TCR World and life

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STANDINGS SPOTLIGHT
When Darius Jonušis, promoter of the
Baltic Touring Car and Endurance
championships, launched a TCR Baltic
Trophy he knew very well that he was
embarking on a difficult challenge. And
indeed, only a couple of teams have
committed for the series’ maiden
season, which forced Jonušis to
aggregate the TCR and the BTC2 classes
in the same sprint races.
“Traditionally there have always been
many powerful ‘homemade’ race cars in
our region and they do not especially
suit sprint races. Over the last year our
company has worked a lot to promote
endurance races in the region; we have
been successful and now they are
booming in all the Baltic States. At the
same time, sadly, sprint races have been
neglected,” Jonušis explains, although
he is optimistic about the future.
A lady from Lithuania is TCR
ambassador in the Baltic States
Igoris Ivanovas, Kęstutis Vilkas, and
Sigitas Ambrazevičius.
On top of this Ernesta Globytė
is leading the BTC2/TCR class of the
Baltic Touring Car Championship in the
Golf run by the Nero-GSR Racing Team
against an assorted bunch
of big-engined BMW cars.
“I was looking for something
new and TCR drew my attention because
the category is growing fast. I was
invited by Speedfactory Racing to test
an Audi RS3 LMS; it was very unusual
for me, because for ages I had raced
rear-wheel-drive cars. So I made few
spins, but I enjoyed the test and fell in
love with TCR!” says the Lithuanian lady
driver.
This means facing competitors in more
powerful cars. “The TCR cars may not be
the most powerful, but they have other
advantages. If you use them in the
proper way, you are able to overtake
many cars that are expected to be more
competitive, at least on paper.”
What about TCR’s future in the Baltic
States? “TCR is the quickest growing
racing category in the world. I am sure
it has a very bright future and this will
apply to the Baltic States as well.
Perhaps it will take some time, maybe a
few years, but I am pretty sure that in a
couple of years we will have at least
ten/twelve TCR cars, which would be
very good for such a small market as
ours.”
“With TCR developing so fast across the
whole world, the time has come to
make sprint races popular again in the
region. Maybe we will need a few years
to do so, but we are confident that this
was the right time to introduce the TCR
cars in the Baltic States.”
Despite the current lack of cars, TCR is
already having an impact. For the first
time, two cars took part in the ENEOS
1006 KM of Palanga and, despite
lacking power compared to most of the
other 39 cars that took the start, they
proved consistent and reliable.
Eventually, the Nero-GSR Racing Team
Volkswagen Golf GTI driven by Ernesta
Globytė, Dainius Matijošaitis, Nerijus
Malaševicius and Eugenijus Misiūra
finished in a respectable fifth position
overall, behind four GT cars and just
ahead of the the SEAT León shared by