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March 30, 2010

New Irish Touring Car Series to Debut at Mondello

The new Mondello Park car race season gets under way this weekend with all eyes on the eagerly anticipated debut of the Irish Touring Car Championship (ITCC). Easter Sunday's nine race programme, organised by the Irish Motor Racing Club, will offer a mix of single seater, saloon and sportscar action, with the ITCC expected to be the big attraction as it brings back variety to a Saloon Racing scene dominated by one-make championships.

The new ITCC series will take over from the Mondello Park organised 'Saloon Libre' class and is open to any modified car as long as it is based on a four seater production vehicle. The championship will feature a host of drivers making the switch from other saloon racing series, some from the Mondello Park Time-Attack championship and an influx of Track Day drivers taking their first steps into competitive motorsport.

Despite only being announced earlier this year at least twenty cars are expected to make the grid for the championship's first ever race and all of the cars in the series will be familiar to the man on the street, which is part of its attraction. Hot-hatch favourites such as the Honda Civic, Honda Integra and Volkswagen Golf Gti will be joined by BMW, Mazda, Mini, Peugeot, Opel and Rover, with many other makes expected to join in as the season progresses. The championship kicks off with a single race scheduled for 14:00 and is expected to draw a large new audience of modified car and track day enthusiasts.

Also guaranteed to provide excitement at the season opener will be the ever popular Formula Vee class, which lines-up for its usual qualifying race and final, with the qualifier opening proceedings at noon. A more than thirty car entry will battle it out through qualifying, and the 'B' race, to decide the grid for the 'A' race, which will be one of the highlights of the day. Less numerically strong but just as entertaining will be the high speed Formula Libre single seaters, which this season will move up a notch in terms of competitiveness, due to the arrival of some very quick and relatively modern Formula 3 machinery.

Supporting the Saloon and single seater feature events will be two classes opening their season with double headers, the super-fast Global Lights and the ultra competitive combination of Fiat Punto's and Uno's. The programme will be completed by a single race for historic racing cars. Adult admission to Sunday's event is just €15.00 with under 16's admitted free of charge, further information is available from the Mondello Park web site where fans can also subscribe to the circuits free email and text alert service.