The Return of Touring Car Racing
I miss hosting Touring Car racing. We held races at our track for almost 9 years and had as many as 6 touring classes. On-road racing was so popular that at one point we didn’t carry many off-road vehicles. Now, we rarely see anyone asking for a serious touring car. For the first couple of years we would see Dodg e Vipers, Corvettes, AMG MB’s, Porsche’s, Saleen Mustangs, Lotus Elises, Lamborhini and just about every muscle or exotic car that you could think of. All kinds of rims were used and a lot of racers tried to make their cars look somewhat scale. Then along came the Dodge Stratus body and aerodish rims and finally foams. It was great for the racing purist, but it took a lot of the fun out of racing for the spectator and the car enthusiast/casual racer. Once the Stratus became the body of choice, we saw our other body sales slump. We also saw a decline in rc’ers coming in and buying a couple of cans of paint and maybe a paint mask. It is apparent that the popularity of touring cars has waned over the last 4 years. There are fewer cars to choose from, and the big racing manufacturers like Team Associated, HPI and Team Losi don’t seem to be spending much time on the touring segment.
For the longest time HPI was our primary supplier of touring cars and 95% of the bodies, rims and tires that we sold. I’m sure this was the same in a lot of hobby shops with tracks. Now we sell very little HPI (comparitively speaking).
Not surprisingly HPI has taken notice of this. HPI is promoting a new class of racing called RCGT. The intent is to return to the original concept of touring car racing. The basic idea is that you can use any 1/10 4wd touring car chassis. But you have to use a touring car body similar to what would be used in full scale racing. You cannot use a Stratus body, Mazda Speed etc.. In my opinion that is refreshing – 10 cars all running at the same time with different bodies. Sure beats 10 mulitcolored scalloped or dripping Stratus’. Two other requirements is that you have to use spoked wheels and X-pattern rubber tires. Which in most cases alleviates the need for the most expensive engine and pipe. Most sport engines will reach the limits of rubber tires with ease. We sure would like to see the popularity of this class of racing grow. How about you?
Bill
Hobby Central
