TOURING CAR MASTERS TO TOWNSVILLE

Touring Car Masters to make the trip to Townsville for the first time – Photo: Supplied

A long awaited trip to Townsville is just one of a raft of changes for the Touring Car Masters Series for next year.

TCM retains its support spots on all of Supercars marquee events in Adelaide, Sandown, Bathurst and adds Townsville after a campaign from fans to bring the category up to the far north led by the ‘Bring Touring Car Masters to Townsville’ Facebook page.

“We’ve had a lot of pressure form the Mayor of Townsville, from the people concerned in the race, plus Supercars to be there and the opportunity finally arose,” category manager Tony Hunter told Auto Action.

“We have chosen to take the opportunity and to continue to do so in the future by the look of it.”

Townsville is set to be one of TCM’s marquee events and Hunter is confident it will be a big event for the TCM competitors.

“It’s going to be one of our major events,” Hunter continued.

It comes with free-to-air television attached to it and it will be quite a big event for us. They wanted us there very desperately.”

Race formats have also undergone a change as has how points will be awarded at the end of the year.

“We have changed that totally to 24 races in a year and eight trophy races. The competitor at the end of the season chooses the best 21 races and the best seven Trophy races to accumulate their points.

“What it really means is if you have a bad run earlier in the year it doesn’t ruin your whole year. You have an opportunity to recover that and opportunity to choose what you want to do. If you can’t make a certain round then that one maybe the one you drop but either way it makes it a lot fairer and also it keeps the excitement alive right to the very end.”

The highly anticipated Ford XD Falcon will also debut next year, though a VB Commodore is not on the category managements plans at this stage.

2018 TCM Schedule

Adelaide 500 March 1-4

Tasmania April 6-8

Winton May 18-20

Darwin June 15-17

Townsville July 6-8

Sandown 500 September 14-16

Bathurst 1000 October 4-7

Newcastle November 23-25

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