The Pits Touring Car Championship...started as a project in 1997 to modify the NASCAR 2 Racing game by Papyrus to mimic SuperTouring auto racing. The rest is history...it was the first time someone had completely rebuilt a game to make it something else, and the popularity of the patch has provided years of racing fun for thousands. It is even the predecessor to other talented sim editors who have gone on to produce other patches for other racing sims...but this was the first, and upon this patch was built a road-racing league that has continued on since that time. To quote our original history page:
"The history of The Pits Touring Car Championship leads all the way back to the summer of 1996 and Nascar Racing 1. Gerhard Lingenberg deserves the first mention. His ICR2 to N1 convertor lead to the creation of the Internet Touring Car Championship by Sean Staples. Inspired by the North American Touring Car Championship the league had the bare minimum compared to the TPTCC features of today. There were the road courses, the paintjobs on the cars, and nothing more. ITCC completed three full seasons and by the end of 1997, with Nascar Racing 2 on the market things were about to change. Part of the ITCC's 1997 schedule featured a, "Next Generation", championship using the new sim. Only Watkins Glen and Sears Point were featured but it was clear there was a change on the horizon.
That summer, sim editor extrodinaire David Noonan announced the release of the ICR2 to N2 track convertor. When ITCC director Sean Staples contacted Jan Kohl of The Pits about obtaining the full version of the convertor he got some very exciting news with Jan's reply. The Pits gang had been working on a new project, a full blown patch of N2 that would recreate the sim to create the touring car experience, The Pits Touring Car Championship. Everything was getting a makeover, new cars, new cockpits, new sounds and just about every other needed aspect. With the ITCC 1997 season coming to an end, and the TPTCC patch nearing completion, Jan and Sean began planning the TPTCC offline league. The first schedule would feature ten rounds at the five tracks drivers could obtain with the free version of David Noonan's convertor."
...and now on to the history of the TPTCC. Click on the year (1997, 1998, ect) to go to a reproduction of the site at that point in time. Please note, not all links will work, and files are not available from that area. Some reformating has been done to make the pages fit into the history.
1997 Pat Dotson, Champion Team: EuroSport Manufacturer: BMW Team's Champion - Eurosport Racing Privateer's Champion - Tom Petersen Manufacturer's Champion - BMW | 1997 was the first year of the TPTCC...and had some interesting drivers. Sean Staples took over the reins of the TPTCC administration, and put together a superb program. There were only five 2-round races at four tracks, but that didn't mean it wasn't a hard fought season. With drivers like Pat Dotson, Skotty Flynn, Carl Rimmel, Stuart Brown and so on, the competition was tough. Even tougher was the fact that wet races were implemented and the second race at Watkins Glen was completely rainy. Pat Dotson persevered through the entire season, and whipped everyone soundly the last 2 rounds at Portland for a total of 5 wins. Great inaugural season, and it set the stage for some great racing over the next five years. That year also saw the inaugural Bullrun 1000, the 1,000 kilometer endurance race held in the fall for team drivers.
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1998 Jake Myers, Group A Champion Team: McLaren Manufacturer: BMW Team's Champion - Lip Service Racing Privateer's Champion - Greg Colgan Manufacturer's Champion - Honda  Tommy Brolsma, Group B Champion Team: Chapaz Racing Manufacturer: Peugeot Team's Champion - Chapaz Racing Privateer's Champion - Jonathan Palmer Manufacturer's Champion - BMW |
1998 marked some major changes for the TPTCC, the first change being that there were two groups, Group A and Group B competing. There were thirteen 2-round races, which made up for a big season, and big fields! Twenty drivers competed in group A, and 54 drivers competed in group B! The battle for the championship was hard fought, with Stuart Brown, Stephane Flach, and Jake Myers all competing for the lead. Stuart had an amazing nine wins, but his 18 starts to Staphane's and Jake's 26 starts was the killer. Jake took home four wins and the championship.
Tommy Brolsma worked hard for his championship as well, as Ron Peterman won many of the initial races but then dropped out later. David Blevins and Sandy Robinson took a few more, but Tommy went home with 6 wins and the championship for Group B. This year had also changed in that the inaugural season had been fairly short, and only on tracks that were available with the "free" converter from David Noonan...this season you had to have the full converter, which allowed you to run all the ICR2 tracks as well as the NASCAR 2 tracks, plus a few add-ons that Papy released. The 2 race format was composed of a 60% distance sprint, with a 100% distance final race, no pit stops. One more addition that made it's way into the 1998 season was the addition of a Group C class for the last few races of the year. The TPTCC league used TPTCCv2 to modify NASCAR Racing 2 for this season. |
1999 Dmitry Nekryukov, Group A Champion Team: Black Squirrel Manufacturer: Honda Team's Champion - The Pits Performance Team Privateer's Champion - Phil Whiteman Manufacturer's Champion - Alfa Romeo  Adrian Collier, Group B Champion Team: Attitude Motorsports Manufacturer: BMW Team's Champion - Team Speed Racing Privateer's Champion - Adrian Collier Manufacturer's Champion - Honda  Kevin Jurasinski, Group C Champion Team: Jet City Manufacturer: Dodge Team's Champion - Team Neon Privateer's Champion - Gary Creswell Manufacturer's Champion - Dodge |
1999 marked the full-time addition of a third class, the Group C class. As well, it used NASCAR 1999 as opposed to NASCAR 2, with TPTCC99 version 0.9. This changed the use of the cars in NASCAR to trucks, due to the fact that trucks were slightly slower, thus contributing more to the touring car feel.
The Pits Performance Team looked formidable this year, with 3 drivers, Jan Kohl, Goy Larsen, and Stuart Brown driving the Abbott Ale sponsored Alfa 156s. Goy and Stuart took off like a rocket, and by season's end had won over one-half of the races. Goy himself won a record 11 races.
Adrian Collier didn't have it very easy, as Paul Hamilton, John Hinkle and Alejandro Mira all had five wins on the season. But Adrian let consistency count, and by seasons end he had three wins, and taken the Group B title with a mere 34 points over Paul. Kevin Jurasinski, on the other hand, dominated in impressive form. His nearest rival, David Carter, was 315 points behind him by the season's end. His "Team Neon" Dodge whipped up on the competition pretty bad, setting the stage for him to be a serious contender for the 2001 Summer season. |
2000 Michael Heymanns, Champion Team: SimRacing Germany Manufacturer: Alfa Romeo Team's Champion - Sim Racing Germany Manufacturer's Champion - Alfa Romeo |
The 2000 season was the shortest TPTCC season on record, with Sean Staples finally throwing in the towel after administrating TPTCC for 3 years. The Official TPTCC website, www.tptcc.com, came down, and Jan was very busy, as he was moving house, getting another job, and going on vacation to the UK all at the same time. However, he made sure the TPTCC drivers had something to do for the summer...there were five races scheduled, but one was dropped off the schedule at the last minute due to track problems. The league used TPTCC99 v1.0 to modify NASCAR 1999.
Michael Heymanns brought along a strong team of mostly European drivers, all in red-liveried Alfa 156s. He won 2 races, his teammate Thomas Sturm won another, and that pretty much finished off the competition for the 2000 season. Michael got the championship with a very narrow 2 point lead over his teammate Thomas, the narrowest victory in TPTCC competition. |
2001 Jan Kohl, Champion, Winter Season Online Team: The Pits Performance Team Manufacturer: Ford Team's Champion - The Pits Performance Team Manufacturer's Champion - Ford Mustang Cobra  Terry Vreeland, Champion, Summer Season Online Team: SimRacing Germany Manufacturer: BMW Team's Champion - SimRacing Germany Manufacturer's Champion - BMW |
The 2001 season marked some big changes...the first being the racing sim. The TPTCC 2000 patch was used to modify NASCAR Racing 3 with a new body, and great online action. And online action was the key word, as this was the first year that TPTCC had ever been in direct competition online. The 2001 season was actually made up of two smaller seasons, the Winter season and the Summer season. While TPTCC had run Winter seasons before, they had never been counted in overall TPTCC competition for championships. So, in 2001 there were TWO championship rounds, and two championship winners.
The Winter season started off at Sears Point, and the online competition was fierce, with 44 drivers entered (although most races only had 12-15 drivers). The racing format was changed slightly to have a long race with pit stops, then the next track would have two short non-pitstop rounds, then it would repeat at the FOLLOWING track with a long race...and so on. Jan Kohl, of The Pits Performance Team started off the year never having won a single TPTCC round before, but by season's end had not only won five races, but set the all-time TPTCC record of winning four races in a row (Crystal Palace, Willow Springs - both rounds, and Bullrun). That run, plus finishing in the top five 11 out of 13 rounds put him up as the inaugural online TPTCC champion. The Summer season began where the Winter season left off, same long-short race format, and adding a few different racetracks. And again, the competition was fierce. Terry Vreeland, another long-time TPTCC driver who had never won in previous years, showed in 2001 that online racing was where it was at. Kevin Jurasinski, winner of the 1999 Group C championship, proved to be a serious contender, but Terry was not to be denied. In the Winter season Terry won his first TPTCC race, but went on a roll with the Summer season, winning seven races and ten pole positions...and taking home the Summer championship. With him and Jan each winning 9 races out of a total of 28 races for the 2001 season, the competition got tired of seeing Terry's grey/blue BMW and Jan's gold/purple Mustang. |
2002 Rusty Greer, Group A Champion, Winter Season Online Team: Team RTB Manufacturer: Opel Team's Champion - Team RTB Manufacturer's Champion - Opel  Clarence Fiander, Group B Champion, Winter Season Online Team: Fiander Brothers Racing Manufacturer: Opel  Olivier Raumel, Champion, Summer Tour 2K2 Team: Manufacturer: Mercedes |
The 2002 TPTCC Season can be defined in two ways; change and growing pains. For the first time in TPTCC history, the racing formula was not based on a modified Papyrus sim. Thomas Heineman's DTM Heat mod of Hasbro/MGI's NASCAR Heat sim was utilized, featuring multiple car bodies (Alfa Romeo, Mercedes Benz, Opel), more realistic physics and damage models, and a completely new set of parameters for drivers developed on and used to Papy sims. Still, it was Papyrus experience that ruled the day as NASCAR Heat veteran Rusty Greer dominated the Group A season with nine race wins out of a possible sixteen races, and 8 poles, besting his brother and teammate Van Greer's five wins and 6 poles. Group B was a more wide open, closer affair, with Clarence Fiander's Opel edging John Palmer for class honors based on his four wins and 2 poles. A brief Group C championship was contested before being folded into Group A and B midway through the season. Summer 2002 brought several changes to The Pits Touring Car Championship. For the first time, the main championship was be contested over the Winter months while a more casual Summer Tour 2K2 was run to get new drivers accustomed to racing online while testing new tracks and patches to the DTM mod. With six wins on the season, Olivier Raumel (left) bested TPTCC veterans James Altemus and Clarence Fiander for the Summer Tour 2K2 title. Click on the 2002 at left to see The Pits TPTCC site, later that year The Pits regained the TPTCC.com domain name, and uploaded the new site there. When you are on the 2002 The Pits TPTCC site, click on "TPTCC Newswire" to see the later TPTCC.com site, or click here. |
2003 Tim McArthur, Summer Season Online Team: Mach 1 Motorsports Manufacturer: Ford Team's Champion - Fiander Brothers Racing Manufacturer's Champion - Ford |
The 2003 season again saw some major changes to the TPTCC league. It was decided to move back to the Papyrus racing platform due to the age of the NASCAR Heat racing sim, and there was a 12 race summer season using NASCAR-spec stock cars on road courses. At the same time a limited 6-race NASCAR Heat summer series was run for a final send-off of the NASCAR Heat mod. Kevin Jurasinski won the final NASCAR Heat series. The Papyrus-based TPTCC championship began fairly even, but Tim McArthur finally ran away from the rest of the field, pulling in 4 race wins and 5 poles. The final race at Nurburgring Tim only needed to show up to clinch the championship. The final few races were ran using the new road-racing physics on the cup cars, which gave an idea of what the new mod would race like. Then, The Pits got involved in TPTCC again with a new mod for the N2003 racing sim. Like the original series, tin-top road racing was replicated with 4 new cars for the Papyrus game, Mustang, Ford GT, Corvette & Viper. |
2004 Rusty Greer, Group A Champion, Winter Season Online Team: Team RTB Manufacturer: Chevrolet Team's Champion - Team RTB Manufacturer's Champion - Ford  David Henrie, Group B Champion, Winter Season Online Team: TeamSMO Manufacturer: Opel |
The 2003-2004 Winter season started off with a bang. The largest TPTCC online fields ever showed up to try out the new mod for the Papyrus racing sim. 39 cars showed up for the Long Beach race, which is a huge amount for a tiny street course. However, throughout the long season, Rusty Greer persevered just like he had done for the TPTCC 2002 Championship. Even though he missed the first 2 events and finished poorly at the 3rd event, he came through with a commanding lead, finally winning 10 out of the 15 races and taking 11 poles. Tim McArthur tried to stay with Rusty, but for nought. The 2004 Winter season also brought back Group B due to he huge fields. Starting a little later in the season, the Group B cars ran the same tracks on alternate weeks. Ignacio Ciordia looked to be the favorite, winning 5 races and taking 4 pole positions. However, sometimes the consistency is the key, and Dave Henrie took the Group B championship by TWO POINTS! The difference was the fact that Ignacio started later in the season, Dave had 12 race finishes and 3 more top 10s than Ignacio. The final race for both groups was decided at an endurance event with driver swaps at Watkins Glen for double points. This interesting twist made the championship almost anyone's for the taking, but Rusty had enough points to show up and finish with a top 20. |
Special thanks for this TPTCC history presentation go to Sean Staples, for keeping excellent control of the TPTCC for so many years, James Altemus to taking up the reins in 2002, Kevin Jurasinski for doing the same late in the year, John Palmer, Jerry Liudahl, Gregory Alferov, and Adrian Collier for helping behind the scenes, Michael Heymanns for helping in 2000 when the league admin was not available plus compiling all those stats, all The Pits crew who put together such a fun patch (David Noonan, Jed Jedrzejewski, Gilles Benoit, David Turman and others) and finally to Papyrus for making such a great racing game!
But the real rocket was the "Russian Rocket" Dmitry Nekryukov, driving the Black Squirrel Honda Accord. Dmitry hails from Moscow, and his enthusiasm for the tin-top racing was felt by all, as he finished off with four wins and the championship.