THE BEST TOURING CAR RACE OF ALL TIME? When Nigel Mansell Raced in the BTCC (1998) 

I met him at the London Classic Car show in 2017 - a really lovely guy.

Read his autobiography. It is the best sporting autobiography I have read. The struggles and sacrifice's he and his wife made only add to a magnificent tale.

@@michaellavery4899 I have read it - wholeheartedly agree.

@@TC10193 Pleased you have read it and agree 👍.

He'll want to win at EVERYTHING. That's why he's a world champion.

Muller would find his peak when it became the Vauxhall show at the turn of the century.

Toca and that Top Gear piece have skewed just how violent the super touring era Wasn’t.

BTCC is partly responsible for my undying love of motorsport, I think i fall into the category of racing enthusiast millennial

1998 was peak BTCC, and Toca 2 was peak PS1 racing games

TBH as an Aussie my knowledge of TOCA and the BTCC was a TOCA touring car game that I only played because it had Bathurst (was the first game to ever feature it I think as the V8 Supercar games weren't a thing yet) and that video of John Cleland going for first...

Yep, I remember him on TOCA 2

Must have been mega! Amazing those guys were monsters.

It must have gained sentience

original footage

don't forget Juha Kankunnen

@@Ramtamtama "Black round Pirellis"

I was -10 or so at the time so shock horror i didn't see them live but that crash and Kelvin Burt's at Oulton Park make me whince everytime i see them.

Chris Rea was in that race too and we had his fan club of middle aged mums standing behind us. Every time he passed us they’d scream his name like teenage kids…!

Was your boss Derek Warwick or John Cleland? 😊

Tiff does youtube these days on @lovecarsTV

@@ForburyLion I know ... I watch that... But there has been less content recently

A1GP just didn't capture the imagination did it

@@kevinprior3549 I think everyone was more interested in the financial chaos than the racing. I was expecing high-speed sporting thrills, what I got was a slow-motion sporting trainwreck.

I loved watching those races they were brilliant. I loved how every year they had euro guys drive surfers paradise. Annoys me how they changed the rules on the co-drivers killed one of my fav weekends of the year.

Yes, the Super Touring race was the official ARDC (Australian Racing Driver's Club) Bathurst 1000 after a spat between V8 Supercars and the ARDC over television broadcast rights. ARDC had a deal with Channel Seven, V8 Supercars had a deal with Channel Ten. V8 Supercars, or the "Australian Vee Eight Supercar COmpany" aka AVESCO, was a newly formed company in 1997 -- held 50% by a media company, and 50% by the ATCC team owners association (TEGA, as opposed to the UK's TOCA!). When the 5000cc Group 3A (V8 Supercar) rules were drawn up for the ATCC in 1992, they were **supposed** have only about 400-450hp and do about the same lap times as 2000cc cars as raced in the UK, so that you'd have 2L and 5L cars racing door handle to door handle (much like the E30 M3s against the Group A Commodores) -- this went horribly wrong of course as far too many freedoms were given to the 5000cc class, and the ATCC hence became a closed shop for Falcon and Commodore. Therefore the 2000cc class entrants, like the BMW team, formed a new series from 1994 called the Australian Super Touring Series (the BMW team did stick with the 2.5L E30 M3 EVO for the 1993 ATCC season, but the M3s weren't very competitive anymore -- in the end, the BMW team raced both Commodores in the ATCC and BMWs in the ASTC). This Australian Super Touring Championship is the one that gladly stepped in to race at the ARDC Bathurst 1000km when V8 Supercars (or the ATCC) choose to abandon the event. With some international entrants from the BTCC as well, of course. Stubbornly, the V8 Supercar category simply organised **another** 1000km race at Bathurst within a few weeks of the official ARDC race (the unofficial Bathurst 1000km is the one that continues to this day, with the ARDC race being dead), and unfortunately most of the fans simply turned up for the unofficial V8 Supercar race instead. You can visibily see that the crowds were quite slim at the super touring Bathurst 1000 races unfortunately. A lack of attendance is a problem that still afflicts the Bathurst 12 hour or Bathurst Easter race meeting to this day. Despite the world coming down for the 12 hour (as they did for the Super Touring 1000km), it doesn't seem to interest fans as much as the V8 Supercar race. 🤨

Cox and Watson > Murray.

@Aidan Millward yeah i would have to agree they did a great job. So many funny 1 liners

I completely agree with you on all those assessments. Alonso thinks he still has unfinished business in F1 so maybe not yet but Riccardo and Vettel would be great to see in touring cars next year. Kimi too.

Danny Ric has said a few times he's keen to have a drive in something at Bathurst, if that counts. Now he's out of a full time F1 gig it might actually happen, who knows. I think he'd be more likely to get a drive in a GT car at the 12 Hour than in a Supercar at the 1000, either would be fine with me! 🙂

He’s waving his finger to say I’m number 1.

It just means that lap doesn't count for the fastest lap of the race, which is worth points in the championship. No points for a deleted lap time.

I mean… there was a bloke in the mid 30s who had one that was rather recognisable. Charlie Chaplin.

Well, thank you because when I first heard about this race I looked it up and only found your upload

@@aojracing4885 btw the night race from the following season is there too

TOCA, under their legal name BARC

No disrespect to Lewis but I doubt he is enough of an animal for touring cars.

@@philiptownsend4026 Still it'd be fun to watch

Win Percy and John Cleland? Would they count? I don't think either of them ran a full season in Supercars but they certainly stepped in as co-drivers for Sandown and Bathurst and went pretty well.

As well as Paul Radisich (who drove regularly for Dick Johnson Racing since 1999, having co-drove at Bathurst for them since nearly 10 years earlier), Craig Baird also made the transition from the BTCC (one year later in 2000 when Baird drove the Pirtek Falcon for the season, the entry which was later made famous by Marcos Ambrose who replaced Baird from 2001). I think that's it in terms of drivers from the BTCC who went on to race in the ATCC full time unless I'm mistaken. (Matt Neal, Jason Plato and Rickard Rydell all co-drive at Bathurst however.) "I'm trying to come up with a list of drivers who went from Super Touring to Aussie V8s as it was then." A lot of drivers made the move locally from the Australian Super Touring Series to Aussie V8s after (or rather as!) the ASTC collapsed in the year 2000. There was Brad Jones (who brought his Brad Jones Racing team over), Paul Morris (who brought his NEMO Racing team over, which incidentally was the remants of the original Frank Gardner BMW team) as well as Cameron McLean. By '99, the Super Touring class was dwindling in Australia (like elsewhere) and both Jones and Morris entered the ATCC with a V8 car in 2000.

David and Geoff Brabham both raced for BMW at Bathurst in 1997, as well as numerous V8 touring car teams as a co-driver. David Brabham also substituted at Ford Performance Racing for one or two rounds as a solo driver.