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The British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organized and administered by ToCA. It was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and was renamed as the British Touring Car Championship in 1987.〔(BTCC History 1958-1990 ) Retrieved from www.btcc.net on 13 August 2012〕 The championship has been run to various national and international regulations over the years including FIA Group 2, FIA Group 5, FIA Group 1, FIA Group A, FIA Super Touring and FIA Super 2000. A lower-key Group N series for production cars ran from 2000 until 2003. The championship was initially run with a mix of classes, divided according to engine capacity, racing simultaneously. This often meant that a driver who chose the right class could win the overall championship without any chance of overall race wins, thereby devaluing the title for the spectators – for example, in the 1980s Chris Hodgetts won two overall titles in a small Toyota Corolla prepared by Hughes Of Beaconsfield, at that time a Mercedes-Benz/Toyota main dealer when most of the race wins were going to much larger cars; and while the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500s were playing at the front of the field, Frank Sytner took a title in a Class B BMW M3 and John Cleland's first title was won in a small Class C Vauxhall Astra. After the domination (and expense) of the Ford Sierra Cosworth in the late 1980s, the BTCC was the first to introduce a 2.0 L formula, in 1990, which later became the template for the Supertouring class that exploded throughout Europe. The BTCC continued to race with Supertouring until 2000 and for 2001 adopted its own BTC Touring rules. However, the Super 2000 rules were observed for the overall championship from the 2007 season. The 2000s saw cheaper cars than the later Supertouring era, with fewer factory teams and fewer international drivers. In 2009, the BTCC released details of its Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC) specification, to be introduced from 2011. The introduction of these new technical regulations were designed to dramatically reduce the design, build and running costs of the cars and engines as well as reducing the potential for significant performance disparities between cars. The NGTC specification also aimed to cut costs by reducing reliance on WTCC/S2000 equipment, due to increasing costs/complexity and concerns as to its future sustainability and direction. ==Type of cars== Currently, the cars used are a mix of 2.0 L saloons (sedans) such as the BMW 320si E90 and Chevrolet Cruze and hatchback cars such as the Honda Civic and Ford Focus, based on models from a variety of manufacturers, using NGTC regulations. The S2000 cars were used in the Jack Sears Trophy until the 2014 season. The series launched its own BTC Touring specification for 2001, a year before the WTCC began in its current form, however car counts were low. Super 2000 cars were allowed to enter from 2004 to encourage cars to be built for both championships, and became the only cars eligible to win the main title – although several independent teams still run BTC Touring-spec cars. BTCC teams are a mixture of "works" teams from manufacturers (currently Honda and MG) and independent teams such as Team RAC, 888, and Motorbase. However, in 2010 there were two new works teams, following Vauxhall's decision to pull out of the series: Chevrolet, run by RML; and Honda, run by Team Dynamics.〔(A BTCC.NET Article. )〕 In 2005, Team Dynamics became the first independent outfit to win the BTCC drivers and team championships; Matt Neal won the overall and independent drivers contests in his Team Dynamics Honda Integra. This included finishing all 30 championship races that year, something no other driver has achieved before or since. This ended Vauxhall's run of 4 victories in the drivers and teams championships between 2001 and 2004. Neal and Dynamics were also victorious in 2006, before Vauxhall won the 2007 title with Italian Fabrizio Giovanardi. Team Dynamics also achieved the first overall independents race win in the 'Supertouring' era when Neal won a round of the 1999 BTCC at Donington park, earning the team prize-money of £250,000. As a result of Matt Neal's championship victories, and the fact that Team Dynamics were designing and building their own S2000 Honda Civic Type R(with unofficial support from Honda), they were no longer entered into the Independents category, and were classed as neither an "independent" or "works" team until the 2009 season, when the Manufactures championship was renamed Manufactures/Constructors Championship to allow both Team Aon and Team Dynamics to compete with the now sole works entry of Vauxhall. There are strict limits to the modifications which can be made to the cars, which are intended to reduce the cost of running a competitive team, which had become prohibitive in the final years of the Super Touring rules. These cost reductions have seen a rise in independent entries – teams or individuals entering cars purchased from the manufacturer teams when they update their chassis. These so-called "ex-works" cars have enjoyed some success. To further keep costs in check, the BTCC uses a "control tyre", with Dunlop the current supplier of rubber to all the teams. The rules allow for a variety of different fuels in a bid to encourage more efficient cars. In 2004 Mardi Gras Motorsport independently entered a Liquified petroleum gas powered Super 2000 Honda Civic Type-R (which was subsequently replaced by a more competitive BTC-Touring Peugeot 406 Coupé, still LPG powered), and in 2005 Tech-Speed Motorsport converted an ex-works Vauxhall Astra Coupé to run on bio-ethanol fuel. In the middle of 2006, Kartworld's owner-driver Jason Hughes converted his 4-cylinder MG ZS to run on Bio-Ethanol, soon followed by the West Surrey Racing cars of championship contender Colin Turkington and Rob Collard, and for the final event at Silverstone, Richard Marsh converted his Peugeot 307 to run on bio-ethanol fuel. Only Hughes continued on this fuel in 2007 and 2008. The regulations also permitted cars to run on diesel; attempted first in the 2007 season by Rick Kerry in a BMW 120d E87 run by Team AFM Racing. In 2008 SEAT Sport UK entered two Turbo Diesel Power SEAT Leons – the first diesel powered manufacturer entered cars. At the start of the 2010 season, it was announced that Team AON racing had converted both of their Ford Focus ST cars to run on LPG. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「British Touring Car Championship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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