JACKSON HEADS BOTH PRE-SEASON TESTS
Mat Jackson, winner of last year’s final round, carried his fine form over into 2008 by topping both pre-season tests – first at Rockingham and then, five days later, at Brands Hatch. The 26-year-old, this year racing under the new BMW Dealer Team UK banner in deference to new sponsor Accident Exchange, headed rival RAC BMW 320si driver Colin Turkington at Rockingham while reigning champion Fabrizio Giovanardi got closest to him at Brands in his Vauxhall Vectra VXR. Notably, the leading drivers at Brands were all inside last year’s pole position time and Jackson became the first driver (albeit unofficially) to finally dip beneath the BTCC’s longest-standing lap record – Yvan Muller’s pole time from April 2001.
ITV LINE-UP CONFIRMED
Ted Kravitz and Janie Omorogbe will front ITV4’s live Sunday afternoon coverage of the BTCC in 2008, with Ben Edwards and Tim Harvey continuing as race commentators. Kravitz, though, will miss Brands’ seasonopener on 30 March and be replaced by famed anchorman Steve Rider who played a key role in the BTCC’s rise to fame in the Nineties when the series’ began attracting regular terrestrial TV coverage. For Omorogbe, this will be her first taste of the BTCC but she is already a familiar face on TV – last year she co-hosted ITV’s British Superbikes coverage and in the 1990s was also known as Rio on hit show Gladiators. She also played a role in the 1999 blockbuster movie Gladiator in which she is sliced in half in Rome’s Colosseum!
TV TIMES REMINDER
ITV4 will be live on air for five hours from Brands Hatch during BTCC race day on Sunday 30 March. Its coverage is scheduled to run from 12.30pm-5.30pm. Furthermore, the programme will be live-streamed simultaneously on the ITV.com website. Hour-long highlights will appear on the Monday night (31 March) on ITV4 a 6pm followed at 00.50am-1.45am on ITV1. ITV4 and Men&Motors will then repeat those highlights in the following week (check listings for details).
ALL SMOKE & MIRRORS
Last year’s top ten BTCC drivers will appear in a new opening title sequence to ITV’s coverage of the championship. All attended a recent day-long private photo-shoot at ITV’s London studios that also included their cars and the coveted MSA BTCC Champion’s trophy. Has Fabrizio Giovanardi ever looked quite so
sinister
JACK ‘N’ TOMMY: RILEYS AT DUSK
Forget pistols at dawn; it was a case of Rileys at dusk that settled the outcome of the first BTCC title at Brands Hatch in 1958 after rivals Jack Sears and Tommy Sopwith had tied on points. And last week the pair were reunited back at Brands with a couple of 1.5 Rileys to re-enact the moment for features in Auto Express, the
Daily Telegraph’s Saturday motoring supplement, Motorsport and ITV as well as regional television and print media. Also in attendance was Kent resident Mike Swallow – a member of the crowd that day on 5 October 1958. Mr Swallow, who will be at Brands’ forthcoming BTCC season-opener, told BTCC Newsletter: “Jack Sears and Tommy Sopwith were household names then, just as Plato and Neal are now, and there was a lot of excitement in the crowd. Of course the times from the two races they did were added together to decide who’d won but there wasn’t all the sophisticated timing in those days. There was a bit of a delay before Sears was confirmed as the winner. It was pouring with rain and both drivers had given their all and justifiably received a lot of cheers and applause.”
MASSIVE MEDIA DAY TURN-OUT
Rockingham has confirmed that some 1500 fans attended last week’s Media Day event (Weds. 12 March) – the traditional launch to the forthcoming BTCC season. Media attendance was just over 120 (not including the 20 who were present the day before – see story one page 2 of this newsletter). Also present were 30 primary pupils from the nearby village of Gretton – the first school to visit the BTCC’s paddock in 2008 as part of the championship’s on-going schools programme. Dunlop, title sponsor HiQ, Robertshaw Racing, Arkas Racing with Sunshine.co.uk and John Guest Racing all welcomed the youngsters – for one in particular there was great excitement when she met her favourite driver Mike Jordan and was then permitted to sit in Andrew Jordan’s Honda Integra… with the engine running.
FOOTBALL STARS BEHIND NEW TEAM
Former England football stars Luther Blissett, John Barnes and Les Ferdinand, plus respected motoring journalist Kevin Haggarthy, are behind new BTCC squad Team 48 Motorsport, which has entered with a pair of Alfa Romeo 156s for newcomers Matthew Gore and Darelle Wilson. The outfit aims to promote and enhance multi-racial participation in motor sport and its title is not without foundation – relating to 1948 when the ship SS Empire Windrush carried the first significant group of Caribbean migrants to the UK. Hence, Wilson will race with number 19 and Gore, from Jamaica, with number 48.
SEAT DIESEL RACKS UP THE MILES
SEAT Sport UK drivers Jason Plato and Darren Turner have given their diesel-powered SEAT Leon TDIs the thumbs up after completing some 320 miles of uninterrupted miles in testing at Brands Hatch earlier this week. Turner ended the unofficial test ninth fastest and Plato tenth. The manufacturer’s latest 270PS motor is being installed in both cars ahead of Brands’ season-opener. The two drivers have each revealed they’ve had to change their driving styles to get the best out of the new technology as the (turbocharged) diesel engine operates on a much lower rev-band. Turner added: “The car is also very quiet; we’ve had to move the rev lights on the dashboard so we can see when to change up because you can’t hear the engine – and that for me is very unusual. The extra weight of the TDI engine on the front axle has changed the dynamics of the chassis and the weight distribution; the way in which you introduce the power and braking is all different to the petrol-engined Leon.” Notably, SEAT has effectively dominated the last two season’s
opening rounds on Brands’ tight Indy circuit when its Leons ran with petrol engines.
MOTORBASE OPTS FOR SEQUENTIAL
Motorbase has opted to use a six-speed sequential gearshift system in its new BMW 320sis – despite it carrying an additional 30kg penalty for rear-wheel-driven cars. Meanwhile, Team RAC has joined BMW Dealer Team UK in fitting its BMWs with five-speed H-shift ‘boxes. Motorbase team principal David Bartrum told BTCC.net: “We’ll wait and see if it’s the correct decision. I’ll be all smiles if we get a win o course but it’ll be a nervous smile waiting to see if (series director) Alan Gow thinkswe need reigning in with a bit more ballast...” Team RAC boss Dick Bennetts said: “We had a lot to learn in 2007, going from right-hand-drive, front-wheel-driven MGs to left-hand-drive, rear-wheel driven BMWs. However, we now have increased backing from our new technical partner Ceravision and we’re also into our second season with the BMW – to be competitive outright we felt we had no option to go the five-speed route.”
TEAMS ANNOUNCE NEW PARTNERSHIPS
World-famous hotel chain Holiday Inn’s name will appear on SEAT Sport UK’s Leon TDIs in 2008’s BTCC – hence the new splash of vivid green on both previously all-yellow cars. Meanwhile, automotive finance and home loans specialist GMAC has been named as reigning champion VX Racing’s primary sponsor for 2008. Leading global hand tools brand GearWrench has also become the chief backer of privateer Lexus outfit BTC Racing. As well, fellow independent squad Jacksons MSport has been renamed BMW Dealer Team UK, having secured a major sponsorship agreement with Accident Exchange which provides accident management and vehicle replacement services to over two thirds of the German make’s UK dealer network.
MEDIA PARTNERSHIP IN FULL SWING
Auto Express’s support of the BTCC as one of its media partners is already go! A unique look-down on each the calendar’s 2008’s circuits – as seen through Google Earth – has this week (edition 19 March) been followed by a feature on Jack Sears’ and Tommy Sopwith’s re-enactment of their famous 1958 title shoot-out in Rileys at Brands Hatch (see story earlier in this item). Next week’s Auto Express will preview the 2008 season with a look at all the runners and riders. The magazine remains the UK’s number one motoring read with more than 80,000 sales a week and a readership of some 340,000. Full-page colour advertisements for the season ahead as well as ticket competitions have also appeared in its pages and online on its website www.autoexpress.co.uk.
SUN SMILES ON PLATO
Jason Plato has become a columnist for Britain’s best-selling newspaper The Sun’s website whose logos now appear on his SEAT Leon. Plato will be writing regular updates on his BTCC adventures for the site which recently announced its partnership with the 2001 champion:
www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/motorsport/article919467.ece.
JONES WAITING FOR LEON
Adam Jones’ Team Air Cool squad is expected to take delivery of its new for 2008 SEAT Leon just days before Brands Hatch’s opening rounds. Jones plans to contest all 30 BTCC rounds in 2008 following his highly-impressive part-season in an older SEAT Toledo last year which netted a best outright result of second. It is likely Jones’ first taste of the car will come during the season’s opening practice session on the Saturday morning. Preparing and running his Leon will be experienced crew GR Asia.
IT’S A WRAP
Last Tuesday at Rockingham – the day before Media Day – saw some of the BTCC’s most iconic cars from the past five decades converge at the Northants track for a hectic day of media work, chiefly forthcoming features in a variety of publications, namely Auto Express, Evo, Octane, CAR, Autosport and Motorsport News. Notably, Vauxhall’s reigning champion Fabrizio Giovanardi met first-ever title-winner Jack Sears and got in a few laps behind the wheel of his original 1958 Austin Westminster for Auto Express. All three VXR drivers – Giovanardi, Matt Neal and Tom Onslow-Cole – also sampled a 1970s Vauxhall Magnum, while Jason Plato was give a 3.4 Jaguar (similar to that which dominated the BTCC’s early years in the hands of greats such as Tommy Sopwith and Mike Hawthorn) to track-test for Autosport. Similarly, Mike Jordan was all smiles after driving the original 1968 title-winning/ex-Frank Gardner Ford Escort for MN. The BTCC’s most successful driver of all time Andy Rouse was reunited with an original (Labatts/ex-Tim Harvey) Ford Sierra RS500 – the car that made him a household name in the late Eighties – for Evo. Other cars present included: 1964 Lotus Cortina; 1968 and 1973 Chevrolet Camaros; 1978 original Richard Longman titlewinning Mini 1275GT; 1996 original Frank Biela title-winning Audi A4 quattro
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