TCR World and life

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STANDINGS GUEST COLUMNIST
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There's a new excitement about Touring Car
racing across Europe thanks to the TCR
Series, which has been missing for
quite a few years since the
rather rapid and recent
decline of the national
touring car
championships.
While a few national
series, such as the
British Touring Car
Championship survive in
isolation, others have
staved off death through
excessive cost-cutting, such
as the Scandinavian
championship, as others have
devolved into anonymous club-level series,
or just simply disappeared entirely.
In just two short years, the TCR formula has
reignited that middle tier between amateur
and professional racing.
While the TCR International Series functions as
a grand showcase, taking some of the world's
best touring car drivers and teams across the
world to demonstrate the product, it's the
national and regional classes which are
actually the most exciting prospect for TCR.
The ADAC TCR Germany series shows just what
can be done to build a competitive and
exciting 20-car national championship from
scratch, and that's in a country that had no
real gap to fill anyway, with the DTM as its top
tier manufacturer-backed series, and with
competitive GT championships and a second
tier touring car series in the Deutscher
Tourenwagen Cup already in existence.
TCR Benelux fills the void which was formed
when the Belgian Touring Car Series imploded
just five years ago, and suddenly out of
nowhere the world is exposed to a number of
fast up-and-coming Belgian and Dutch drivers,
ready to move up into the International Series
and beyond with the right support.
While the WTCC has started looking to single-
seaters and to the ultra-competitive
Argentinian touring car driver market for its
next generation of competitors, TCR is helping
Europe and Asia get its house in order, and
soon it won't be long before the best tin-top
talent can be found without having to look
too far after all.
Neil Hudson
Managing editor of
Neil Hudson has established himself as one of
the most qualified journalists in Touring Car
racing. Besides being managing editor of
he also writes for
and covers a whole array of
touring car classes, from smaller national series
to the world's largest, such as the DTM, the
BTCC, STCC, WTCC and the V8 Supercars
Championship.
Neil has a passion for touring car racing as one
of the most entertaining and enthralling classes
of motorsport, and one that best connects the
fans and the manufacturers with the cars and
models that can be both raced and driven on
the road.
TCR brought
a new excitement to
Touring Car racing