Hillclimbing and sprinting

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Hi all,

I have decided to have a stab at motorsport this year and I am after a few pointers.

Having taken part in some timed events at trackdays I have been on, I have decided that Hillclimbing / Sprinting is the discipline for me - especially as the costs are quite reasonable as far as motorsport goes. I live in Oxford and from what I can see the PPC speed championship would be a good option for me as most of the events are in fairly easy reach of Oxford. However I am open to suggestions of other championships if anyone thinks there might be something more suitable for a novice and / or better location wise for Oxford.

Before the championship starts I would like to do two things:

- Take my car (Toyota Celica GT-Four) to an event where I can get a friendly scrutineer to give it a once over as I don't want to turn up to my first event and fail scruitineering. It would be also good to watch an event and get a feel for how things are run. Any suggestions for a suitable event?

- Get some practice in - Ideally I would have liked to go to one of the hillclimb schools, but from what I can see the first event for each school is run well after the start of the season. Again, any suggestions?

Any other pointers / advide from people competing in these sort of events would also be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Adam

[delS1]

Have a look here

http://forum.fdmc.org.uk/phpBB2/

lots of events and pretty close to you I think.

delS1

[andyps]

There is a new book out on the subject of hillclimbing and sprinting - a good read with some really useful information. There is information about it here - some other good stuff on the Harewood website about getting started.

[lord summerisle]

Yip, good book that.

Harewood has a very good school day - very popular. As so both Prescott and Shesley (i think)

As for Championship - theres always the Hillclimb and Sprint Association (HSA) championship - very open, you enter as many of their rounds as you want and out of the 16 round your top 8 or so results count. they run classes at most hills in the country at some point during the year.

[chris_w]

The earliest sprint of the year (to my knowledge) is the Borough 19 shake down sprint on the 2nd March. It's not a championship event so not sure how strict scrutineering will be but could be worth popping over to North Weald.

Details aren't up yet but should appear on their site here:
http://www.borough19motorclub.co.uk/Regs.htm

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Thanks everyone

[onomatopoeia]

Getting along to an event to watch how it runs is a good idea, first time I did one I'd not been to one before and it was all a bit "eeek! what do I do next?!". Shouldn't worry about practicing though, just drive to what you can see to start with and gradually push harder throughout the day.

Another early season event that may be reachable for you is our new 1 3/4 lap Castle Combe event on 29th March. I'll be up overseeing course control and hoping that our carefully worked out timings don't all fall to pieces when we get cars on the circuit . At most speed events the scrutineers have time on their hands by about 11am, having seen all the cars and got their expenses claim in. I've always found the ones we use to be entirely amenable to looking at things that are not strictly to do with the event in hand, provided it doesn't interfere with what they are there to do.

[lord summerisle]

onomatopoeia said:

Getting along to an event to watch how it runs is a good idea, first time I did one I'd not been to one before and it was all a bit "eeek! what do I do next?!". Shouldn't worry about practicing though, just drive to what you can see to start with and gradually push harder throughout the day.

and if its your first time - make sure you get there early enough to walk the course, to get some kind of idea of the layout, and dont forget to squat so your at the same height as you are when driving - for corners like Country @ Harewood and Museum @ Loton Park dont look too back when you walk up, but are blind entrys from the drivers seat. The tip being - if you can see the corner before you brake then your too late.
Country its not to bad, as theres just a large field infront of you, wereas Loton theres a nice big bank to hit (that has launched cars OVER the tyrewall in the past)