Thoughts on a UK race series....?

[Phokaioglaukos]

I had fun with the first generation Mazda MX-5/Miata this past season, and I just might do it again. The cars are very well balanced and lots of fun to drive, even if they are topless. You can see info about them here: http://www.ma5daracing.com/. Had I been more serious and actually seen the tracks before qualifying, I probably would have had a better time.

For next year, the Caterham R300 is a real possilbility: http://www.caterham.co.uk/assets/html/sh...tr300.html, but there is little side impact protection and they are also open cars. Much faster, though. I may get a test at Brands Hatch in mid-December.

The Ginetta G50/GT4 looks pretty interesting: http://www.ginettacars.com/motorsport_range.php, but I'm not sur how large the fields are and it's probably not a car to bring back to the US. The popular class of Ginetta racing seems to be the G20, and it's open.

Another possibility is http://www.vw-cup.co.uk/index.htm, but it would be odd to be out with so many different cars. Sort of a NASA-like classing by weight and HP, I guess.

Any suggestions?

This is in Off-Topic because there is Porsche Club GB racing, but only for 993s and earlier cars. The next step up is the £80,000/year GT3 Cup Challenge, and that's way too much money when you add a £60-80,000 car!

[JoeP]

Chris:  I do not like open-top cars on track, so my favorite non-Porsche would be a Banks copy of the Lotus Europa:

http://www.banks-europa.co.uk/cars_home.htm

They build them to order, so a stripped left-hand drive model with a Honda S2000 engine would be waaaaay cool.  For more torque, I like the 2.9 DOHC Ford Cosworth V6.  They are pretty cheap in the UK and have a great exhaust note at speed.

[Phokaioglaukos]

That's an interesting car, Joe. The circuits they race at are not very appealing, though: http://www.banks-europa.co.uk/racing.htm.

Another possibility is this one: http://www.renaultsport.co.uk/championsh...fault.aspx. FWD and all.

[ninjabones]

This looks like a pretty f'ing cool car for $39,000 and meets the 993 or earlier requirment for UK porsche club racing...

 

http://mall.rennlist.com/scripts/feature...=retrieval

 

 

[Brian Minkin]

ninjabones wrote:

This looks like a pretty f'ing cool car for $39,000 and meets the 993 or earlier requirment for UK porsche club racing...



http://mall.rennlist.com/scripts/feature...=retrieval

I'm Drooling!

[Darren]

I think there are decent fields racing the Caterham -- we saw a race at Spa with a bunch of them a few years back.  They look very fun to race.

Todd has some Lotus 7, not sure if it's a Caterham.  He actually is in the process of putting a new motor into it. He might be a good person to field some questions on that particular car.

I think if I had the opportunity, though, I'd look into open wheel racing there.

[Phokaioglaukos]

I talked with Todd over the weekend. His car is much older, and fits in some race classes in the US that the new R300 would probably not, yet, except maybe for NASA. He is very enthusiastic about the car--they are VERY capable. That said, they have little side impact protection and they do suffer from the issues of open wheel cars--wheel to wheel contact can lead to air. I saw that in a SCCA open wheel race at Summit Point (helicopter ride) and I have seen this video of the Caterhams: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svzmp56YPY0

The Ginetta G50 (£50,000 or so new) in GT4 configuration looks like it would be fun.