I had two parcels arrive yesterday. They both contained a video, one from 1988 and one from 1989, of the British Touring Car Championship.
Six hours of motor sport… and I greedily watched the whole bally lot in one sitting… and then ordered the 1990 season.!
Dear me… it was some of the best racing I have ever seen. No wings. No electronics. Gated gearbox layouts. Four classes of car from the top (500bhp Ford RS Sierra Cosworths), down through the 2.3litre BMWs to the little 1600cc Ford Escort and Golf classes. Nowadays the bland downforced obsessed world has ruined touring car (thanks to the bloody Italians who introduced wings back in 1994). Yes it is still close, exciting and lots of people destroy their cars on a regular basis, but for sheer pleasure at watching a group of men wringing the neck of a 155mph family saloon along the back straight at Snetterton, or winding the thing into the complex at Thruxton, then the turbo Cossie era takes it by a long, long way.
Watching as the power goes down through those two huge rear tyres and the car squirms along the tarmac, drifting into the corners and sliding under braking, it is pure, manly pleasure with a capital EEEEOOOOWWW.
And the best way to complete a video like that… commentary by Murray Walker in all his over-excited and “getting it a bit wrong” best.
Fan-bloody-tastic.