WHY THE WORLD TOURING CAR FALSE START RUINED THE POTENTIAL
It was all going to be A Great Thing. A World Touring Car Championship that would showcase the best European touring car racers plus the Australian scene on some fabulous circuits.
In contrast, the single long-distance World Touring Car Championship season in 1987 was blighted by acrimony and wrangling.
Rewind to 1981 and the struggling European Touring Car Championship.
Manufacturers were scarce, privateers were the backbone and the series was being read the last rites in certain quarters of the media.
For 1982, the touring car scene welcomed GroupA, which straight away brought the cars closer to production specification and were adopted by a number of nations including the UK, which allowed national racers to drop into their home round of the ETCC.
Grids were massive, so much so the at the Donington 500, a 90-minute non-qualifiers race had to be run the day before the championship race for example.
As GroupAboomed,Australia’s touring car scene made its way on to global television and theAussies announced that from 1985 it, too, would run to Group A. That allowed the
