Alan Gow expects gradual changeover
In some very key years in Touring Car racing, where almost every championship is looking at changing it’s technical regulations, Alan Gow told us more about how the rules would be introduced.
In 2011, a new set of technical regulations will be introduced in the BTCC. The most basic element is the new turbo charged 2.0 litre engine, which can be built to specification by teams & manufacturers, or bought from series supplier Swindon Engines, being trialled in 2010 by Pinkney Motorsport & Pirtek Racing.
Along with the engine, in 2011 more pre-specified parts pacakage will form part of what will be the new NGTC car, with GPR Motorsport developing the subframe/suspension assemblies, an Xtrac 6 Speed Sequential shift gearbox, AP Racing clutch & brakes and also an electronics suite provided by Cosworth – for those choosing to develop a car built to these rules – at an estimated entire cost of £125,000.
TouringCarTimes caught up with Series Director Alan Gow at Rockingham to briefly chat about the new NGTC regulations, and what it means for the BTCC.
TcT: Do you have any idea how many teams are looking to switch to the new NGTC regulations next year?
“You’ll see a gradual changeover in the next couple of years, I don’t expect a rush of teams to go and build new cars or whatever, it’s really as a replacement for what they’ve got – so when the current teams current machinery starts to run out of life if you like, I’m sure you’ll find they’ll start building some new ones.”
TcT: Obviously at the moment, the S2000 cars compared to the NGTC engined cars are a lot stronger
“Yeah, and we’ve said all the way along, they’re going to be competitive for the next two years.”
“There’s going to be performance parity between the new cars and the current cars – so there’s no need for a team to rush and build a new car because it’s not going to be any more competitive – it’s only if they want to save themselves a lot of money and because their current cars are out of life”.
TcT: The new rules have been brought in specifically for the BTCC, whereas the World Touring Cars are going for something with the 1.6 engines, obviously other series are suffering a lot – the Danish series has merged with Sweden, and German series has only a handful of cars in the main division, are you working with those series at all?
“Yes, we’re in constant dialogue with the Swedish, or Scandinavian championship as they call it now, and they’re obviously looking at what they’re going to do with their regulations going forward too.”
The concept drawing of a NGTC spec car
TcT: Are any other series an influence for these rules, the V8 Supercar Series run to an equalisation programme between the Ford’s and Holden’s, and the Argentine series with a spec engine as well?
“No, they’re all different in the way they do it, we didn’t look at other series as a template, we just started with a clean sheet – and all the teams got involved in it and we got it going.”
TcT: We have our first LPG car on pole here today…
“It’s Terrific”
TcT: …some teams and drivers are of the opinion that LPG wasn’t allowed or at least shouldn’t be is there any plan to re-evaluate that next year?
“No – we’ve had LPG allowed in our championship for five years, in fact their was one running five years ago – people forget that.”
“If someone comes to us with a concept, bio-fuels or whatever, we’ll look at it, we always have done.”
