History

The British Touring Car Championship was established 50 years ago and in that time has grown into this country's biggest motor racing show, with massive audience appeal.

From the start, in 1958, it was a huge success with the public, who would pack into Britain's racing venues to watch drivers compete in racing versions of their road cars at simply unbelievable speeds.

Traditional, great British names of the times, such as Jaguar, Austin, Ford, Mini, Lotus, Sunbeam, Hillman and Triumph, were all winners in the first 20 years, each aware of the importance of using the BTCC to showcase their latest models.

By the Eighties, the BTCC was moving with the times and beginning to attract a truly international flavour. Mazda, Toyota and Alfa Romeo were the first three winners of the decade as the championship continued to be run for different sized classes of cars, but the mighty Ford Sierra RS500 and BMW M3 are probably the two most evocative models of the period.

It was in the Nineties, however, that the BTCC boomed. The championship was already beginning to grow in stature with regular television coverage on the BBC's flagship sports show Grandstand on Saturday afternoons.

When the decision was taken to make the BTCC exclusively for two-litre cars, it instantly created closer racing and attracted a host of high-profile manufacturers and teams to the series. Combined with enhanced television coverage and marketing genius, this made the BTCC essential viewing for millions throughout the UK - and many millions more worldwide.

Witty one-liners, tears and laughter, dirty moves, crashes, controversy, drama, heroes and villains - the BTCC had it all and became one of sport's biggest overnight success stories. No other sport has surely enjoyed such a rapid growth in popularity.

Today

Following BTCC Series Director Alan Gow's announcement in 2007 that the championship will be fought out by cars complying with the FIA's Super 2000 regulations as used in the World Touring Car Championship, nine different models of S2000-spec cars representing six different manufacturers populated the 2007 BTCC grid.

While the BTCC might be switching to the same technical regulations as all other major touring car championships, its sporting regulations will remain almost unique in ensuring that the stars and their cars race three times on race day. The 'triple-header' format means that each race is a spectacular flat-out sprint from beginning to end. Just to add to the unpredictability, race three's starting grid is the finishing order of race two... only with the leading positions reversed.

A multi-year title sponsorship agreement is also in place for the 2008 season with fast fit service HiQ coupled with the fact that its sister company Dunlop is the exclusive tyre supplier means even greater stability for the BTCC and its contestants.