Group C Racing - News From The NEC

The Racing series stand at the Autosport International show might have been tucked away on the side of one of the large NEC halls, it had two famous race cars on display and Group C Racing series boss Bob Berridge was on the stand to give DSC a teaser for the upcoming season.

Attracting a lot of people to the Group C Racing stand were the 905, scheduled to do limited outings in the new season, as well as a Rothmans-liveried Porsche 956.

The 2012 season will have six rounds at the major classic events: Donington, Spa- Francorchamps, Le Mans, Silverstone - the Silverstone Classic stand just meters away having the Dauer Racing ‘Tic Tac’ Porsche 962 on display to promote this event - Le Castellet and Imola. "We want to be part of the great classic events and these events are in fact great," said Berridge. "There are too many difficulties for joining the modern series, especially with the number of available garages for our cars."

An iconic event like the support race has been restricted to 28 cars due to the limited space in the allocated paddock the grid. Berridge is however very positive about the number of entries at Le Mans and all the other rounds of the 2012 season. "We expect some 20- 24 cars on average per round. For Le Mans we currently have 22 cars registered, but I am sure we will be oversubscribed."

A wide variety of cars is expected for the season. As said the Peugeot 905 will have limited outings in the series in the new C3 category and only this week Group C regular Kent Abrahamson announced he has purchased a 87C and an Eagle-Toyota HF89. On top of that Gareth Evans recently acquired the 1989 FIA World Sportscar Championship winning Sauber C9.

For Group C/GTP the main priorities are the C1 and C2 categories. These two categories will have podium ceremonies at each event. The C3 class, in which the Peugeot 905 will race, will not.