Westbourne Motorsport has announced its intention to work with BARC to promote the Michelin Clio Series for the 2016 season.
In common with rival one make series an independent organisation has agreed to take the lead role in showcasing the championship and building the grids.
Westbourne are long standing exponents of Renault Championships having been actively involved since 2008.
The Renault Clio 200 offers competitors the chance to experience a professionally built racing car with 200 bhp coupled to a Sadev sequential gearbox, slick racing tyres and a finely tuned chassis that is one of the closest experiences to current BTCC cars as you can get.
The championship provides the opportunity for club level drivers to prepare to the move to the UK Clio Cup, the most successful feeder to touring cars. It’s no surprise to learn that no less than ten of the current BTCC grid is made up of drivers that have raced the Clio 200.
Westbourne believe that the key factor that sets the series apart from other ‘one make’ championships is the identical specification of the cars and the ease of controlling a level playing field through the use on controlled parts from Renault Sport in the race cars.
Richard Colburn, Westbourne Team Principle commented “We have agreed to partner BARC to promote the series going forward and offer potential drivers better information and advice on competing in both Clio road and race categories. We plan to re-introduce a dedicated web site and offer some really attractive propositions for new competitors.
The road car can be built and raced on a very limited budget which is ideal for those looking to get into motorsport for the first time., whilst the race car is a real ‘racer’ which drivers love and most importantly all cars are the same, which is often the failings of other one make series. There are plenty of cars out there from around £15,000 upwards making it incredible value when you consider lap times are very close to the current BTCC Clio Cup cars.
We want to build a friendly, professional championship that offers drivers the ability to either maintain their own cars or run with a team and be competitive either way. Importantly we want to offer an environment where career minded drivers can attract sponsors that they can take forward into higher levels of motorsport. “