FIA World Touring Car Championship

[Nor Cal Mike]

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the FIA World Touring Car Championship series run at Sears Point Sonoma Raceway. This was the first ever stop for the series in the US. I tell you folks, if your ever get a chance to see this series, you ticket money will be well spent. These guys to a lot of fender rubbing hard racing in their turbo charged four cylinder race cars.They're just as adept at trading paint as the Nascar drivers are.


Also on the tour was a junior Formula series. I saw the Indy cars run at Sonoma two years ago and they had nothing over on these cars as far as good, fast racing. We watched a guy do a 360, in traffic right in front of us, between turn 3a and turn 4 and only lost one position.



There also was a spec Masarati Grant Turismo series too with lots of good hard racing. That is Turn 1 at the bottom of the hill and Turn 2, Earnhart corner at the top.

[HomeRacingWorld]

Great shots...lucky dog!!!

[dreinecke]

That's awesome! In the early 1980's when I lived in Germany, I would go to events at Hockenhiem regularly. One of my favorite races were the Renault R5 Turbos - the sounds of those things were like really ticked off bees!

[ElSecundo]

I saw some of the race on TV. It's a series I try to tune into -- always great racing action!

How were the ticket prices?

[Nor Cal Mike]

They were $45 each for the works including pit passes or $35 without for the Sunday main event. During the final week before the race they came up with a two-for-one deal to draw more people. They said that there was about 20,000 people there but I am dubious. They also said that there were more than was expected and that they had already confirmed another race for next year. I think that this race is kind of an outreach by FIA to draw more American interest so making money isn't necessarily the prime motive here.

These cars have factory support and the drivers drive them like they have lots of parts in the trailer because they were banging and bumping like there was no tomorrow. Sonoma is a great spectators track in that you can see a lot of the track from several seating areas.

[ElSecundo]

Thanks Mike, that really sounds like a deal. I know these are fun races to watch on TV, up close has to be really good.

I'm wondering if the FIA has reached the conclusion that they need more low level road racing series in the US, so they can build support for their bigger series and F1.