The official launch of the TCR New Zealand Touring Car Championship took place at the CRC Speedshow on Friday. Category manager Grant Smith has released details on the coming season that gets underway in January 2020.
They say start as you mean to go on and put your best foot forward and TCR New Zealand has done just that.
Smith has announced a five round quick-fire sprint season that will take place at the same time as the 2020 Toyota Racing Series, over five consecutive weekends. This will be followed later in the year with four endurance rounds. Dates to be confirmed.
This will be great for race fans to be able to see an exciting emerging touring car category debut in NZ alongside a well established and proven international single seater series.
Smith is a great appointment to the category as he comes with a wealth of experience running the highly professional Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Championship. This Kiwi series got underway in the early 2000s and ran for eight seasons. The series saw drivers such as Craig Baird, Matt Halliday, Jonny Reid, Fabian Coulthard, David Reynolds, and Earl Bamber competing.
The NZ TCR Series is being run by the Australian Racing Group, the organisation that runs the equivalent series in Australia. The up-side of this is that we are unlikely to see a clash of calendars and likely to see all drivers and teams encouraged to cross the ditch and compete next door.
The TCR category has got lots of traction internationally and it is gaining momentum here in NZ leading up to its 2020 debut. Already there are a number of cars competing in the country in both the North and South Island Endurance Series with more being prepared for the summer series. Smith feels confident that we could see approximately 20 cars on the grid here in NZ.
This leads to the question of how will the current BNT V8s Championship make the jump to the recently announced next generation car or will we see the rise of TCR and the demise of the V8s in NZ? (See Next Generation BNT V8 Breaks Cover).
While race fans love the sound and sight of V8s, the BNT V8 Championship has never reached it’s former heights achieved in the early 2000s and later with the initial V8 SuperTourer seasons. TCR offers modern machinery, stable international regulations and for race fans some great close racing. TCR is set to impress in NZ this summer.
2020 TCR New Zealand Sprint Series Calendar
| Round | Circuit | Date |
| 1 | Highlands Motorsport Park, Cromwell | 17–19 January |
| 2 | Teretonga Park, Invercargill | 24–26 January |
| 3 | Hampton Downs Motorsport Park, Waikato | 31 January–2 February |
| 4 | TBC (Pukekohe or Taupō) | 7–9 February |
| 5 | Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon, Feilding | 14–16 February |
2020 TCR New Zealand Endurance Calendar (Provisional)
| Round | Circuit | Date |
| 1 | TBC (North Island) | April |
| 2 | TBC (North Island) | May |
| 3 | TBC (South Island) | October |
| 4 | TBC (South Island) | November |
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