TBK-Light.com

This weekend the British Touring Car Championship reaches its half-way stage as it races up the country to North Yorkshire and the Croft circuit rounds 13, 14 and 15 of the 2009 series:



Colin Turkington was the driver to catch at Oulton Park two weeks ago. He won the first two races of the day to take the championship lead, only for a non-points finish in race 3 to give the lead back to the ever consistent Matt Neal. James Thompson won that final race and will be hoping to continue his good form in home territory. Another driver to watch out for could be Rob Collard who put in the drive of the season so far in race 3 in Cheshire, coming from 20th on the grid to finish 4th:

1.  Matt Neal            111  
2.  Colin Turkington     109
3.  Fabrizio Giovanardi   92
4.  Jason Plato           87
5.  Rob Collard           78
6.  James Thompson        74
7.  Adam Jones            51
8.  Andrew Jordan         47
9.  Mat Jackson           41
10. Jonathan Adam         41
11. Stephen Jelley        35
12. Harry Vaulkhard       18
13. Paul O'Neill          12
14. Gordon Shedden        11
15. Dan Eaves             10
16. Tom Chilton            2
17. Martyn Bell            2
18. David Pinkney          2
19. Alan Morrison          2
20. James Nash             0
21. John George            0
22. Martin Johnson         0
23. Liam McMillan          0
24. Nick Leason            0

Sunday timetable
12.00 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
12.40 Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain
13.15 Ginetta G50 Cup
13.50 Michelin Formula Renault UK Championship
14.35 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
15.15 Elf Renault Clio Cup with Michelin
15.55 Ginetta Junior Championship
16.25 Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain
17.15 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
17.55 Ginetta G50 Cup

TV coverage
ITV4 @ 1145-1800, Sunday 14 June (Live BTCC & Supports)
ITV1 @ 1250-0205, Tuesday 16 June (BTCC highlights)
ITV4 @ 1530-1700, Tuesday 16 June (BTCC highlights)

Further highlight repeats on Men & Motors. Check schedules for these.

Weather forecast
Saturday: Cloudy, Temperature 17°C, chance of rain 20%
Sunday: Rain, Temperature 16°C, chance of rain 60%
http://uk.weather.com

Please....not...TWO...Porsche....races...

In a year where pretty much every racing series is letting us down, action wise (bar the BTCC itself that is...), the Porsches have been the worst of the worst of the worst, either in F1 supporting form where there's about 3 of them on the grid, or in Carrera Cup form where you have backmarkers so inept they knock leaders out of the race.

Do NOT subject us to TWO races please ITV. I don't care if your poster boy Harvey has it in his contract....PLEEEASSE NO
I'll go watch Formula Renault (another boring series!) around Hungary (!!!!!!) rather than watch them if you do*
*Unless it's wet of course

Right, that's my customary Porsche rant out of the way....now onto Croft.

Now Mondello is gone probably my least liked of the BTCC tracks, but it (or rather the BTCC) still puts on good races I guess.
It just needs more corners like the fast backsection/sunnyin/out stuff rather than the slow end/start to the lap with a final hairpin that just invites accidents.
You'll see it at least a couple of times over the weekend, car ahead takes racing line so wide it tempts the car behind to dive up the inside when in reality they're too far back, collision, near flip, angry drivers, safety car.
Mark these words

Still, Might watch it on Time Delay after Le Mans finishes, the Beauty of Sky+ I guess...

If Collard drives like he did at Oulton in Race 3, he may rack up some points this weekend.

What is Jason Hughes reason for being out this time? j/k

He's protesting against the BNP representing the region.

I think our standards have been set too high after dega

Enjoy the Porsches.

Looking forward to this one, although I wont be able to watch it, as I will be at the British GT's at Knockhill. Thank God for Sky plus.

Yes, because the ability to record things off your TV has only been around since Sky came up with the idea a few years ago.

I'm probably going to go to see the Scottish Cricket team in Dunfermline.

I agree about the Porsches but I have enjoyed the Formula Renault this year. Only Brands Hatch was a little dull. Besides, the grid is sooo large you are almost grantee action at least somewhere down the field.

Actually when I mentioned Formula Renault there I meant the 3.0 series that would be racing on Eurosport at the same time..

THIS is why it was a bad idea to change the name from the Dallara Nissan World Series!

UK Formula Renault 2.0 (or whatever!) hasn't been so bad, true. Not as bad as the camerawork missing all the shunts, anyway...

Anyone know how bad the weather is forecast to be? Really don't need a repeat of last year.

Updated forecasts:

uk.weather.com still predicting a 60% chance of rain on Sunday but indicate it might not come until the afternoon and won't be as heavy as first though.
BBC Weather predicting rain on Sunday, but only light rain, with the heavy stuff not coming until Monday.
Yahoo Weather predicting light rain in the afternoon/evening on Sunday.

So it seems the consensus is for light rain on Sunday afternoon/evening.

Good news, light rain often spices up some of the duller supports.

In case anyone's interested, ITV4 will have live Le Mans 24 at 10.30am before the BTCC coverage start, and will also go over to Le Mans at 13.30 till 14.10 for the finish.

Will be interesting to see how they handle the 2nd Le Mans section, think they'll be padding for a while after the Porsches finish. Pity we'll probably miss the G50s and FRenault unless there's any disruption to the race day schedule.

im going on sunday

bad news is i miss the end of le mans

Croft is one of the best tracks for BTCC I think - one of my favourite weekends of the year

Liam McMillan, Nick Leason and Jason Hughes will not be competing this weekend.

So Liam still hasn't been given his engines back?

He's got them back, but they're in bits and he hasn't had time to rebuild them.

I'm going on sat/sun. Where will everyone going be sitting roughly? (In case someone actually wants to meet me )

Oh no, please don't be like last year! *Shudders* Thank god for those large plastic cattle feed bags that were in the car for some reason, we didn't get as wet as we should have! I might take a few this year, should be able to make a tidy profit from selling 'em.

Can't wait! Croft is a good track, mabye not as good as some, but I've been there for the BTCC for the past 5/6 years, had the luck to drive round it in a race-spec mini thing and I love the place!

Yeaa, I just saw that in Autosport. It's sad that Oreca had to wreck his season because of a dispute between Oreca and BTC.