The place have all the nice touring automotive video games gone?

I just lately spent the weekend at Goodwood’s secret greatest occasion. Far from the big crowds and prolonged rest room queues of the Festival of Speed and the faintly foolish fancy costume celebration that’s the Revival, the Goodwood Member’s Meeting is the perfect place on the planet to observe historic racing automobiles completely thrashed round a circuit.

This 12 months I used to be handled to on-track hustle from skilled pedallers together with 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button, ‘Mr Le Mans’ Tom Kristensen and Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti.

Having determined that along with interesting to outdated duffers, they need to cater to marginally youthful duffers as nicely, the spotlight of this 83rd Member’s Meeting was a brace of Nineties touring automobiles, most of them from the British Touring Car Championship, pushed by the largest names within the self-discipline.

Naturally the format for these valuable museum items was a quick lap ‘shootout’ moderately than a doorhandle banging, wing mirror endangering race; sadly whoever organised the occasion had clearly by no means met a touring automotive driver earlier than.

As somebody raised on the TOCA Touring Car video games on the unique PlayStation, seeing these automobiles in motion once more I used to be immediately transported again to the category’s inarguable golden period. ‘Super Touring’ was a technological arms race with runaway prices that resulted in weird conditions just like the Williams Grand Prix group constructing a Renault Laguna positively full of up to date F1 know-how.

Like all these golden eras of motorsport, it ended when budgets bought so out of hand that board members misplaced their sense of humour about all of it, however for some time the BTCC drew staggering crowds and produced a few of the best racing ever dedicated to Sunday Grandstand.

For ages, followers begged for an additional BTCC recreation after the championship’s ultimate look in TOCA Race Driver in 2002, however disagreements between sequence organiser TOCA and developer Codemasters means there hasn’t been an official BTCC recreation for over 1 / 4 of a century.

We bought a handful of BTCC automobiles in simulator rFactor 2 in 2022, however with out all of the circuits it was removed from the complete recreation that was initially promised. These days I are likely to get my repair from the superb choice of ’90s Super Tourers that had been added to RaceRoom Racing Experience in late 2024.

I did marvel if the drought was as a result of the BTCC merely isn’t pretty much as good because it was once, however then I caught up with protection from the primary occasion of 2026, which occurred whereas I used to be busy getting dewy eyed at Goodwood, and the racing was completely phenomenal. The kind of racing that makes me marvel why I spend two hours each different Sunday fascinated about F1 hybrid deployment.

Now I’m inclined to consider the BTCC’s waning recognition is as a result of as a nation we’ve change into hopelessly hooked on SUVs and crossovers, and the standard front-wheel drive hatchback isn’t as related because it was once. Bring again Touring Cars and produce again Touring Car video games…