Series Director for the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship Alan Gow hailed the successes of the 2013 season at last week’s TOCA Awards ceremony.
The ‘Night of Champions’ saw all the stars of the BTCC and its supporting classes honoured, and was an opportunity to reward all the hard work put in by everyone involved in the series over the course of the year.
Gow said during the awards: “2013 has been an absolutely fantastic year for the BTCC. It was another high-water mark for us and underlined why we are the UK’s biggest, most popular and most successful motor racing championship. Being in such a dominant position for over two decades, it would be pretty easy for us to slip into complacency – but clearly, we don’t do that.”
Even before the 2013 season had begun, key contracts with sponsors – including title sponsor Dunlop – as well as championship broadcaster ITV were secured on multi-year deals, and the whole TOCA team is unanimous in its resolution to continue moving forwards.
Gow continued: “One figure I’m rather proud of is that our championship sponsors and partners have been with us for a combined total of some 33 years, which is an extraordinary amount of time in this sport.
“This championship is on an almighty roll, and those that were in the BTCC in the early nineties often say that it feels like the same inertia now as we had back then. We have our truly superb ITV deal, our great sponsorships, tyre supply and partnership deals and our regulations and teams licensing arrangements all locked-in for another three years. Unlike many other championships, we simply don’t have any clouds on the horizon. Together we are actually making those ‘good old days’ that people in years to come will refer to.
“So to all the team at BARC, my own TOCA team, ITV, Porsche, Ginetta, Ford, Renault, the circuits, the officials, volunteers and the literally millions of supporters that help make this the great championship it is – thank you.”
You can already book your tickets for half of the events in 2014 – and once again the afternoon testing session on Media Day (18 March) will be open to the public to get a first glimpse of the cars and drivers for the coming season which promises to be bigger and better than ever.
