FORMER British Touring Car Championship winner Tim Harvey is predicting an action-packed weekend as the most popular series in British motorsport returns to Croft Circuit – but the 1992 champion claims it is impossible to predict who will come out on top.

Croft first hosted the BTCC – then known as the British Saloon Car Championship – in 1968, making this weekend’s event the 50th anniversary of the circuit’s relationship with the touring cars series.

An initial stint lasted until 1971, and while a major Croft regeneration in the 1980s meant the championship did not return to the North-East until 1997, it has featured on the calendar every year since, becoming a hugely popular stop on the schedule for competitors and spectators alike.

Harvey was on the grid for the 1997 event – one that very nearly didn’t go ahead due to rain flooding the circuit – and has fond memories of the track.

“Croft always generates great action, with plenty of opportunities for overtaking and, dare I say it, incidents,” said Harvey, a 16-time race-winner who is now a BTCC commentator on ITV4. “It’s a difficult circuit to master - the first half of the lap is a high-speed challenge, before you get to the Complex, where you need to slow it all down. There’s a bit of everything, which is what the drivers really appreciate.

“I always enjoyed racing at Croft, whether in the BTCC, Porsche Carrera Cup GB or my one-off outing in the Ginetta GT SuperCup a few years ago.

“The first year, 1997, was certainly an interesting one. The one thing no venue can control is the weather, and Croft didn’t drain well back in those days – it’s much, much better now – but it’s testament to the circuit’s strength-of-character that the race meeting went ahead and went well, and Croft has remained a favourite on the BTCC calendar ever since.”

Fast forward 19 years to 2016, and Croft provided the platform for Ashley Sutton to scythe through the spray in changeable conditions to claim his breakthrough BTCC victory. Barely a year later, the Subaru star clinched the coveted drivers’ crown at the end of only his second season, but it was Yorkshire where he first made his mark.

“That was a really significant moment – the point at which people properly sat up and said, ‘Boy, this kid has got something special,’” said Harvey. “He made the most of his opportunity in tricky conditions, so I’d say Croft was where he really announced his arrival – and in some style. And then obviously he went on to fulfil that potential by winning the championship last year.”

Results might be proving hard to come by for Sutton at present, but the man currently leading the charge – BMW’s Colin Turkington – has earned the sobriquet ‘King of Croft’ for his sustained success at the track over the years.

Turkington has claimed 12 race wins, 19 podium finishes and eight fastest laps at Croft, but Harvey does not expect the Ulsterman to have things his own way this weekend, with a quartet of local heroes all eager to steal the spotlight.

“Colin’s results can be attributed to consistently putting the standout rear wheel-drive driver in the best rear wheel-drive car,” he said. “That said, things have now evened out a bit in terms of the front wheel-drive/rear wheel-drive difference at Croft, and while I still expect him to have a slight edge, running with maximum ballast in qualifying and race one as championship leader certainly won’t make life easy for him.

“The BTCC is proving absolutely impossible to predict this year, with ten or 15 drivers that can realistically win races – including the four Yorkshiremen in the field.

“None of them will be carrying any extra weight, and Sam Tordoff in particular has been quick everywhere while Dan Cammish is due a good weekend and the Honda he drives has traditionally gone well around Croft – so there should be plenty for the home crowd to get excited about.”

Leeds-based Cammish is the best-placed of the four Yorkshire drivers in the championship standings approaching the midway stage of the season, having taken a brace of podium finishes from the opening 12 races.

He is narrowly trailed by Driffield’s Senna Proctor and Bradford’s Sam Tordoff. The former – in his second season in the series – claimed his breakthrough BTCC victory in a dramatic race at Brands Hatch earlier this year, while the latter is a former championship runner-up. Although plagued by ill-fortune since the start of the current campaign, Tordoff has the best qualifying record of anybody in the field and, like Proctor, should be a leading contender this weekend.