Pic Post: (vintage) NATCC T.C. Kline BMWs at Cleveland

Stance what? Stance who? It ain't nothing new kids. And as awesome as these BMWs look, for better or for worse, it's cars like this that fed the somewhat questionable huge wheels / tacky spoiler trend of the mid to late 90s. But these insanely low, over-wheeled sedans were proper race cars, and they handled and went like nothing else in a sedan body, to say nothing of the stopping. Several cars ran twin front calipers and discs as big as anything seen in their time. It wasn't exactly a spec series, as there were all sorts of makes, models and drive trains allowed, but there were strict rules to adhere to, and the rear wheel drive BMWs and all wheel drive Audis suffered heavy weight penalties. By the point these pictures were taken (1997) they were pretty handicapped and not all that competitive with their front wheel drive competitors. 



The Super Touring formula which the NATCC adhered to was as follows:

• No more than 2.0 liters displacement - Most brands were said to make 290-320hp, and were seen in 4, 5 and 6-cylinder variations. Most were 4-cylinder.
• 8500rpm maximum
• 19x8" wheels
• Four-door sedans only
• Rear wing and front splitter were the only aerodynamic add-ons allowed
• Engine was to be 'stock block' and had to be sourced from the model line, but didn't have to come in the car being raced. As the Audi A4 BTCC thread over on Club GTI shows - these were some awfully trick 'stock block' engines. 

And so in America, we only saw these cars for two years, 1996 and 1997. As I understand it the cars were not especially cheap to run, with their 6-speed sequential gearboxes and highly-strung engines, but they were a blast to watch. Dodge was the only American company to step up to the plate, and their in-house built Stratuses (Strati?) were some of the strongest in the series.

Somewhere our intrepid slacker Josh has at least another 5-6 rolls of film from this trip we took to Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland for the CART  race, for which the NATCC was a support series. Getting him to develop it or print it will be something else altogether, but maybe if I'm lucky he'll see this post and be guilted into it...right after the 2001 and 2002 Daytona 24 Hour races.

_WRS

Flashback: NATCC - North American Touring Car Championship

I decided to take a trip down memory lane the other day and dusted off some old VCR tapes to see what I had kicking around. I stumbled on the very first North American Touring Car Championship race ever, which took place at Lime Rock Park back in 1996. It's kind of quaint now, but at the time I was so excited about the NATCC. It was a blast to finally have some "real" racing come to the USA.

Looking back on it, it's a little underwhelming. Pretty much all the teams, minus the Pac West / Dodge Stratus team, were bare-bones independent teams. All the cars, minus the Dodges, were imported from various Super Touring championships from around the world. Not a lot of cash, pretty clearly, but to me these cars were amazing. Anyways, I did a little poking around and found some of this on the net. I was surprised actually, as not many people seem to remember the series, but some fairly well known drivers such as Darren Law and Randy Pobst both got their first shot at the big time through this series. Darren in a BMW and Randy in an Accord.

So enjoy the old school-ness. It was pretty cool to look back on these...I wonder where the cars all ended up? Probably hidden in some garages somewhere, 6" of dust on them, most not turning a wheel since the series ended in 1997. I'm not sure where they would be used these days, but it would be cool to see them out and about. Seems a shame. It's also a shame that I had signed posters from most of the drivers from when we went to see the series in Cleveland Ohio, and I'm pretty sure I trashed them a couple years back. Ah well, such is life. At least we have awesome things like youtube so people can post up these treasure trove videos for us to remember.

_WRS