(Super) road saloons - where are they now?

[R59]

Originally Posted by big andy

the Toyo's - which will join with Classic Thunder in 2007 is this correct

Confusion - it reins!

History lesson part deux....

BRSCC Super Road Saloons, became the Toyo Tyres Super Road Saloon series in 1990. The series evolved through 1991 with the inclusion of Limited Slip Diffs in the rules when it was deemed that it was difficult to tell if a car had a Torque Biasing Diff in it (ie: it passed the one wheel in the air test), without going to invasive strip-downs/sealing.
Then in 1992, the MoT regulations were tightened which meant that cars that met the SRS regulations could fail a MoT on the new tighter emissions regulations. Therefore, the car had to be capable of passing a MOT test, with the exception of the emission tests.
As I understand it, our "sister series" Slick50 Road Saloons still had to pass the MoT, and drive to/from the race meeting.

In 1994-5 the series was doing very well. With full grids of Class C cars, and full grids of A, B & D. By now the Toyo prize money was gone - a change of MD who wasn't into cars (how strange!), took the sponsorship money to his local cricket team (allegedly). Things were rosy.

I think it was 1996 or 7 when there were grumblings about the rules needing to be brought up-to-date to allow things that were common on production build cars, I can't remember the exact bits in need, but the upshot was a change to the engine classes, and a rule which would have ruled out many of the series stalwarts through the age of their cars. (They were thinking about the Castle Combe Series which had a 3 years out of production rule, and was full to the brim).

That killed it.

I can feel sour about that because I developed an engine which could give be a chance at being on-par with the 1800cc Fiesta's which dominated the series (Watson, Pearson, Robey, etc..) I ran it at three meetings, throwing it on pole at Lydden by a country mile, only to suffer a stupid fault which at a circuit with a pit-lane would have been fixed quickly (rear exhaust mounting rubber came off!). My 1763cc Nova was on the pace (when I managed to get the headgasket to seal - it was a prototype!). The capacity limits changed, with the idea of having up to 1600, 1600 to 2000, and 2000 an up (I think that's what it was).

They lost all of the Mk2/Mk1 Escorts, Sunbeams, and the Mk1 Fiesta's from Class C, just about everyone from Class B, and most of Class A.

They created a "interim" class for the old Class C 1800's for 1998.

In 1999 it because the "Ripspeed Super Road Saloons" and continued to die.
I remember seeing reports with 6th: Joe Blogs.. no other finishers.... on more than one occaision.

Denis - would you like to continue.

Whether a "traditional" Road Saloons series would work is difficult to say, like Tim said, Track Days are so much easier than getting messed up with ARDS, MSA rules & regs, etc...

I do feel that the ethos behind Slick50 Road Saloons, and Super Road Saloons pre-rule "improvements" was right, and if left alone, could still be healthy today.

Rob.