World Touring Cars

[Invincible]

In 1987 there was a World Touring Car championship that was won by Roberto Ravaglia, now I was born in 87 so I probably didn't know about this so can I have some info on this series please who was in it what car and at which tracks did they race at?

Invincible

[racer69]

The series started at Monza, as the opening 7 rounds of the 11 round series were run in europe, followed by 4 in the Asia-Pacific area. After Monza it went to places like Dijon, Brno, Jarama, Nurburgring and Silverstone. Then it went to Bathurst for the Bathurst 1000, Calder Park in Australia on the combined road circuit/oval (there were 2 rounds in Australia only, why?), then to Wellington in New Zealand, and on to Fuji in Japan.

Many teams and manufacturers chose not to compete, like Tom Walkinshaw, and the japanese manufacturers, because the FIA changed promoters from Strathmore (who had sponsership etc and all the championship all figeured out & ready to go) to Bernie Ecclestone about a month before round 1. Bernie upeed entrie fees, said you could only win prize money and points if you entered each round and paid your registration fees, many teams and m,akes told him to jump, only BMW, Ford, Alfa and Maserati paid up, and Alfa pulled out after the european part of the season and Maserati after Bathurst, plus the Linder BMW team decided to concentrate on the European Touring Car Championship after running a few rounds of the World series.

Round 1 was won by Allan Moffat/John Harvey from Australia in a Holden Commodore, after the BMW M3's, which had finished 1st to 6th, were disqualified for underweight boots. But the Holden hadn't registered, so the team that got the 1st place points were a class C team driving an Alfa 33 in 14th place. The BMW's tended to win in the european season, but when it got to Australia the sierra's dominated, Klaus Ludwig/Klaus Neidzweidz went into the round needing to win and Ravaglia finsh 3rd or worse to win the series, the other Texaco sierra was running 2nd until on the last lap it got a puncture, allowing Ravagla through to second and a series win.

At Bathurst, Steve Soper/Piere Dieudonne had won from Ludwig/Neidzweidz, but were disqualified for illegal wheel arches, allowing Peter Brock in a Commodore to win.

After a season that promised so much, and the racing was great, it was canned by the FIA and Bernie announced a really expensive Sillouette class, which never took off,(never had a race, similar to the new French rules). Most just saw this as Bernie trying to get rid of the privateers, and making it so expensive that the manufacturers would decide to put the money into F1, as it wouldn't be much more.

It was a damn shame.