I am bored.
What is the cheapest fun intro to motorsport ?
I'm thinking hill climbs, rally, track. Dont fancy grasstrack. I would like to do something which can feed through and improve my ordinary driving (I am of course excellent already ;-) By which I mean vehicle control, understanding limits etc that you cant/shouldnt play with on the open road.
I know that there are road rallies which seem to be about mapreading and planing, and I could do trackdays but neither of those really appeal.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks
M
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I'd love to find a cheap way into rallying...even if it's just old scrap cars, but doing more than just banger racing or destruction derby.
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Regretably, there are no cheap ways into 'speed' motorsport, certainly not rallying or racing
Hillclimb/sprint is cheaper, but you may be at a meeting for 8 hours and only spend 5 or six minutes competing - a run for a fast car will be under a minute, you might get three practice runs before lunch, and three after
That leaves road rallying, autotests and production car / classic trialling, and I don't know how healthy they are these days, as I've been out of touch for a while.
The obvious place to start would be to go to your local motor club. You may find that they 'specialise' in one type of motorsport, but they might be able to point you in the direction of other clubs, or events that might interest you.
If you mant to let me know where you are, I'll try and find your local clubs
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Check out:
www.mroc.co.uk/mainindex.html
and have a look at the Comp Safari link. This involves timed circuits of a off road track at up to 70 - 80mph. Did it with a mate's dad in the eighties. Very exciting, on tree lined forest tracks in a V8 powered SWB Land Rover.
There's scrutineering, and you would possibly need a dedicated vehicle, but it's an absolute hoot, and costs are pretty minimal compared to pretty much any other "speed" motorsport.
The 88" 4.6 ARC spec motor for sale on the "For sale" section of the site is very much at the top end of what people run, or ran then. Most were in pretty standard Land Rovers, with the addition of roll cage and harnesses. There are different classes for different engines, so your wheezy 2.25 road legal hack is not up against 4.6 litre monsters like the one above. You more or less compete according to your budget, and there isn't the seriousness of, say, hillclimbing.
Hope this helps!
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The cheapest events will be ones that you can compete in your current vehicle.
That counts out rallying. There are 'standard' classes for hillcimbing and sprinting. I'm not too familiar with PCTs, so I don't know how you'd fare with a standard car on road tyres, but search the 'net and you'll find more info.
I think the correspondent above was over generous with his track time estimate for hillcimbs, you sometimes are lucky to even get a 2nd practice run and usually only a couple of timed runs.
Someone else mentioned that hillclimbing was 'serious', in my experience, at the lower end of classes (Minis) is that people are friendly and willing to chat, help out etc.
Single Venue Stage Rallying is probably the best value for money on an entry fee vs. track time basis, but you need a dedicated rallycar and tow vehicle.
The cheapest motorsport is a Run What Ya Brung event at a drag strip. I've done an event at Santa Pod and it was less than £20 for as many runs as you want. It's busy during the day but if you can stay until the end of the day then you don't have much of a queue by the end. It's surprisingly good fun and very addictive.
This website always used to have a huge amount of information, but I've not visited it in a long while, so can't vouch for its current contents: www.ukmotorsport.com/
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As it happens I was thinking the same last night and did a google on autotest, there doesn't appear to be a national club only regional, but found this during the search.
www.britishminiclub.co.uk/images/video/mini.wmv
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Its probably as cheap to drive over to the nurburgring every month, pays your money and see if you can beat Sabine!
www.nurburgring.org.uk/
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Check out: www.mroc.co.uk/mainindex.html and have a look at the Comp Safari link. This involves timed circuits of a off road track at up to 70 - 80mph. Did it with a mate's dad in the eighties. Very exciting, on tree lined forest tracks in a V8 powered SWB Land Rover.
I think going straight to Comping is not the best route for the unititiated. You need a highly specified well put together vehicle that will not be road legal, to either build or buy one of these will set you back a fair bit plus the budget for running a season will be high due to the regualr repairs that will be repaired.
I would suggest trying a bit of RTV'ing first of all with a fairly standard vehicle that, if you like that you could gain some experience there and then move up to CCV which is the halfway house between RTV and Comp Safari. I would imagine Comp Safari's to be quite a way down the line from just starting out.
www.staffs-shrops-lrc.co.uk/trial.html
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the BTRDA (British Trials and Rally Drivers Association) www.btrda.com/ claims to 'promote affordable motorsport'
PCT's & Autotests are all about car control (and in the case of autotests, memorising a route while spinning your car round) and both are meant to be non-destructive, though autotesting must be pretty rough on gearboxes and clutches, and i've seen bumpers ripped off and cars turn over on PCTs
Road rallies are (or were) all about navigation and average speed calculations - you get penalised just as much for being to quick as too slow, BUT if you choose the right historic or post historic event and buy an old mini, you could have a good time - they tend to be friendly events.
You can go sprint/hillclimbing in your bog standard road car - you need a helmet, not sure about gloves/overalls, but no roll-cage. At the last sprint I saw, the man in the Fiat Seicento was the man getting must value for his money - at 10 seconds a run slower than everybody else, he got at least a minute more track time !
But I really think very little motor sport experience will feed through to your everyday driving - what would, if you only ever drive a car, would be to spend a bit of cash on HGV or PSV lessons, or just hire a 7.5 tonner for the an afternoon - learn what things look like from a different seat
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I'd say the best intro would be a sony playstation 2, steering wheel controller with pedal box, an old car seat fitted with same to allow comfortable playing and a copy of Colin McRae 2005 and Gran Turismo. If you added a cheap projector to this lot and some half decent speakers you'd have a lot of the ambience too :-) Colin McRae & Gran Turismo 4 are amazingly realistic for giving you the feel of the different cars and different conditions. Having driven a real rally Focus the one in Colin McRae was exactly the same right down to the dead feeling steering!
That little lot (excluding projector) would be probably be a few hundred max and you would get precious little real motorsport time for that. You can get cheap projectors that are designed to be used with the playstation for about £350 I think.
I am sure some of the kitcar manufacturers have their own racing serious. The Robin Hood and Tiger seven style cars are only a couple of grand to build so racing them probably wouldn't be that expensive if you're not too mental :-)
teabelly
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Karting. Absolutely the most bang for your buck. Many F1 drivers did it.
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Karting. Absolutely the most bang for your buck. Many F1 drivers did it.
I thought of suggesting karting too, JBJ, but held back@
With second hand equipment in my first year of Class One (100cc two stroke, direct drive), yes, it was cheap motor racing. In the second, maybe. In the third...fourth........tenth, certainly not and I then gave up because by then I was racing nationally in Senior Britain Super and it was costing a fortune!
Yes, I could have stayed in a budget class but like anything competitive if you find you have an apptitude and like it, there's no challenge without stretching yourself.
I say this only to warn that karting is a drug that can seriously damage your bank balance! In my case it was the bank of father and son! (I am the latter and had a very generous sponsor in the former)
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Done rallying years ago,before my 2 daughters were born,but came out of it due to the expense.But what a buzz.
Went into road rallying after that,and had a great time,as it was fairly cheap,but even that can be expensive now,as cars can be as near to a group n rally car,as you can get,although I do believe there is a standard car class.You'll need a good navigator though,as it's all won and lost by the guy in the passenger seat.My best result was on the Beaver road rally,in 93 or 94,I can't remember,where I finished joint 3rd overall,mising out on 1st by 10 seconds!!!!!
I now do autograss,as my daughters are in double figures now,and I can afford to,and I currently race in Class 4,and have just won my clubs Class 4 title this year,with one race to go,which I don't need to do.
You can do Class 1,which,at the moment,is the standard Mini class,for a few hundred pounds,but you ain't really going to win anything unless you spend silly money within the class,but if you just want a days racing for about £10,then you can't go wrong.Our governing body,NASA,have announced that 2 new cars are allowed in Class 1 next year,the AX,being one of them,so as this is a new learning curve for all within the class,now may be a good time to get in.
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