Transforming a Road Car into a Touring Car – The Technology Behind it
It’s one of the fastest racing sports in Britain and one that certainly catches the imagination of many due to the transformations the cars undertake to compete. We’re talking about the British Touring Car Championship (better known as BTCC), which is currently halfway through its 2019 season and has already seen a variety of different winners and a few crashes.
It’s the first year that Kwik Fit has been announced as the title sponsor for the sport, and to celebrate this they have been getting hands-on in the garages, talking to the drivers and reporting back on each race.
As part of this, they have been informing those who are new to the sport about the differences between a touring car and a road car, which really interested us when it comes to what technology is included in transforming the cars ready for racing.
Obviously, the cars need to be as light as possible for the racecourse, so when it comes to the Toyota Corolla for example, they drop it from 1735 kg to 1280 kg, which also increases its speed to 150 mph, which is definitely a speed you can’t reach on the normal roads.
But what technology do they include to get it to this speed? Well, all the mod cons you are used to inside the interiors are completely stripped out, even the air conditioning, so it’s sort of technology like radio, touch screens, and phone chargers.
Where it lacks technology on the inside, it makes up for under the bonnet. The engine in itself is a bespoke setup specifically for BTCC racing. The Toyota Corolla in the #KwikFitBTCC campaign includes a 360+ BHP engine which is designed to be used in a completely different way providing comfort and safety to the driver.
That’s not where it ends though, it’s also fitted with an Xtrac 6-speed sequential-shift gearbox with a pull-back and push-forward to be as quick as possible, meaning there’s no need for the clutch.
Due to the high speeds drivers are going, the brakes need to be top of the range too, therefore Toyota has used AP Racing specified brakes for the championship car, which come with high friction brake pads and ventilated disc brakes. The cars are also fitted with specified rim stock center-lock wheels based completely on performance.
Sounds good to you? You can still check out plenty of races this 2019 season, with tickets usually around £30 and races are all over the UK.
