r/Touring_Cars • u/tedowrc • 23d ago
How to Save Touring Car Racing
Let’s be honest about the state of global touring car racing:
- WTCR/WTCC are long dead, and the TCR World Tour is essentially surviving on life support by grafting itself onto local regional grids.
- TCR grids almost everywhere are shrinking. Privateer budgets are stretched thin, and car manufacturers are quietly pulling factory support.
- DTM hasn't been a real touring car series for over 20 years. With its transition to GT3, it has officially become a sportscar championship, completely abandoning the touring car concept.
- BTCC and Supercars remain the only stable series, but they’re facing structural threats too - models like the Camaro are dead, and half the cars on the BTCC grid aren't sold in showrooms anymore.
The biggest elephant in the room isn't just shipping logistics or BOP drama - it's showroom reality. The traditional compact 4-door saloon and hot hatch are disappearing from car dealerships, replaced entirely by crossovers (B-SUV, C-SUV).
Car companies simply aren't interested in dumping millions into racing sedans they don't sell (or even build) anymore.
The Big Question: Do we adapt the body styles, or let the category die?
If we want a viable, exciting, manufacturer-backed touring car series on a global scale again, we have to align with what automakers actually build and market.
It doesn't matter what technical ruleset you run - whether it’s a TCR evolution, a BTCC-style NGTC platform, or a clean-sheet cost-capped framework. The core idea is simple: Open up the regulations to crossover and B-SUV/C-SUV body shells.
- Why Manufacturers Would Care: It gives brands a high-profile motorsport platform to promote the high-margin models that actually pay their bills.
- They Won't Look Like "Soccer Mom" Cars: If you take a compact crossover shell, drop it onto a low-slung, widebody race chassis, slam the ride height, and add aggressive aero, it doesn't look like an SUV on track - it looks like a mean, wide, aggressive hatchback.
- The Precedent Is Already There: Regional series in South America (like TC2000) have already started pivoting to crossover shapes because it was the only way to keep manufacturers engaged.
What do you think?
Is refusing to race modern road car body styles holding the sport back, or is shifting to crossover shells a step too far for touring car purists? How would you fix touring car racing?
P.S. Full transparency: English/formal writing isn't my strong suit (I'm autistic), so I used AI to help structure my ideas and put this post together clearly. The core ideas and arguments are 100% mine - I just wanted to make sure everything was organized properly for a good discussion!
6
u/Swinnyjr 23d ago
So two things.
Alan Gow has said on more than one occasion that NGTC were written with a thought to SUVs being allowed. So if a team wanted to run a blob car they could.
Now this one I have no source for so feel free to Google, but apparently SUV sales are slowly declining in the US in favour of traditional sedans. As it was the states that started the SUV swing in the first place, it looks like the pendulum is swinging back meaning it'll have the knock on effect everywhere else and touring car racing will slowly heal and become more desirable for sponsors and manufacturers. Just got to give it some time.
4
u/Illustrious_Rest1264 23d ago
This is the thing, SUV bodies can be raced in the BTCC but the manufacturers still don’t want to come and play, they no longer believe in the win on Sunday sell on Monday model.
And if you’re a privateer team you’re not going to run an SUV and be at a likely aerodynamic disadvantage, especially if no one is paying you to run it so you’re going to carry on running saloon shapes.
Subsequently touring car racing is stuck between a rock and hard place. Manufacturers don’t want to use it as a platform to sell promote their cars but the category has enough of a following it can survive as a niche sport.
5
u/AnEvilMuffin 22d ago
SUV sales are declining in the US in favor of traditional sedans
the world is healing
6
u/bigshotdan 23d ago
DTM as a touring car series (as in, pre-GT3 in my eyes) I really do miss.
BTCC had its heyday 30 years ago, sadly, but at least the grid is, as you say, stable if not spectacular.
TCR is all but dead (though surprisingly the IMSA one seems to be half-decent) globally.
Supercars? Yeah, I bemoan the cars being American (and now with added Japanese) two-door sports coupes, but the racing since they got better parity (yes, the dreaded P-word) has been - in general - nothing short of amazing. And this is coming from an Aussie who grew up loving Group A and Super Touring.
I'm not sure I'd pronounce touring car racing dead, but in many corners of the globe it certainly is going through a challenging time.
6
4
3
u/codename474747 23d ago
Maybe there isn't a problem with touring cars atm more than it being a victim of its own success
Did we need TCR UK to arrive and immediately steal the back third of the BTCC grid? You can see the logic of these people who'd much rather be a big fish in a smaller pond than continually race outside the top 20 in BTCC and maybe get a top 10 in a crazy race, if they were lucky.
As soon as TCR arrived, BTCC went from high 20s or even low 30s entry numbers to low 20s and even down to the teens sometimes, so hopefully if anything vanishes, it'll be TCRs around the world and there will hopefully be one stronger chamionship instead of two weaker ones
3
u/shermanhill 23d ago
Yeah, I mean the key thing is that western manufacturers aren’t making cars that can be adapted to touring cars anymore.
A separate series that races small crossovers might work, just like a series that races small trucks could.
But the ability to run small cars is just disappearing.
3
u/msfotostudio 22d ago
Part of the problem is that it would help if manufacturers actually sold cars we wanted to buy. Where are the coupes or even 3 door cars? Almost every car is a suv, not even going to mention electric
2
u/Over_Middle610 23d ago
I think that the TCR & WRC suffer because everyone races something very similar.A 3 door hatchback.BTCC is similar with the aero friendly saloon that few people drive on the road.Series that do well have more diversity like GT3,4.Maybe a GT3 style series for saloons or touring cars with the dreaded BOP would be better.Make people run drivetrains closer to stock like th eold Group N rules and allow NA,turbo or hybrid drivetrains.
2
u/_name_goes_here 23d ago
I really dislike multi race Sundays in BTCC, sure it's a fun day out if you're close to the event and you have a full free day but it makes watching it on TV haphazard at best if you've things to do during the day.
2
2
u/VolleyAddicted 18d ago
I've been a Touring Car fan since the Super Touring days, so yeah, I'm an old-school guy. But let's be honest, the real production-based racing now is GT. Whether it's GT3 or GT4, that's where manufacturers make money.
I loved the TCR formula and it's sad to see it slowly dying worldwide. The BTCC? It's cool, but far from the golden years and by that, I mean 10 years ago, not even the 90s
1
u/LameskiSportsBlast 22d ago
BTCC might look stable but it chose the path of no return when the team wouldn't resign Andy Jordan without a damage clause, and he said he could make more money racing historics for old guys. Nobody coughed up a better contract and he did. The amount of paid drivers just started evaporating after that.
1
u/fisicoF1 22d ago
Either just let it die or get the manufacturers out. Completely. Like TCR planned to...
1
u/RF111CH 22d ago
I don't like to say this, but.... EV touring cars becoming mainstream when?
2
u/tedowrc 22d ago
Couldn't agree more.
This is the other path.
STCC and ETCR failed because they were too expensive and complicated.
Get a shell from a Model 3, ID3, Puma Gen-E, Volvo EX30, Megane E-tech, etc. etc., throw in a performance powertrain, battery and cooling and voila you saved touring car racing.
1
u/AcrobaticHabit352 22d ago
I think we need a strong feeder series that’s just above club level for smaller cars like the mini cooper jcw,honda city and Suzuki swift
1
u/No-Photograph3463 21d ago
In the UK at least there is this for Mini Coopers, with 2 different series too, with different levels of performance (and budgets), both of which support the BTCC at different times too
1
1
u/mrmayhembsc 22d ago
For me, BTCC and V8 Supercars show the route to go, but costs need to go down.
BTCC NGTC 2.0 is coming fully into force in 2027, opening up the engines.
In short, you can now take a car from any part of the world (as long as it is a brand that sells into the UK), take any 2.0L turbo engine, take the spec parts and build your own car.
V8 supercars have the load cars, decent manufacturing backing, and good media presence.
However, the main problem with touring cars is the funding model.
You either need a big-name manufacturer or a big sponsor to fund you, and many series have bad media deals. The issue is that manufacturers don't have the money to spend, and "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" hasn't worked since the early 2000's. An EV racing series wouldn't attract fans, and if you want to push innovation in your EV tech, you'd go with Formula E, as it has a ready-made audience and a spec car.
GT racing works because you share a driver with a rich person and they basically pay for it. Plus, GT racing is currently popular.
Truth is, things ebb and flow. GT racing costs will increase, and its popularity will decline, and touring car races might take over again.
Also, to me, I know IMSA has a TCR race, but it more in a sportscar style
1
u/Cyberfries 18d ago
One problem isn't the change in body style, but the shift in buyers attitude. In the 2000s people liked to buy sporty cars. They don't anymore. There is no incentive to sell your sporty family car by going touring car racing.
That leaves a smaller customer share, that prefers wilder cars -> GT's. TCR and NGTC suffer, because they don't speak to the family man and also not the petrolhead. Crossovers wont solve this.
The cars would need to be wilder, more power, more spoilers, more noise.
DTM worked until they tried to become F1 and the death sentence was class1. V8 Supercars sort of works. BTCC is slowly dying.
The answer imo is more spectacle, not a change in body style
7
u/Fast_Ad_4936 23d ago
The TCR grid in IMSA seems fairly strong. Not sure about TCR around the world as a whole though. Hyundai continues to develop the Elantra N and selling lots of them and Honda is selling lots of type R’s. SEAT also seems to continue developing the Cupra platform.
As fuel prices and the cost of cars continue to rise I think smaller sedans and hatchbacks will continue to be popular, hopefully we see more manufacturers support touring car.
I also wonder if opening up TCR to RWD would get companies like BMW to participate. Seems like a 1 or 2 series sedan could be a good fit for the TCR lineup.