TCR has now reached the Baltic region, where a TCR Trophy category will be run next year within the popular Eneos 1000Km race at Palanga, Lithuania.
The announcement was made this morning, during a crowded press conference in the media centre of the Palanga racetrack, just before the start of the 17^th edition of the 1000Km racethat was also visited by Lithuania’s Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport and Palanga’s Mayor.
The first TCR car sold to Lithuania, a JAS-built Honda Civic owned by the Rimo Team was exhibited in front of the media centre.

Darius Jonušis, CEO of the Vilnius-based Promo Events that organizes the race in Palanga explained: “There are a lot of teams and drivers between Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia that are looking with interest to TCR as a category that delivers high level competition at affordable costs. We think this is the right moment to start introducing TCR in the region, beginning with the creation of a dedicated category in the Eneos 1000Km from next year. This is meant to be the first step towards the establishment of a proper TCR Baltic Championship that might also extend as far as Poland.”

Among this year’s competitors in the Eneos 1000Km race was Steve Vanbellingen from Belgium, who is also racing a Volkswagen Golf GTI in TCR Benelux. He said: “This will be a great opportunity to open a new market to sell and rent TCR cars. And on top of this, I think that TCR cars will be very competitive at Palanga; they could even fight for the overall victory in case of rain…”