New engine certification and two-hour endurance race announced for HTCC

Motor Racing Legends has announced a new certification programme for verifying engine capacities for the Historic Touring Car Challenge (HTCC).

The programme, which was announced at the Motor Racing Legend’s annual awards dinner (Thursday 19 January), will be introduced this season and requires engines to be inspected, measured and sealed to effectively stamp out the risk of engines being over-powered by bore and stroke. Those cars inspected and sealed will be recognised within the results.

Competitors attending the annual dinner also learned of the introduction of the new two-hour race with fuel stops to be hosted on the challenging Algarve switch-back circuit at the end of the season (October 27-29).

The evening was hosted by MRL chairman, Duncan Wiltshire, and held at The Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, London. Wiltshire made several announcements during the evening’s presentation; confirming a return to Silverstone Classic for the Kidston Trophy for Pre-War Sports Cars; the introduction of the new two-hour race for the HTCC competitors at the Algarve, as well as crowning last year’s series winners.

He said: “The introduction of this certification programme is a major initiative in the battle to control over-development of engines in the historic racing world. We will be applying the certification scheme across our Touring Car and ’50s Sports Car series”.

Back for 2017, the Kidston Trophy for Pre-War Sports Cars is an endurance race run at the Silverstone Classic in honour of Glen Kidston – a First World War hero and fabled ‘Bentley Boy’, who in 1930 went on to win Le Mans 24 Hours with Woolf Barnato in a Bentley Speed Six. The first running of the Kidston Trophy caught the imagination of competitors and owners who filled the grid with an entry of 55 cars representing 17 different pre-war manufacturers.

Following revised entry criteria, the HTCC enjoyed a year of success in 2016 with record-high grid numbers. The already popular series now caters for Group A Touring Cars right up to December 1990.

The Motor Racing Legends season is set to start in April at the Donington Historic Festival from 28 to 30 April. Entry forms and regulations will be issued in February.