TTA reportedly turns down opportunity to buy rival STCC

The Touring Car Teams Association (TTA) championship, the breakaway series from the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, has reportedly turned down an offer to buy the STCC and will continue as planned with its new title and format.

The TTA, a championship which has been formed by the teams which have left the STCC, including Polestar, Flash Engineering, Brovallen Design and WestCoast Racing, announced its intentions to go their own way last August after disputing the future direction of the championship.

This was primarily focused on, but not limited to, the technical regulations with which to adopt; with the STCC opting to follow the UK’s lead with its Next Generation Touring Car specification. TTA on the other hand preferred a rear-wheel drive, V6 Silhouette as used in the FFSA Championnat de France de Supertourisme up until its cancellation in 2006, the current Belgian Sprint Championship and in the World Series by Renault Mégane Eurocup.

One of the final negotiations before the split was investigation of an option for the TTA to purchase the STCC, but that option was turned down by Rickard Pålsson, owner of STCC AB at the time.

Christian Dahl, Managing Director of Polestar Racing and a representative of TTA, has said that the STCC has recently offered itself for sale to the TTA, but they’ve decided to reject their offer.

“We got an offer a few weeks ago to buy STCC AB and we have carefully considered this,” said Dahl. “As we analysed the offer, we have established that the question marks are too many in order to complete the deal.”

“It has been said that there is a ‘war’ in the Swedish racing community, that is not the case. We are just two different ideologies with different views on what is good for the future of Swedish racing. We are making the choice to continue on our path which is based on more fun, excitement and better sporting values without a merger with STCC,” added Dahl.