Today I am going to talk about TCR cars, a topic that has gotten a lot of attention recently. I first heard about it when I saw the news that Australia is preparing to welcome TCR next year. I didn’t know what it was, so I did some digging.
First, I wanted to understand what TCR is. It turns out that TCR stands for “Touring Car Racing.” This immediately gave me a basic idea – it’s about racing with touring cars.
Then I tried to figure out what kind of cars are used in TCR. It’s said that TCR features production saloons, which means these are cars you can actually buy, not those specially built racing cars. They use 1.75 to 2-liter turbocharged engines. This sounds pretty powerful to me.
I also learned that TCR started in 2014. It’s a global thing, sort of like GT3. That means there are many different championships around the world, like in America and Europe. It seemed pretty big deal.
Next, I looked into how popular TCR is. Wow, there are nearly 700 drivers from about 60 different countries driving TCR cars. And, it’s mentioned that more than 20 racing series emerged for TCR models. This means there are many opportunities to watch these races.
I was curious about the cost. It’s mentioned that the costs are less than 130. I guess this is why it’s called a cost-effective platform. It’s more accessible, which is good for both drivers and car makers.
Then I found out something interesting about the cars themselves. They use a custom BoP (Balance of Performance) to make them practically identically fast. For example, I read that a Porsche GT4 is faster on the straights, has rear-wheel drive, and uses hard compound tires. On the other hand, a Cupra is faster in the corners, has front-wheel drive, and uses soft compound tires that warm up quickly but also degrade faster. This means that even though the cars are different, they’re still pretty evenly matched.
Finally, I learned a bit about how these cars were controlled in the past. It seems that only one or two cars could be controlled at the same time, and it was done using a trigger controller with a toggle switch. When the switch was up, the car would move to the outermost lane, and when it was down, it would move to the inner lane.
So, that’s my journey of learning about TCR cars. It started with a simple news article and ended up with me understanding a whole new world of racing. It’s really interesting how these production-based touring cars are used in a global racing series, with a focus on keeping costs down and the competition close.
