Our first iRacing based British Touring Car Championship is now done and dusted, as the dust settles on it we take a look back over the season to highlight some of the fantastic events of the season.
A little known fact by most in RTA is that our second ever championship was British touring cars, in those days we had around 11 or 12 drivers on the grid and it was an Assetto corsa based championship, TJ Baker went on to win this championship after a dominating performance. Things have escalated a bit in the two years following that first touring car championship, this season we had over 40 registered drivers taking part across the 8 round series, over 3,000 views on the live coverage provided by GSRC and to top it all off, a championship battle that Literally came down to the last round.
The BTCC series kicked into life on the 5th of April this year with a packed grid of Audi’s, Hyundai’s and a single Honda pedaled by the famous Evan Walsh A.K.A “paddock”. Jordan Kelly set out on the right foot from round one, he managed to take not 1 but 2 wins, only to be spoiled by Ronan Doherty who dominated in race 3 stopping Jordan from taking the hattrick. It became clear fairly quick just how well matched the cars were in this series, the work of Peter McCann behind the scenes to help balance out the locked setups had paid off (thanks Peter!) We came out of round 1 with Ronan Doherty and Jordan Kelly tied in first place, this set the tone for the rest of the championship where the points stayed neck and neck between 3 or 4 different drivers including champion Jason Smythe and regular pace setter Wayne Douglas.
We realized fairly quick that the championship was going to be popular, in the coming days after round 1 nearly 2 thousand people tuned in to watch back the coverage of the race’s. This was something we have never seen before. If you haven’t watched it yet, go do it! Its both hilarious and thrilling all at the same time.
Round two continued with more or less the same nail biting drama! Adam Dowling for the first time ever in RTA managed to take a win with a stunning drive. Jordan Kelly once again showed his pace by finishing with another win in race 2 and Jason Smythe made his first appearance in the P1 spot of the season (there would be many more of these to come)
We’re going to skip forward a little now to race 7! If I had the time to talk about each race, I could go on forever about just how good the racing was and trust me, good it was. But I unfortunately don’t, so to round 7 we go!
Coming into round 7, after visiting nearly every track in the UK we still couldn’t so much as hazard a guess as to who would be a favorite to take championship glory, Jason Smythe and Jordan Kelly the previous champions were well and truly in the mix but so was Ronan Doherty a multiple race winner but someone who had never been in contention for the championship before. Along with drivers like Evan Walsh and the ever quick Wayne Douglas who were both still very much in contention. It really was all to play for.
Round 7 ended with just 6 points between Jason and Ronan, the gap was so small that I doubt Tony Stack could have even squeezed his car in there! to top all that off, Jordan Kelly was just behind in 3rd and still very much in contention, Jordan hunting down his 3rd championship title with RTA.
Round 8 took place at the historic Brands Hatch circuit, Only 16 points between the top 3 drivers…. Honestly it was still too close to call, the race admin team looked at every scenario and we still couldn’t decide who had the better chance of coming out on top. It was anyone’s championship to win and Jordan, Jason and Ronan all very much deserved it.
Race 1 started and as the lights went out it was Jason who got the initial jump and managed to keep the other hungry drivers behind. Jordan Kelly, Ronan Doherty and everyone else got caught up racing hard and Jason didn’t need to think twice in putting his head down and building an exceptional gap on the rest of the pack to take the win in true Jason Smythe style, all the time exclaiming his tyres were well and truly F*…… well you can imagine the rest.
In race 2 the tension was well and truly palpable, a rare occasion in RTA, the drivers chat was actually fairly quiet…. a sure sign that everyone was deep in concentration. Jordan Kelly showed his experience and skill in race 2 by going on to take the win, followed behind by championship leader Jason Smythe and fellow championship contender Ronan Doherty in third. For the first time in 8 weeks, we were starting to have an idea of who the champion would be. Race 3 kicked off after a quick break and to quote the GSRC commentary team “This was proper touring car racing” 20 cars, side by side wheel to wheel and bumper to bumper for a full 20 minute race saw Ronan Doherty come out on top with newly crowned Champion Jason Smyth in second and for his first podium in RTA, Team DDR driver and B class champion Sean McClement’s in third. Jan Mild finished 2nd in the B class with Emma Dempsey in 3rd.
After a long but enjoyable 8 weeks, Jason Smyth was our BTCC champion, becoming a double champion in RTA and adding his name to the wall of champions for the second time. Ronan Doherty finished second with Jordan Kelly in third. It was incredible.
This season was something else, I honestly still cant wrap my head around just how good the racing and fun was. We had a big grid of drivers, all of which got along and enjoyed a laugh and fantastic battle every week, we welcomed a number of new drivers to RTA who settled into the community atmosphere of the place very quickly and became part of the RTA family.
We want to thank everyone who raced throughout the BTCC series, each of you made it what it was. I would also like to personally thank the RTA management team, Andrew Murphy, Peter McCann, Sean McClements, Ronan Doherty and Enda Farrell who each worked hard all season to ensure everything ran perfectly.
Onwards now to the 7th of June where we kick off once an entirely new series, the Formula RTA championship.
