Enter the Oracle: Demise of Driving Standards in the BTCC
Image taken from: btcccrazy.co.uk
Since the start of the 2015 BTCC season, there has been a significant increase in talks regarding driving standards. Not a weekend goes by without multiple drivers making reference to questionable incidents and the quality of driving within the field. Many may think that comments like these exist as nothing more than excuses to explain away a disappointing race. As true as this may be on occasion, on the whole these comments do present an important question. Talk of ‘push to pass’ tactics may have escalated in the last few years, but many years ago an oracle spoke unto us all. His words, laced in brutal Brodie flavoured honesty, spoke of what may well have been the dawning of a new era: the demise of driving standards in British saloon car racing.
Private Fleet Car Review: 2015 Series 2 Hyundai Veloster Turbo SR
The funky Veloster from Korean carmaker, Hyundai, has polarised opinions since its release. With a driver’s door some inches longer than the passenger door, plus the addition of a rear door for the left hand side of the hatchback styled vehicle, the unusual styling has both caught the eyes of road users and divided those into do and don’t like.
A Wheel Thing spent time with the latest iteration of the turbo Veloster SR, updated to a seven speed dual clutch automatic and clad in flat metallic paint.
It’s a compact little thing, at just 4220 mm in overall length and wouldn’t look out of place amongst a class of grade five students height wise, at 1405 mm. It’s wide, though, adding to the squat look and proportions, at 1790 mm and sits on a spacious 2650 mm wheelbase, weighing a svelte 1265 kilos. 
The SR came with the panoramic sunroof, which compromises headroom slightly, dropping it from 990 mm on the standard Veloster to 945 mm at the front with the rear getting 896 mm. As each 225/40/18 wheel and tyre is pushed out to the corners, the Veloster offers up a handy 1114 mm and 805 mm of legroom, front and rear, whilst shoulder room gives room to breathe, at 1412 mm and 1371 mm, front and rear.
I’m Getting A Ticket For What???
I’m sure that the powers that be for traffic control have a quota system going. There can’t be any other explanation for it. Why else would they hand out tickets for tiny little things seemingly at random? Why else would the people who do the roadworthiness tests fail vehicles for teeny little things? Why else would the drivers’ licence testing people fail people for very, very minor issues – which may have nothing to do with the driving? You know perfectly well that on other days, there would be no problem at all.
Blame Key Performance Indicators and all that management hooey. Traffic cops, inspectors and testers have to be Seen To Be Doing Their Job, which means that they have to find something to fail or ticket to justify their jobs. I kind of understand this, as when I’m not having fun writing driving-related blogs, I work as a proofreader; picking out a missing full stop or a typo the spell-checker missed shows the client that I actually did do some work. The difference, however, is that my clients want error-free reports and research papers, so are happy to get barely noticeable typos picked up, whereas nobody wants to be ticketed or failed.
Rapturous Relief and Dominant Drives at Snetterton
Photo Credit: BTCC.net
After what seemed like a lifetime, the BTCC returned with a meteoric bang as the series took on the famous Snetterton circuit. After a blasting into a dominant orbit in qualifying, Turkington and Team BMR translated their Saturday sucesss into a succulent Sunday points haul with two impressive wins. The other big story of the weekend had to be the elation for Goff, who scored his first BTCC win in the final race of the day. While all this was happening, in a truly shocking turn of events Honda were racking up an impressive selection of DNFs…
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