Be Excellent To Each Other

Incidentally did anyone see the BTCC yesterday too? I only caught the last race, it was excellent though. The last few laps of Plato vs Neal were classic stuff.

No, as my MUX2 is on 68 and <technical stuff I don't understand> so I need to point my aerial at something, or somesuch, and I don't understand.

Bah, don't know if it gets repeated on another channel, it should be on the ITV player thingy though.

Yeah, I only caught the last race as well. Not a great one because of Plato holding everyone up, but that rescue he made has got to be a contender for drive of the season already.

Still brilliant as a sport - where F1 is more hand-wringing about the slightest contact than ever, BTCC has the obvious, celebrated tactic of "sling it up the inside, and if they haven't left enough room, give 'em a good tap out of the way".

I'm not sure he was really holding everyone up, there were undoubtedly some faster cars behind him but there was a fair gap between the cars chasing him and the ones behind them. Also his car seemed to be a fucking missile down the straights. Just learned that he has been awarded first place too after the stewards looked at that shunt on him by the BMW.

Well, you know what I mean.

You're right about it being a bit serious if it gets a run-up - when the guy in third (Civic? BMW? I forgot) got passed on the last corner and he simply outdragged it in the final part of the straight - very impressive. It's fairly useless in corners for now though - he was clearly driving the pants right off it, and still built up a reasonably large queue behind him by the end.

I don't know whether or not I'm happy about that stewarding, yeah the BMW driver was a cock for being way closer than his reactions allowed, but manly contact is kind of the point of it, along with the swearing and occasionally punch-ups that go with that. They're too closely limited in performance, particularly with the ballast, to try and get away from that. Britain's short, narrow, weaving circuits multiply the risk of contact even further. I really don't want to see BTCC crippled by the same post-race politicking that's ruining F1; it'll be even more badly affected.

Yeah, but there's still plenty of argy bargy that rightly doesn't get penalised. I think the stewards just took the view that it was a bit much which isn't really anything new in touring cars and it was a fair shunt, it seemed to lift the back of Plato's car about a foot in the air. Will definitely keep a keener eye on the series this year though, I really enjoyed that race.

Heh

I lost interest in the BTCC when they stopped using big cars like the Lagunas and Vectras. Now they just seem to pootle around in Astras and Ibizas. the DTM and V8 Supercars is where it's at.

Not really, there's mix of larger and smaller cars in there. Vectras, 3 series BMWs, the Chevrolet Lacetti and Seat Toledos as well as the smaller Focus, Seat Leons and Honda Civics.

A Lacetti?

Blimey, they've really upped the ante for Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.

It's a Lacetti that Plato superhumanly managed to rescue from 90 degrees to the track at 80mph after a shunt off a BMW.

Yeah. My definition of "a good tap" doesn't rip off your bumper and risk rolling you, but still.

Er... you do realise the last 2 years have been won by Vectras right?

And I don't know of a single Ibiza ever entered. Rob Collard ran an independant Clio at one point.

BTCC: The Only Thing Vectras Are Good For.

Seconded. I went to Brand's Hatch in 1999 and there were several independents who shouldn't have bothered turning up... why are you racing when you're always three laps behind the next slowest indie? And then Volvo and Audi pulled out, and the cars went down a size... bleh.

I'm not a motor racing fan (quite the opposite in fact) but I found the ITV 4 coverage by accident while flickling through the channels at lunch time and spent the rest of the afternoon switching between this and the footie. To my suprise I really enjoyed it, not only the Touring Cars but also the support races.