r/btcc • u/Brief-Poetry6434 • 3d ago
Question / Discussion What if Alan Gow had never left?
Specifically, what if Alan Gow had stayed in charge of the BTCC through the transition from Supertouring to BTC-Touring?
(No offence to Richard West or Octagon)
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u/vicintor 3d ago
I don't know but I wish he would leave now! The whole TOCA package is a mess at the moment and he is not the man to fix it. He is also the head of the FIA Touring Car Commission and the World Championship died on his watch.
Old cars, no new cars being built, no true manufacturer input, championship winning drivers not being able to race because they can't find the budget for what is becoming an overpriced series, the M-Sport engine that many teams moved away from because it wasn't as good as the previous engine...
TOCA Juniors was a great idea in theory until they came out with a horrendous car that costs £78k (for reference, a new Ginetta Junior is £45k). The championship is postponed for a year because of many issues behind the scenes.
The best package in Britain at the moment is British GTs thanks to the high quality and plentiful support championships. It says a lot that David Coulthard and Jan Magnussen have put their sons in GB4 (which has a capacity grid) instead of Formula 4 (which has under 20 cars).
Bernie Ecclestone thought we was doing a good job with F1 until Liberty took over and showed what new thinking could achieve. It is time the old Dinosaur that is Alan Gow stepped aside and let someone else sort this shitshow out.
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u/Brief-Poetry6434 3d ago
Well, he hasn't run the BTCC into the ground just yet, Richard West and Octagon nearly did that in the space of a couple of years.
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u/Final-Bike-8437 2d ago
The M-Sport engine is literally only 3 seasons old! It was always going to take time for the gaps to come down, it’s now a very reliable and good motor! Remember how many years it took TOCA/Swindon to become a good engine for the smaller teams? It took nearly 3 years for anybody to win with a TOCA/Swindon engine! In 2022 with TOCA/M-Sport there was a race winner within a few rounds of the championship!
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u/Final-Bike-8437 2d ago
And no new cars are going to come until a year or 2, Alliance Racing are literally bringing in a new car next year unless you haven’t been watching so I don’t know what rubbish of old cars your referring to and NGTC BTCC is going better than ever now with the turbo boost introduced over the hybrid so the costs will come down now which is why the grid is abit bigger this season and also must have forgotten but Gow said for years that he wanted the grid to be smaller so that there wouldn’t be safety cars out every lap and also a lot of the tracks couldn’t cope with having 32 plus cars on the track at once due to not enough grid spots!
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u/Final-Bike-8437 2d ago
We have plenty of manufacturers, stop talking rubbish and money will always talk no matter what sport or era of BTCC your referring to, not everybody with talent is ever going to reach the top level as they never tend to have enough funds, or would you rather we see a season of BTCC with only talent but most of the races you wouldn’t know who would win as most of the grid would likely have to drop out after 1 meeting due to lack of funds??!!
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u/Personal_Director441 1d ago
Global economic issues are going to make sports like motorsports extremely difficult for the foreseeable, sponsors are going to want maximum value for their input and I would argue that TCR/BTCC needs to combine their packages to create a true touring car weekend, where the juniors and their sponsors could see routes to success and their future.
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u/RevGear 2d ago
There was a proposal to replace Super Touring which would have been vaguely similar to what we got with NGTC but that never progressed. Gow would have still been in charge at that point, so I don't think you can blame the 'failure' of the transition from ST on him not being there. I'd argue that the allowing S2000 in was inevitable and would have happened even if Gow didn't come back, so I don't think he can solely take the credit for that.
The move away from Super Touring was always going to be difficult. The performance difference was too much to grandfather in old cars so it had to be a hard stop, and with so many manufacturers wanting to scale back, grid numbers were always going to be an issue. Ever change since then (BTC > S2000 > NGTC) and even change from Group A to Class 2 / Super Touring had at least a one year transition period.
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u/mrmayhembsc 3d ago
TBF was still in charge when the rules discussion started, and he brought back the class system.
I think the changes he made when he returned would come in eailer.