Following the postponement of the first five events of the 2020 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship and during these extremely difficult times, the BTCC Media Team has been working in overdrive to create extensive and innovative content to provide entertainment for our fans during these challenging times, with one of those ideas accumulating in the first-ever ‘Race Day with a Difference’, on Sunday 29 March.
In a move which saw impressively high levels of engagement from fans on all official BTCC social channels, the BTCC Media Team worked with ITV to allow fans to vote for their favourite from a shortlist of BTCC races at Donington Park over the previous decade – the circuit where the championship was due to kick off its 2020 campaign – before streaming the three races with the most votes on what would have been the first race day of the year.
Alongside this, the BTCC Media Team reported on these classic encounters ‘as live’, whilst also interacting with drivers’ and teams’ own social media posts – having arranged for reigning champion Colin Turkington, former champions Jason Plato and Gordon Shedden and fans’ favourite Tom Ingram to all take part – giving fans access to previously unheard insights and perspectives from everyone involved.
“We are delighted to have put this feature together and even happier with how the activity was received,” said BTCC Media Manager, Simon Melluish. “The current circumstances create the opportunity for some real ‘out of the box’ thinking for everyone, and the team’s proactive and reactive ideas – alongside the hard work of everyone involved – is definitely reaping rewards.
“The official BTCC social media accounts saw over 1.7m impressions throughout the day, with some areas of analysis showing higher figures than that of the actual race day of Donington Park in 2019, so naturally we’re really happy with the success of the new feature.
“To see the fans and drivers interacting was fantastic and we’ve received some lovely messages from people saying that we were able to brighten up their day. We are all in the difficult period together and the message remains hugely vital at this time – save lives by staying at home – and we hope we can play a small part in making that process slightly more enjoyable for everyone.”
Last weekend marked the first of the ‘Race Day with a Difference’ series, as the championship will use the feature during each of the previously scheduled dates, ensuring fans are able to get their BTCC fix during this unfortunately extended period of time without any live racing.
The next shortlist of races for the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit will be unveiled next week and fans will get their chance to vote for their favourite – keep your eyes peeled at btcc.net for all the latest news and information.
