the state of super touring !!

[marcus]

call me slow but I finally have been able to watch rnd 1 of the BTCC for 2000 and recieved quite a shock when i saw how few cars were there...thank goodness they have 3 car teams now or else a 10 car grid would have been there...dont know what the state of play is now but it seems to me that ST is dying an agonising death...the BTCC seems very small but still reasonably competitive..here in OZ we only have one car that has a chance of winning as the rest are very old and nowhere near as good as the winning BMW..germany have opted for the DTM (which seems to be going well so far) but im not sure about any other series....is there still a super touring series anywhere in the world that is booming ???
and why are they booming and the other failing ???

class b seems very slow and again not many cars out there but if everyone was driving them then i guess the series would be a competitive one again.

im just confused by super touring at the moment

[Crash Test]

My gut feeling wrt to the ASTC is that it will continue so long as the competitors racing in it want to keep it alive. Terry Morris et al have a lot invested in it, and they wont just say "oh well that's it". Where would they go next year? They're getting great value for money the way they are atm...just have to wait and see.

Another thing, weren't toca australia going to give big cash bonuses for turning up at their meetings? But on the weekend, a competitor (who i know is struggling for $$$) fronted me and a friend jokingly (i hope) asked for the $8500 entry fee. Whats the deal there? Why would a privateer entry struggling for a buck give toca $8500?? Theyre better off paying $150 and racing it as a sports sedan...theyd still get to race in front of the crowd that gathered...who knows....

[RIKB]

From what I hear the South African Touring car series is a good one, Super Touring is popular in South America too.

The European series (Mostly Italian Series) seems to be thriving quite well, and then there is the Swedish series, again still going strong I understand.

Only here in the UK are we going for a lower power series. It may be the way to go, who knows? But its not filling me with unbridaled enthusiasm.

[kmchow]

AFAIK, no series is thriving that I know of? The closest would be the ESTC.

The STCC and South American series are struggling. The grids have fallen from STCC's nearly 30 cars down to 20.
The South American has seen their grid drop from about 20 to about 12-15.

The French has managed to hang onto to it's teams b/c it
basically banned their teams from doing even guest rounds of the ESTC.

The Russian one is dead. Ditto for the SEATCZC.

The only thriving touring car series besides the DTM is the Argentinian TC2000 maybe?

Seeing the 3 car teams kinda reminds me of the early Class 2 years when there were like 4-6 cars racing? OTOH, Audi had that (6 car teams) as late as '97 or '98?

[elephino]

km, don't forget the V8Supercars are also doing well.