Went up to Knockhill today for the BTCC races. BTCC's not what it used to be and the driving standards aren't great, but it still makes for some good action. Saw plenty of passes and incidents in all of the races today from our viewpoint just on the exit of the hairpin. We also got pelted with gravel thrown up by a spinning Porsche. During the day I went hunting for autographs. I'm not too interested in current BTCC drivers, but my brother queued up to get Matt Neal's. I got Tim Harvey's and Damon Hill's. Damon was there to see his son in the Ginetta Juniors. I'll scan the autographs tomorrow hopefully. I've only got a couple of pics/videos and they're mostly low quality. If I have any reasonable ones I'll upload them too.

So, did anyone else go today or yesterday and if so what did you think?

edit: Attached a pic of Damon Hill watching the Ginetta race.

i watch the btcc all the time and i liked it today i missed race one and a couple support races, you say about driving standards but i always say they seem lower at knockhill because its a track were opotunites must be taken and if an opotunity arises people will go hell for leather to capatalise on it meaning often more acident and door rubing happens. though it does make for some spectacular action

cool you got to go... Knockhill is a fantastic circuit too!!!!

I only really watch it for the support races these days, especially the Ginetta Juniors. I think the BTCC guys really need to take a look at the quality of driving in their support races, and perhaps wonder who looks more professional. BTCC has always been about bumping and bashing, but what annoys me is the drivers who use contact to pass people, and can't seem to pass a car without denting it first (Matt Neal).

Damon's kid is looking like a chip off the old block too, definately has potential.

I didn't see it, but some guy was asking for directions outside my office the other day and he looked a little bit like Damon Hill, does that count?

Damon and Josh nice guys. Damon, and Josh did a freak load of Club100 karting stuff last year. At the beggining of last year he asked me if Lewis Hamilton was any good... I said "eer... yh...!"

Let's just say damon didn't set the world alight with his speed , but Josh showed some good potential. Nice to see him doing well.

Quote from Intrepid :

Damon and Josh nice guys. Damon, and Josh did a freak load of Club100 karting stuff last year. At the beggining of last year he asked me if Lewis Hamilton was any good... I said "eer... yh...!"

Let's just say damon didn't set the world alight with his speed , but Josh showed some good potential. Nice to see him doing well.

That suprises me, Damon held a karting lap record at a circuit I used to live near (untill myself and 3 others beat it in one particularly intense race), but club 100 use under stressed TKM BT82 motors right? Maybe that's just not his thing ?

He wasn't bad at all... just compared to FAST karters. But Damon never did kart racing as a kid, so when people slag his achievements of in F1 it is definitely worth remembering that. But he's certainly made up for his lack of karting after his F1 achievements!

Josh was very good though. i would have liked to have seen him do some proper karting but to be honest Damon has connections in the car racing world and understandably would want to make the most of them. I think Josh had the talent to do well in the karting-single seater route... but he's doing VERY well in the tin-tops so hey

Back to the BTCC

There's aggressive overtaking which is OK in tin tops, BUT then there is spinning people on the straight which is a totally different ball ga,e! I can't believe some of these guys get away with it lol

Quote from Intrepid :

Back to the BTCC

There's aggressive overtaking which is OK in tin tops, BUT then there is spinning people on the straight which is a totally different ball ga,e! I can't believe some of these guys get away with it lol

It's what the series organisers think the lager toting fans want, so thats what we get. Us race fans are stereotyped you know

It is probably true thats what the most of fans want to see. But it's not really setting a good example to young racers that turning someone on the straight and wrecking their car is perfectly acceptable. Yes be aggressive, and don't be scared of a tap, and a rub... but it's just madness in BTCC at the moment!!! lol

hehe Plato sound slightly suspicous about what happened regarding Tom in the media. I think will want to take a look at this -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DONurHh5kCs

HHmm.. hard to tell if it was fully deliberate. Plato was giving him some room on the exit.... Forceful move by Plato...then bam ur going around lol

Ovcourse it was on purpose, he starts on the gravel and after spinning Plato he's in the middle of the track.

That is exactly the kind of shit that I mentioned earlier, luckily it seems the Ginetta Juniors don't idolise the BTCC drivers like the Clio Cup drivers seem to. Watch a Clio Cup race and you will see exactly what I mean, it's basically a demolition derby with expensive hatchbacks, perfect breeding ground for the next generation of BTCC driver.

I think we will see the best guys in Ginetta Juniors go on to bigger and better things than BTCC.

I think the Ginetta drivers would be more than pleased to go the BTCC route. I would think that's many of the drivers goal. WTCC, and GT as well

The reason we don't see so much carnage is probably because they are running on a limited budget. I certainly know of several drivers who haven't got bottomless pits of money. They HAVE money, but a crash isn't what you want to be doing.

If the crash damage in BTCC came out of the drivers wages we wouldn't see so many accidents I can assure you.

There definately needs to be a re-think in BTCC because it's justr carnage and someone is gonna get hurt

The AVERAGE driving standard isnt great in the BTCC, but there are some good drivers up the front,

Tom Onslow-Cole has become more and more of a prick since he joined the works Astras (with the biggest prick of all matt neal)

I now root for Colin Turkington and the Jordans mostly.

lolz, Plato was innocent for once.

Quote from JJ72 :

Tom Onslow-Cole has become more and more of a prick since he joined the works Astras (with the biggest prick of all matt neal)

I now root for Colin Turkington and the Jordans mostly.

Tbh, When Tom Onslow-Cole came in first I expected him to be an absoloute timewaster , but he wasn't too bad in his first season up from Clio's,

Well at least one of the Vauxhall drivers is good, great to have Gio in the championship, he is one of the nicer guys and is a bit of a character too. Loved it when he described himself as a monkey chasing the big yellow banana that is Jason Plato in his Seat.

Just finished watching all the highlights again, and in my opinion Tom Onslow-Cole should have been disqualified from race 3, and so should Turkington. But it's the BTCC, they don't punish people who deliberately run people off the road. I think Plato was spot on when he said Tom is employed to drive like that, his job is to take out the yellow cars and let past the red ones. Great job by Collard and Andrew Jordan in race 3, I wish we had more drivers like Adam Jones though, he seems to stay out of trouble most of the time while still making it a good race.

It's a shame what happened (was done?) to Plato. But I believe that he won't win the championship anyway. Gio is just consistently finishing within the points, which will be good enough to take the title this year. If Seat didn't have all those problems earlier, it would probably look a lot different, but as Plato would say: "It wasn't to be."

Edit: Forgot to say that the driving standars are really quite appaling at times in the BTCC. What's considered a hard but fair move here would be considered dive bombing in most other racing series.

Wow... Reading the comments on YouTube, so many people hate Plato. May I know why? He seems to be a nice guy. (from what I saw on Fifth Gear and Discovery Channel)

Plato is not always the cleanest driver either, so that might be why he is not very popular, but you shouldn't really pay attention to youtube comments since people are always way too harsh.

BTCC driving standards are poor because nobody gets punished, they seem to just allow stupid driving if it's entertaining. If they started to disqualify drivers and ban them from races then they would start taking notice. They actually dished out a punishment to Tom Chilton for having an accident at Oulton Park which was clearly not an overtaking attempt or deliberate. I don't know who makes those decisions, maybe it's lerts.

It's the old "Marmite" conundrum Toki, you either love it or hate it. IMO, Jason has been a target since he started, a bit like Thomo was in BTCC, and that has carried on in JP's case, OK, he has pulled some dodgies in his time but name one topline BTCC driver that hasn't, unfortunately JP's public profile is a bit higher because of all the offtrack stuff he does so he will attract more of both opinions.

Sam

I don't mind Plato myself, because when he is racing against good drivers like Giovanardi he is clean and fair, and he is nice enough off the track to have a laugh about situations. Matt Neal on the other hand is the devil in racing driver form and I heard he drinks liquidized puppies and kittens to get an energy boost before a race.