging and we anticipate that the competitive Australian car-buying market will see a number of manufacturers support the category."

WSC's Lotti expressed delight at the agreement too, saying it "adds a fourth continent to those - Europe, Asia and the Americas - where TCR series have already been established".

"This is also a great challenge, because motor sport is hugely popular in Australia and the local fans are enthusiastic and competent," Lotti said.

"We are confident that they will soon learn to love TCR just as has happened with their fellow fans across the rest of the world."

Time will tell whether Aussie petrol heads are more receptive to 2.0-litre tourers this time around.

There are manufacturers interested in seeing their brands in motor sport, provided it is with their own product - not with a generic chassis as in Supercars or NASCAR.

But is this a move by CAMS to follow an FIA global agenda, similar to what it has done with Formula 4 without ever having a grid of more than 13 cars when it imported 20 for the purpose?

Maybe rallycross, for which the FIA also has a fondness, would be a better way to go in catering for smaller-capacity, front-wheel-drive cars in the sport.

The quick-fire race format of rallycross on tarmac and dirt has proven popular in Europe and North America, but an ambitious attempt to get a series going in Oz a couple of years ago - without CAMS' backing or manufacturer support - flopped, although a lower-budget series will hold its second season this year.

The next few weeks should provide some indication of what appetite there is for TCR in Australia - in the first instance through who throws a hat in the ring to manage such a category commercially.