Autosport - 5 March 2015 | Page 103

P AT H T O T H E B T C C WorldMags.net ven during its difficult mid-noughties struggles, the British Touring Car Championship retained its appeal for drivers. It’s always been competitive at the sharp end and offers a marketing platform like few others in motorsport circles, and certainly stands on its own in Britain in car-racing terms. Whether you’re looking to showcase yourself as a driver or promote a business, the BTCC has always been an attractive option. Series director Alan Gow says the BTCC has the ability to make stars, not just attract them. Colin Turkington, Jason Plato, Matt Neal, Gordon Shedden, Andrew Jordan and others have the following they have because the BTCC introduced them to a wider audience and their talents did the rest. In special cases, racing in the championship can be an end in itself, although for the time being at least the BTCC will not reach the same heights as it did in the 1990s, because manufacturers are no longer pouring money into it as they once did. But the budgets are, to a point, reasonable to compete in the BTCC, and the quality of driver not just winning races but fighting for podiums is now at a higher level than it has been since 2000. Triple world champion Andy Priaulx is back, after all, and that’s a handy calibre of opposition for an aspiring racing professional to prove themselves against. This, combined with the reverential status it enjoys with fans of national racing, is why more and more series are pushing to establish a link with it, to try to create a so called pathway to the BTCC. So how do you get there? To use the five of the drivers named above as examples – via Renault Spiders (Plato), Ford Fiestas (Turkington), the National Saloon Car Cup (Neal), the SEAT Cupra Cup (Shedden) and the Renault Clio Cup UK (Jordan). So there is no obvious, definitive answer. But the British Automobile Racing Club is hoping that will change, and the last of those five examples has gone some way to helping that. In recent years the Clio Cup has developed into a real feeder series E JSCC champion Dorlin is moving up into Clios this season WorldMags.net MARCH 5 2015 AUTOSPORT.COM 103 103 BTCC? The BARC wants the Junior Saloon Car Championship to grow into something that develops touring car stars. SCOTT MITCHELL and RUSSELL HAYES ask how