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Where have I heard these arguements before?
When you say it didn't work, don't you just mean it didn't work for you?
Ok starting fro the first. No V8Supercar is not the best touring car series in the world and it is ridiculous they could claim as such.
The Nextel Cup takes 43 cars and races for 38 weekends a year and has the best attendances of any racing series on the planet, and third best TV audience next to Formula One and MotoGP. Who V8Suprcar can claim to be better than that is just the first step towards propaganda. It is a baseless claim.
Yes this is not the first time there has been a World Touring Car Championship, but just because there was a second does noy mean it wasn't a success. In Europe the race meetings were moderately well attended, there was a close and enthusiastic battle between Ford and BMW. It drew a record crowd to Bathurst, despite the rain which fell on the track on race day. The series saw entries from Ford, BMW, Holden, Nissan, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and more.
The disputes of vehicle eligibility were a side issue to the series success. As was the series sudden collapse. What caused the collapse was when the FIA took over the running of the series mid year and immediately announced a regulation change to Bernie Ecclestone's 'silouhette' regulations which the manufacturers refused to support and only one car was ever built (that Alfa Romeo scared the bejeeses out of Riccardo Patrese at its only test session). Behind the scenes politiking runed the chances of a 1988 series going ahead.
It could be argued the Ecclestone created this situation in order to dilute manufacturer interest in a global touring car series when those manufacturers 'should' have been in Formula One.
The Bathurst Eggenberger Sierra incident was just one of thousands of disqualifications over the decades, and the series could have survived it no hassles at all.
The new World Touring Car Championship series is an appropriate tag for a series intending to race in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America. It doesn't need an Australian stop over to be a true World Championship. I think we need to get over ourselves a little here.
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