Touring cars

Touring car racing is an auto racing competition with heavily modified road-going cars. It is popular in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Norway.

While not as fast as Formula One, the similarity of the cars both to each other and to fans' own vehicles makes for entertaining, well-supported racing. The lesser use of aerodynamics means following cars have a much easier time passing than in F1, and the more substantial bodies of the cars makes the occasional nudging for overtaking much more acceptable as part of racing.

As well as short "sprint" races, many touring car series include one or more endurance races, which last anything from 3 to 24 hours and are a test of reliability and pit crews as much as car, driver speed and consistency.

While rules vary from country to country, most series require that the competitors start with a standard car body, but virtually every other component may be allowed to be heavily modified for racing, including engines, suspension, brakes, wheels and tyres. Aerodynamic aids are sometimes added to the front and rear of the cars. Regulations are usually designed to limit costs by banning some of the more exotic technologies available (for instance, many series insist on a "control tyre" that all competitors must use) and keep the racing close (sometimes by ballast weight where winning a race requires the winner's car to be heavier for subsequent races).

Touring cars share some similarity with American governed by NASCAR. However, touring cars are, at least notionally, derived from production cars while today's NASCAR vehicles are based on a common design.

For the casual observer, there can be a great deal of confusion when it comes to classifying closed-wheel racing cars as 'touring cars' or 'sports cars' (also known as GT cars). In truth, there is often very little technical difference between the two classifications, and nomenclature is often a matter of tradition.

Touring cars are usually based upon family cars (such as hatchbacks, sedans or estates), while GT racing cars are based upon more powerful and expensive sports cars, such as Ferraris or Lamborghinis (and are thus usually coupés). Underneath the bodywork, a touring car is often more closely related to its road-going origins, using many original components and mountings, while some top-flight GT cars are purpose-built tube-frame racing chassis underneath a cosmetic body shell. More recently, there has been an increasing push to make GT cars closer to the road cars with the GT3 set of regulations. Many touring car series, such as the BTCC and the now-defunct JTCC distinguish themselves from sports car racing by featuring front-wheel drive, four-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive cars with smaller engines. Most sports car championships only allow rear-wheel drive cars.

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