Oh crap, I bought a race car! Oh crap, it's an XR2!!!
Discussion
Well, after years of saying I want to go racing and even getting as far as buying a car to race prep I've actually gone out and bought a race car!
I've always loved the idea of going racing and I watch most forms of motorsport on TV and even live occasionally, but apart from taking part in a karting championship last year I've never got any closer to actually racing cars. However, last year I started working for an ex BTCC driver/champion and as you can imagine most of the conversations we have are to do with racing. He has actually just started getting back into racing himself after a break of about 18 years so I'm constantly being told about where and what he's been driving! Obviously this has just fuelled my desire to give it a try myself so I recently started looking around at cars that were (pretty much) ready to race. Now there is some crap out there that is listed as being an ex race winning car but has since been stripped of all the decent bits and is just an overpriced trackday car. To be honest after looking at 3 or 4 cars I was starting to lose heart a bit. I started chatting to our marketing lady who as it happens also used to race, albeit not quite at BTCC level and she started helping me look for something half decent. After a couple more dead ends I jokingly said to her that she should sell me her car (I probably should of mentioned that she had a MK2 XR2 stored at home that she used to race!). Initially she said that she would probably never sell it as she was too attached to it, however after continuing this conversation she invited me over to her house to have a look at the car and have a sit in it to see if I actually liked the idea of an XR2. I went round that evening and was greeted by a rather sad looking XR2 race car.
She had owned it for the last 12 years, raced it for about 5 years and then became pregnant and stopped racing. She revived the car a couple of years ago and did some trackdays in it but never got as far as racing it again. Since then it had been moved around a bit and she had even spent some money having the engine rebuilt and a set of Weber 40's fitted. Then she parked it up again and lost interest, but just couldn't bare to part with it.
I had a good look around it and the body wasn't actually too bad. It had the usual crusty battery tray and front inner arches but overall it was pretty solid (for an XR2!). I was quite interested to see what it ran like and was amazed when she said the battery was all charged! However, it hadn't been started for a while so I wasn't holding my breath. I jumped in, flicked the various switches and turned the key. It turned over, and over, and over. I left it a few minutes and tried again. It turned over, and over, and then it started to cough and splutter, and lo and behold it spluttered into life! It was running lumpier than a lumpy thing but it sounded quite mean! I finished doing my looking around and then said to her that if she decides she can part with it then I would give her £**** for it.
Fast forward about a week and she text me asking if I still wanted to buy it! She had come to the conclusion that she wasn't going to race it again but definitely wanted to go racing again. She had had a discussion with her sister (who races in the MG Owners Championship) and between them they had concocted a plan to sell both their race cars and buy one to share between them.
That brings us up to date for now. She has agreed to sell me the car for the price that I offered her. She is going to throw in all the spares she has (basically an entire XR2 in bits!) and will introduce me to all the people in the Blue Oval Saloon Series that she used to race in (which is also the series I will be racing in).
Now annoyingly I don't have anywhere to store the car immediately so it's staying at hers until I clear some space. She sent me over some pictures of it in its various colours over the years and a video of it running, but when I go and collect it I will take some more up to date ones. Now to say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. The idea is to spend the rest of this year welding up the few crusty bits, get the suspension refreshed, having the carbs set up on a rolling road and respray it in a colour that I haven't decided yet ready to take it racing next year.
I'll try to keep this updated as and when things are happening but for now here are the pictures that I was sent.
I've always loved the idea of going racing and I watch most forms of motorsport on TV and even live occasionally, but apart from taking part in a karting championship last year I've never got any closer to actually racing cars. However, last year I started working for an ex BTCC driver/champion and as you can imagine most of the conversations we have are to do with racing. He has actually just started getting back into racing himself after a break of about 18 years so I'm constantly being told about where and what he's been driving! Obviously this has just fuelled my desire to give it a try myself so I recently started looking around at cars that were (pretty much) ready to race. Now there is some crap out there that is listed as being an ex race winning car but has since been stripped of all the decent bits and is just an overpriced trackday car. To be honest after looking at 3 or 4 cars I was starting to lose heart a bit. I started chatting to our marketing lady who as it happens also used to race, albeit not quite at BTCC level and she started helping me look for something half decent. After a couple more dead ends I jokingly said to her that she should sell me her car (I probably should of mentioned that she had a MK2 XR2 stored at home that she used to race!). Initially she said that she would probably never sell it as she was too attached to it, however after continuing this conversation she invited me over to her house to have a look at the car and have a sit in it to see if I actually liked the idea of an XR2. I went round that evening and was greeted by a rather sad looking XR2 race car.
She had owned it for the last 12 years, raced it for about 5 years and then became pregnant and stopped racing. She revived the car a couple of years ago and did some trackdays in it but never got as far as racing it again. Since then it had been moved around a bit and she had even spent some money having the engine rebuilt and a set of Weber 40's fitted. Then she parked it up again and lost interest, but just couldn't bare to part with it.
I had a good look around it and the body wasn't actually too bad. It had the usual crusty battery tray and front inner arches but overall it was pretty solid (for an XR2!). I was quite interested to see what it ran like and was amazed when she said the battery was all charged! However, it hadn't been started for a while so I wasn't holding my breath. I jumped in, flicked the various switches and turned the key. It turned over, and over, and over. I left it a few minutes and tried again. It turned over, and over, and then it started to cough and splutter, and lo and behold it spluttered into life! It was running lumpier than a lumpy thing but it sounded quite mean! I finished doing my looking around and then said to her that if she decides she can part with it then I would give her £**** for it.
Fast forward about a week and she text me asking if I still wanted to buy it! She had come to the conclusion that she wasn't going to race it again but definitely wanted to go racing again. She had had a discussion with her sister (who races in the MG Owners Championship) and between them they had concocted a plan to sell both their race cars and buy one to share between them.
That brings us up to date for now. She has agreed to sell me the car for the price that I offered her. She is going to throw in all the spares she has (basically an entire XR2 in bits!) and will introduce me to all the people in the Blue Oval Saloon Series that she used to race in (which is also the series I will be racing in).
Now annoyingly I don't have anywhere to store the car immediately so it's staying at hers until I clear some space. She sent me over some pictures of it in its various colours over the years and a video of it running, but when I go and collect it I will take some more up to date ones. Now to say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. The idea is to spend the rest of this year welding up the few crusty bits, get the suspension refreshed, having the carbs set up on a rolling road and respray it in a colour that I haven't decided yet ready to take it racing next year.
I'll try to keep this updated as and when things are happening but for now here are the pictures that I was sent.
Fantastic! I'm sure you will love it.
I did 5 seasons in the XR Challenge in an XR3i and I have extremely fond memories of it, great cars to race!
We used to use track days for testing and the amount of supposed 'fast cars' we would embarrass because of the handling was awesome, people would come over and be amazed that it was only a 1.6!
Are you allowed to run a diff? The regs changed half way through my time in the XRC and the difference was incredible.
I did 5 seasons in the XR Challenge in an XR3i and I have extremely fond memories of it, great cars to race!
We used to use track days for testing and the amount of supposed 'fast cars' we would embarrass because of the handling was awesome, people would come over and be amazed that it was only a 1.6!
Are you allowed to run a diff? The regs changed half way through my time in the XRC and the difference was incredible.
Maty said:
Fantastic! I'm sure you will love it.
I did 5 seasons in the XR Challenge in an XR3i and I have extremely fond memories of it, great cars to race!
We used to use track days for testing and the amount of supposed 'fast cars' we would embarrass because of the handling was awesome, people would come over and be amazed that it was only a 1.6!
Are you allowed to run a diff? The regs changed half way through my time in the XRC and the difference was incredible.
Hi Maty. I'm sure I raced against you in the XR Challenge. Did 11 years in fantastic series. 👍I did 5 seasons in the XR Challenge in an XR3i and I have extremely fond memories of it, great cars to race!
We used to use track days for testing and the amount of supposed 'fast cars' we would embarrass because of the handling was awesome, people would come over and be amazed that it was only a 1.6!
Are you allowed to run a diff? The regs changed half way through my time in the XRC and the difference was incredible.
No updates on the car I'm afraid, however I was down at Brands yesterday to take my ARDS test which I passed 
I was a bit nervous as it's been about 4 years since I've driven on track and my nerves weren't calmed when I turned up to see a load of Ginettas and Caterhams flying around the track! Thankfully the examiner was happy that I could navigate my way around the busy track sufficiently and with his advice of "You're a bit rusty on track so do some track days before going racing" my license application was stamped and I was on my way home again
Another box ticked!
I was a bit nervous as it's been about 4 years since I've driven on track and my nerves weren't calmed when I turned up to see a load of Ginettas and Caterhams flying around the track! Thankfully the examiner was happy that I could navigate my way around the busy track sufficiently and with his advice of "You're a bit rusty on track so do some track days before going racing" my license application was stamped and I was on my way home again Another box ticked!
daniel-5zjw7 said:
Good story so far, it seems everyone around you races!
So go on then what ex BTCC driver are you working for, I'm intrigued!
Ps. I think it looks great in yellow :-)
Haha I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to ask. I work for Jeff Allam. So go on then what ex BTCC driver are you working for, I'm intrigued!
Ps. I think it looks great in yellow :-)
Yeh I quite like it in yellow too although at the moment I'm veering towards red.
I've used these guys a few times and would use again they are in Slough and look after lots of racing cars.
http://www.novatech.info
http://www.novatech.info
rallycross said:
I've used these guys a few times and would use again they are in Slough and look after lots of racing cars.
http://www.novatech.info
Thanks, I've just left them a message. http://www.novatech.info
Ok, it's finally time for another small update!
For the last couple of months I've been trying to find a lockup garage to rent so that I had somewhere to keep the car! The local council have been absolutely useless, promising calls back that have never materialised and being generally crap, so I started looking at privately owned garages. As it turns out there aren't many out there anymore but after a couple of months one popped up just down the road from me and was reasonably priced (for round here anyway!) so I had it.
With storage secured I could finally arrange to have the car brought over! Originally a friend of mine (who's a recovery driver) had agreed to pick it up and drop it off for me but when the time came he seemed to vanish off the face of the earth so I got onto Shiply and got a very reasonable quote. On Friday just gone the car was picked up from Sarah's house and dropped off at my garage. When it arrived the recovery driver said I could drive it off the truck (yes, it still starts and drives even after sitting around for another 6 months!), so I jumped in, started it up and reversed it off the truck and into the garage. My first ever drive of my race car hehe.
Annoyingly I had other things to do on Friday so I spent about half an hour in the garage just peeling off some of the stickers and sitting in it making race car noises before heading off to get on with my day.
Here it is (looking very sorry for itself).
It's going to need a fair amount of work but then I knew that anyway. Itching to get started on it now!
For the last couple of months I've been trying to find a lockup garage to rent so that I had somewhere to keep the car! The local council have been absolutely useless, promising calls back that have never materialised and being generally crap, so I started looking at privately owned garages. As it turns out there aren't many out there anymore but after a couple of months one popped up just down the road from me and was reasonably priced (for round here anyway!) so I had it.
With storage secured I could finally arrange to have the car brought over! Originally a friend of mine (who's a recovery driver) had agreed to pick it up and drop it off for me but when the time came he seemed to vanish off the face of the earth so I got onto Shiply and got a very reasonable quote. On Friday just gone the car was picked up from Sarah's house and dropped off at my garage. When it arrived the recovery driver said I could drive it off the truck (yes, it still starts and drives even after sitting around for another 6 months!), so I jumped in, started it up and reversed it off the truck and into the garage. My first ever drive of my race car hehe.
Annoyingly I had other things to do on Friday so I spent about half an hour in the garage just peeling off some of the stickers and sitting in it making race car noises before heading off to get on with my day.
Here it is (looking very sorry for itself).
It's going to need a fair amount of work but then I knew that anyway. Itching to get started on it now!
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