1990's Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter Strittan
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- Paul2007
The British Touring Car Championship 1997 - 2000
I lived on BTCC throughout the magical years of 1997 - 2000 before I started working summers and weekends. The racing was so intense and close, and a race could have been won by any one of ten drivers. The cars looked fabulous and you could relate to them more as they looked like those driving by your own house.
Some of my favourite racing cars hail from BTCC with the Volvo S40 being my number one hence it's prominence above. I was quite p'eed off when the Renault Laguna was confirmed as not coming to PCars as I was so hyped for that.
I don't really have an out-and-out favourite moment as I loved everything about it and would look forward to my Saturday afternoon of action. Youtube is quite good for footage of this golden age of BTCC and I dread to think how long I've spent looking at it in the last year alone.
I lived on BTCC throughout the magical years of 1997 - 2000 before I started working summers and weekends. The racing was so intense and close, and a race could have been won by any one of ten drivers. The cars looked fabulous and you could relate to them more as they looked like those driving by your own house.
Some of my favourite racing cars hail from BTCC with the Volvo S40 being my number one hence it's prominence above. I was quite p'eed off when the Renault Laguna was confirmed as not coming to PCars as I was so hyped for that.
I don't really have an out-and-out favourite moment as I loved everything about it and would look forward to my Saturday afternoon of action. Youtube is quite good for footage of this golden age of BTCC and I dread to think how long I've spent looking at it in the last year alone.
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Guess that closes this thread.
Strittan
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- Strittan
The super tourers are legendary indeed, and as a swede it didn't hurt to see Rydell win the '98 season in his Volvo.
The JGTC era is quite legendary as well, with the R33 Skyline being my favorite of the GT500 cars.
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- motorforum
If Codies could bring out a Touring Car anthology spanning ten seasons from '90 to '99 where you could either race as an existing driver for those ten seasons or start out as a privateer with the aim to grab a works drive, then I think it would be one of my all-time favourite games.
In many ways, Toca 2 hasn't been topped.
In many ways, Toca 2 hasn't been topped.
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- The UK
- JASON_ROCKS1998
- JR98 GAMING
FIA GT Championship 1997
It was 1997 when the FIA GT Championship (Now FIA GT Series) had it's inaugural season and was filled with the fastest GT race cars including the McLaren F1 GTR Longtail, Mercedes CLK GTR and Porsche 911 GT1 with manufacturer and privateer efforts throughout both the GT1 & GT2 classes. It was a tight battle for the 1997 season with Mercedes-AMG taking the win by 20 points for the drivers championship and by 35 for the teams. But 1998 & 1999 just ended up with Mercedes dominating every race with their superior CLK GTR, winning by almost 100 points in 1998 and Mercedes being the only GT1 team in 1999, due to McLaren and Porsche pulling out. This lead to the end of the GT1 class, with the GT2 class becoming the top GT1 class in 2000. This also caused the FIA to stop manufacture backing in the FIA GT to stop another incident like Mercedes-AMG's dominance.
It was 1997 when the FIA GT Championship (Now FIA GT Series) had it's inaugural season and was filled with the fastest GT race cars including the McLaren F1 GTR Longtail, Mercedes CLK GTR and Porsche 911 GT1 with manufacturer and privateer efforts throughout both the GT1 & GT2 classes. It was a tight battle for the 1997 season with Mercedes-AMG taking the win by 20 points for the drivers championship and by 35 for the teams. But 1998 & 1999 just ended up with Mercedes dominating every race with their superior CLK GTR, winning by almost 100 points in 1998 and Mercedes being the only GT1 team in 1999, due to McLaren and Porsche pulling out. This lead to the end of the GT1 class, with the GT2 class becoming the top GT1 class in 2000. This also caused the FIA to stop manufacture backing in the FIA GT to stop another incident like Mercedes-AMG's dominance.
Tired Tyres
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The race that stood out for me the most was night time at Snetterton(1998?'99?). The red interior lights and sparks flying under the Accord were the best. That event at dark was epic. Amazing to see the in car camera when a car loses momentum. Not one car goes by but, a train of cars go by. Just awesome. The commentating too. There was no talking about what's for dinner. These guys were focused on talking about every pass. Every slipstream. Every bump and run. There was non-stop action from start to finish. Greatest touring car era ever.
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- ukfan758
Indycar before "the split", where the traitor, Tony George formed the IRL and along with poor ownership of Champ Car (CART) nearly killed open wheel racing in America. Indycar prior to the split was the most watched motorsport in the US, but ratings quickly declined, eventually to only 70,000 people watching the GP of Long Beach on Speed and less than a million viewers on network television. In 2008 a merge occurred that saved open wheel racing in the US, only now is a slow growth in popularity occurring. The old Indycar era was a glorious one, it had some of the best racing out there and the most memorable moments.
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Another vote for BTCC, however I would favour the early 90`s over the latter half of the 90`s, which was still awesome anyway.
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- WeaselKing707
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I started watching motorsport in 1998 and the '99 Formula 1 season
is still my favorite F1 season to this day (not including pre-'98).
In my opinion the cars never looked as good since and as Hakkinen
was my driver it just made the season that much better.
Unlike the majority I really liked that BAR PR01 scheme and the A20,
MP4/14, FW21 and M01 are cars I still look at from time to time.
Their design and paint schemes were terrific.
Not only was the Ferrari/McLaren battles exciting to watch but it was
also in '99 that I started taking the backmarkers to my heart.
The minnows battles with Minardi and Arrows that year were oftentimes
more interesting to me than the frontrunners. Tora, Marc, Luca and Pedro
had some good ones between them and my love for the backmarkers con-
tinued in the following years with drivers like Yoong, Baumgartner, Mazzacane,
Marques, Pizzonia, Albers, Karthikeyan, Ide, Yamamoto and Speed.
They carried on the legacy given to them by drivers such as Rosset, Tuero,
Lavaggi, Deletraz, Inoue and others. Sure we got super Max Chilton in later years
but it wasn't the same. The era was over. Many were paydrivers and in some peoples
eyes didn't belong on the same track as Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alonso etc.
But I could look beyond that.
To me they were very strong-willed people, giving it their all in spite of inferior equipment
and often inferior talent. They showed up and drove with what they had, while (probably)
people laughed behind their backs as they struggled with 50-150 less bhp.
Mazzacane and Yoong for instance received a lot of scorn and ridicule in the media, pits and
among the public. I had their back anyway. Underdogs for the win.
I remember getting up ridiculously early Sunday morning in time for the final race of the
year at Suzuka '99. I believe the race started at 6 or 7am.
The odds were stacked against Hakkinen and as he was completely
manhandled by the Ferraris (and particularly by Schumacher) in Malaysia
two weeks previous it didn't look good.
But Mika made a demon start and never looked back, he was only seconds from
lapping his championship rival Irvine (who seemed to have lost confidence from
a crash during practice) and quite simply put in the best performance I ever saw
from him at what must have been tremendously difficult pressure.
Suzuka '99 is still one of my favorite races of all time.
Mika drove like a champion and took the WDC in style. Good times.
is still my favorite F1 season to this day (not including pre-'98).
In my opinion the cars never looked as good since and as Hakkinen
was my driver it just made the season that much better.
Unlike the majority I really liked that BAR PR01 scheme and the A20,
MP4/14, FW21 and M01 are cars I still look at from time to time.
Their design and paint schemes were terrific.
Not only was the Ferrari/McLaren battles exciting to watch but it was
also in '99 that I started taking the backmarkers to my heart.
The minnows battles with Minardi and Arrows that year were oftentimes
more interesting to me than the frontrunners. Tora, Marc, Luca and Pedro
had some good ones between them and my love for the backmarkers con-
tinued in the following years with drivers like Yoong, Baumgartner, Mazzacane,
Marques, Pizzonia, Albers, Karthikeyan, Ide, Yamamoto and Speed.
They carried on the legacy given to them by drivers such as Rosset, Tuero,
Lavaggi, Deletraz, Inoue and others. Sure we got super Max Chilton in later years
but it wasn't the same. The era was over. Many were paydrivers and in some peoples
eyes didn't belong on the same track as Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alonso etc.
But I could look beyond that.
To me they were very strong-willed people, giving it their all in spite of inferior equipment
and often inferior talent. They showed up and drove with what they had, while (probably)
people laughed behind their backs as they struggled with 50-150 less bhp.
Mazzacane and Yoong for instance received a lot of scorn and ridicule in the media, pits and
among the public. I had their back anyway. Underdogs for the win.
I remember getting up ridiculously early Sunday morning in time for the final race of the
year at Suzuka '99. I believe the race started at 6 or 7am.
The odds were stacked against Hakkinen and as he was completely
manhandled by the Ferraris (and particularly by Schumacher) in Malaysia
two weeks previous it didn't look good.
But Mika made a demon start and never looked back, he was only seconds from
lapping his championship rival Irvine (who seemed to have lost confidence from
a crash during practice) and quite simply put in the best performance I ever saw
from him at what must have been tremendously difficult pressure.
Suzuka '99 is still one of my favorite races of all time.
Mika drove like a champion and took the WDC in style. Good times.
- 260
- Italy
- marco89IT
I absolutely agree about 1999 being one of the most thrilling seasons of recent F1 years. Especially on the human side, compared to nowadays aseptic environment. I had the feeling that the F1 cliché of "pushing to the limit" was more evident that year, from both teams and drivers.
I like to think that the ridiculous amount of human mistakes committed during the whole season was due to that fierce competition. Hakkinen smashes his McLaren into the wall at Imola while leading, Schumacher does the same in Montreal into the wall of champions. Coulthard throws away a McLaren 1-2 in Zeltweg hitting Mika. Hakkinen's rear tire bouncing around Silverstone while he was leading, and again a rear tire blows up at Hockenheim sending him into high-speed multiple spins and denying him a probable win. Everybody remembers the rear brakes failure on Schumacher's car in Silverstone, but also Frentzen had a similar one in Canada, smashing heavily into the barrier as Michael did but without injuries.
Nurburgring '99 is one of the most entertaining and crazy races I've ever seen: I remember the scary image of Diniz's car upside down with the roll-bar sunk into the gravel after the start, luckily without consequences. I remember the Ferrari pit crew literally looking for a missing rain tire into into their box, while Irvine was sitting in his car for something like half a minute, while his championship was slipping away.
Again, the unbelievable amount of lead changes while it was raining during that race, Badoer crying on his Minardi, after a failure denied his first points of a long career and finally giving Minardi points after years of zeroes.
Talking about underdogs: at around half race distance at the Nurburgring, Frentzen was leading while Irvine and Hakkinen were struggling: in an hypothetical provisional drivers standing at that point, with 2 and a half races to the end, the German had the exact amount of points as Hakkinen and Irvine. Then, rejoining after a pit stop, a failure stops his title aspirations. Driving a Jordan which was usually more than a full second off the pace. That livery though...
Anyway, the most significative moment of the human side I was talking about of F1 that year was indeed Mika Hakkinen at Monza. He's so comfortably in the lead that at the first chicane he downshifts one time too much and spins into the gravel and out of the race. He throws away his gloves, takes off his helmet and starts crying behind a hedge. Can you imagine that today?
It was almost 17 years ago, but I remember watching that sequence on my TV like it happened yesterday: the Flying Finn, labelled as a robot without emotions by the medias, crying with his iconic helmet on his hands, with a photographer, a marshall and a policeman trying to cheer him up. On the background, a wall of red shirts into the grandstands, celebrating like they just won the championship and mocking Mika. I still think that TV sequence switched something on my boy's head about what motorsport is all about. And about recognizing between proper racers like Mika was, and other people that use their driving talent as a way to make money (which is fully respectable but doesn't attract my attention).
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- CARBOYXJR
Last year I did a write up for Jalopnik's Black Flag on Japanese motorsport in the 90's - it can be found here.
The 90's are a bit of a mixed bag. I think the period produced some of the most iconic racing cars of all time, and certainly laid the foundations for the motorsport we know today, but a monumental amount of series and regulations met their fate. Class 2 killed virtually everything it touched (and it killed conventional touring cars for good in some regions), Group C's demise set international sportscar racing back for a good 15 years or so, GT1 was a lesson in why the homologation system never works, Interserie went from being one of Europe's best racing spectacles to nothing short of a joke, Class 1 managed to temporarily kill the DTM, and rallycross fell from the international stage and has only managed to recover in the last couple of years.
For me, even with all the flaws, there are some things that stand out. BTCC and JGTC have been mentioned, but European RX still managed to sparkle before it fizzled out. This is still one of my favourite races of all time.
Class 1 is also a bit of an obsession of mine. Even though it was destined for failure, the final year of the ITC produced some of the most technologically advanced racing cars the world has ever seen. In terms of construction, design and computing power, they were several years ahead of F1 - we even had qualifying specific wheels. Boxy and chunky is also a rather good look for a racing car.
The 90's are a bit of a mixed bag. I think the period produced some of the most iconic racing cars of all time, and certainly laid the foundations for the motorsport we know today, but a monumental amount of series and regulations met their fate. Class 2 killed virtually everything it touched (and it killed conventional touring cars for good in some regions), Group C's demise set international sportscar racing back for a good 15 years or so, GT1 was a lesson in why the homologation system never works, Interserie went from being one of Europe's best racing spectacles to nothing short of a joke, Class 1 managed to temporarily kill the DTM, and rallycross fell from the international stage and has only managed to recover in the last couple of years.
For me, even with all the flaws, there are some things that stand out. BTCC and JGTC have been mentioned, but European RX still managed to sparkle before it fizzled out. This is still one of my favourite races of all time.
Class 1 is also a bit of an obsession of mine. Even though it was destined for failure, the final year of the ITC produced some of the most technologically advanced racing cars the world has ever seen. In terms of construction, design and computing power, they were several years ahead of F1 - we even had qualifying specific wheels. Boxy and chunky is also a rather good look for a racing car.
- 44,184
- Blackburn
- Furinkazen_54
Nobody here has mentioned the rise after a fall from grace of the WRC. Group B's late 80's demise and the subsequent Group S concept robbed the WRC of the most insane cars of all time. However Group A was quietly developed. More production based, more like a road car and critically identifiable with the car you would buy in your showroom. The touring car "win on sunday, sell on monday" philosophy rubbed off on manufacturers and soon they came. Lancia. Mitsubishi. Ford. Subaru. Drivers like Makinen, Burns, Sainz came to the fore. And at the end of the 1990's the rules were upgraded and a golden period in the sport was set up for the new millennium: The WRC car regulations.
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The Lancer pic in @Furinkazen's post looks like it could have been taken on Tahiti Maze....ahh the good'ole days 
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The 1990s also brought the last production based car to ever win overall at Le Mans, the McLaren F1, arguably the best sounding and 2nd best looking car in the world.
Also LOL at the people in M3s giving a point-by to a freakin' McLaren F1 GTR... like you'd have a choice.
Also LOL at the people in M3s giving a point-by to a freakin' McLaren F1 GTR... like you'd have a choice.
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- marco89IT
Some iconic corners from the 90's which have been removed/changed, and some popular circuits which for various reasons aren't hosting "big events" as they did in the 90's.
The insane braking points and off-camber chicanes of the old Hockenheimring
The old Bus stop chicane at Spa
The double chicane after the main straight in Monza
Bridge corner, Silverstone:
The bumpy, really fast last corner at the Mexico City circuit
The Estoril and its peculiar uphill corkscrew
Adelaide
Kyalami
Le Castellet
Bonus: the Eau Rouge is turned into 2 90° corners in the 94 Belgian GP for safety reasons after the 2 deaths in Imola previously that year.
The insane braking points and off-camber chicanes of the old Hockenheimring
The old Bus stop chicane at Spa
The double chicane after the main straight in Monza
Bridge corner, Silverstone:
The bumpy, really fast last corner at the Mexico City circuit
The Estoril and its peculiar uphill corkscrew
Adelaide
Kyalami
Le Castellet
Bonus: the Eau Rouge is turned into 2 90° corners in the 94 Belgian GP for safety reasons after the 2 deaths in Imola previously that year.
- 5,204
- Finland
Okay I may have missed the 90s when it actually happened for reasons, but thanks to YouTube I've managed to see parts of it again.
Anyway I thought I'd post something bit more obscure. The short lived Sport 2000 (Tour) series, or alternatively the Finnish Touring Car Championship, which begun in 1996 and slowly faded to its death after 2002, had its best years between 1997 and 2000.
30+ car grids with wide range of different models from Calibra to 306 GTi and the lead battles between Golf GTIs and 320is, and later Integra Type Rs were great.
The large grids also provided a great sight when about 35 cars climbed the hill into the first corner of Ahvenisto.
Quite unfortunately, to this day it's the only time touring cars actually did well on the Finnish soil.
Anyway I thought I'd post something bit more obscure. The short lived Sport 2000 (Tour) series, or alternatively the Finnish Touring Car Championship, which begun in 1996 and slowly faded to its death after 2002, had its best years between 1997 and 2000.
30+ car grids with wide range of different models from Calibra to 306 GTi and the lead battles between Golf GTIs and 320is, and later Integra Type Rs were great.
The large grids also provided a great sight when about 35 cars climbed the hill into the first corner of Ahvenisto.
Quite unfortunately, to this day it's the only time touring cars actually did well on the Finnish soil.
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- Anoka, MN
Speaking of failed touring car series, in 1996 they attempted to launch a series in the U.S. using the supertouring regulations. It ran as a support series for CART and featured factory backed teams from Dodge and Honda. Unfortunately it failed to attract teams and only lasted 2 seasons.
I think a big part of it's problem is they let this beast race.
I think a big part of it's problem is they let this beast race.
