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3

STANDINGS

SPOTLIGHT

When Darius Jonušis, promoter of the

Baltic Touring Car and Endurance

championships, launched a TCR Baltic

Trophy he knew very well that he was

embarking on a difficult challenge. And

indeed, only a couple of teams have

committed for the series’ maiden

season, which forced Jonušis to

aggregate the TCR and the BTC2 classes

in the same sprint races.

“Traditionally there have always been

many powerful ‘homemade’ race cars in

our region and they do not especially

suit sprint races. Over the last year our

company has worked a lot to promote

endurance races in the region; we have

been successful and now they are

booming in all the Baltic States. At the

same time, sadly, sprint races have been

neglected,” Jonušis explains, although

he is optimistic about the future.

A lady from Lithuania is TCR

ambassador in the Baltic States

Igoris Ivanovas, K

ę

stutis Vilkas, and

Sigitas Ambrazevi

č

ius.

On top of this Ernesta Globyt

ė

is leading the BTC2/TCR class of the

Baltic Touring Car Championship in the

Golf run by the Nero-GSR Racing Team

against an assorted bunch

of big-engined BMW cars.

“I was looking for something

new and TCR drew my attention because

the category is growing fast. I was

invited by Speedfactory Racing to test

an Audi RS3 LMS; it was very unusual

for me, because for ages I had raced

rear-wheel-drive cars. So I made few

spins, but I enjoyed the test and fell in

love with TCR!” says the Lithuanian lady

driver.

This means facing competitors in more

powerful cars. “The TCR cars may not be

the most powerful, but they have other

advantages. If you use them in the

proper way, you are able to overtake

many cars that are expected to be more

competitive, at least on paper.”

What about TCR’s future in the Baltic

States? “TCR is the quickest growing

racing category in the world. I am sure

it has a very bright future and this will

apply to the Baltic States as well.

Perhaps it will take some time, maybe a

few years, but I am pretty sure that in a

couple of years we will have at least

ten/twelve TCR cars, which would be

very good for such a small market as

ours.”

“With TCR developing so fast across the

whole world, the time has come to

make sprint races popular again in the

region. Maybe we will need a few years

to do so, but we are confident that this

was the right time to introduce the TCR

cars in the Baltic States.”

Despite the current lack of cars, TCR is

already having an impact. For the first

time, two cars took part in the ENEOS

1006 KM of Palanga and, despite

lacking power compared to most of the

other 39 cars that took the start, they

proved consistent and reliable.

Eventually, the Nero-GSR Racing Team

Volkswagen Golf GTI driven by Ernesta

Globyt

ė

, Dainius Matijošaitis, Nerijus

Malaševicius and Eugenijus Misi

ū

ra

finished in a respectable fifth position

overall, behind four GT cars and just

ahead of the the SEAT León shared by