Can i go racing for £20k??

Can i go racing for £20k??

Author
Discussion

batmanreturns

Original Poster:

536 posts

268 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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SO, can i get a seasons racing for £20k and if so what race series do i need to look at? I could stretch a little more if required but i'd rather avoid the Caterham academy.

tristancliffe

357 posts

212 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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Are you planning on running your own car?

If you are, then you can do almost any club championship for less than £20k once you've got a car. If you liked single seaters, you could get yourself a formula ford, a van, a trailer and enough money to do a full season plus some testing for £20k. If you already had an F3 car, you could do F3 Cup.

If you want to have your car prepped for you, then it suddenly gets harder, because you are paying for people to do stuff for you, and I don't think there will be much out there at that price.

batmanreturns

Original Poster:

536 posts

268 months

Monday 28th July 2014
quotequote all
Sorry, i was not clear. I've got no car, what i was hopeing for was to buy a drive whereby i essentially turn up on race days and shake down/testing days and drive the pants off it to get a win. Having my own car would be a pain storage wise etc.

kimducati

342 posts

163 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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batmanreturns said:
Sorry, i was not clear. I've got no car, what i was hopeing for was to buy a drive whereby i essentially turn up on race days and shake down/testing days and drive the pants off it to get a win. Having my own car would be a pain storage wise etc.
Quite a few offers out there for £1 - 1.2K per weekend, so THEORETICALLY do-able, BUT
That figure won't include testing, so add another £500 - 750 per day for that.
It also won't include damage, either body / chassis or mechanical, so the sky's the limit there, depending what championship you're in (driving standards).
Nor will it include travelling to / from the track or accommodation.
In general terms, with all of the above taken into account, I reckon you can at least double the 'up front' figure, maybe more if your damage bill is high / you dont like Travel Lodges.

Kim

andrewcliffe

936 posts

223 months

Monday 28th July 2014
quotequote all
Depends what you want to race...

There are the ultra cheap and cheerful series like the Mk 1 MR2 club / Nippon Challenge / Hyundai Cup where you can get some very cheap deals.

Otherwise:

There are three tiers

a) you buy and run car yourself. Discounted due to storage problems

b) the team owns the car and you rent a seat per event/season. The risk on the car is passed onto you.
or

c) you own car and therefore risk, and someone else stores, maintains and transports it. Quite a lot of people own their racing car, but then its stored/maintained and brought to events for them to use.

Z3MCJez

531 posts

171 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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I do (c) of the above and am leading the Caterham Graduates SigMax championship. However, a decent car will set you back £14k+ and I'm going to spend anout £16k-£18k for the season. That's 16 rounds all in (including travel to Spa etc.)

At the end of it the car should be worth broadly what you paid for it though, albeit that the above cost doesn't include a replacement engine, which is going to be needed at some point (every 4 years seems a rule of thumb from the Sigma lumps).

I'm not sure you can get much quicker than a Caterham for the money. We run quite a bit quicker than the Mk3 MX5s (something like 7% quicker, depending on the track) although that does look like a decent series. And if you wanted, you could do the Megas championship with a competitive car only setting you back £10k at the outset.

Decide if you want to run in a single-make championship or a general championship before you go much further with this. And then look at grid sizes. We are running 15-20 this year, but I expect Sigmax to be up to 20-25 next year with a few of the lower spec "Sigma" class upgrading.

Jez

Z3MCJez

531 posts

171 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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Addendum. You can go much quicker in something like Formula Jedi. But I, for one, don't want to race a single seater, as when you stuff it in the wall, there's not much in front of you.

Jez

andrewcliffe

936 posts

223 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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But you could buy a carbon fibre tubbed F3 car or F3 derived car. I've seen late 1990's Dallara F3 cars sell for £ 12 - £ 15k which could potentially win races outright and are probably a better place to be in an accident than most racing cars.

anonymous-user

53 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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Lotus 11 available for £3k per race all in here £20k gets you a few races including some European historic endurance events driver sharing with the owner... or you could spend the £20k racing an MR2 around Pembrey....




Danddracing

4 posts

116 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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My team currently runs a car in the brscc mx5 supercup, brilliant championship and a full season is definatly achievable with your budget. Drop us an email danddracing@outlook.com if you would like any more info.
Dan

lamboman100

1,445 posts

120 months

Monday 28th July 2014
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Banger racing. You can do about 5 to 10 seasons for that money.

Jerry Can

4,424 posts

222 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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it's definately possible to do a season of arrive n drive for £20k. It just depends on what type of car you want to race eg single seaters or saloons, fwd or rwd.

I don't know much about single seaters, but tin tops you could race competitively in

stock hatch - be prepared for some accident bills,
compact cup
750 mc renault clios
mx5's
mr2's
vw golfs

you could also contact various race prep companies who may have something a little faster for you to race, you just have to ask them.

it would help to know your experience however as this may impact on what you want to race.

a couple of things to be aware of though, £20k is a lot of money to sink into memories, as without owning anything there will be nothing left to show for it. Also when talking to teams and coming to an agreement you must ensure that there is some kind of pro rata rebate for any failure on a car that is due to poor preparation. It will annoy you immensely if you have stumped up £1000 only for the big end bearings to fail as the car is being driven down the pit lane and denies you a race.

MyVTECGoesBwaaah

820 posts

141 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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lamboman100 said:
Banger racing. You can do about 5 to 10 seasons for that money.
I don't know - From what some rumours suggest you may not get much more than 1 season if you get race-prepped dyno'd engines and track day sticky tyres!

andyc11

326 posts

131 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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The mk1 MR2 series is where I'm looking to go next season. Have the same issues with storing and transporting a car, but Prize Motorsport are able to take care of that. They can also supply a new build car, or I can buy used (between £1,500 and £3,000). Add the cost of the ARDS, medical, club membership, gear and race entries in, it's still not cheap but certainly less than £20k. Looks a great series for someone like me, who's just starting out.

The arrive and drive prices I got quoted were ridiculous. I completely understand that damage has to be repaired, but the cost/risk of the damage was higher than buying my own car and paying someone to store and transport it.

andyc11

326 posts

131 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
quotequote all
The mk1 MR2 series is where I'm looking to go next season. Have the same issues with storing and transporting a car, but Prize Motorsport are able to take care of that. They can also supply a new build car, or I can buy used (between £1,500 and £3,000). Add the cost of the ARDS, medical, club membership, gear and race entries in, it's still not cheap but certainly less than £20k. Looks a great series for someone like me, who's just starting out.

The arrive and drive prices I got quoted were ridiculous. I completely understand that damage has to be repaired, but the cost/risk of the damage was higher than buying my own car and paying someone to store and transport it.

geeks

9,121 posts

138 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
quotequote all
BMW Compact Cup.

A good front running car for less than £7k then give the likes of Andy Waters from AW Tracksport a call who will do you a package deal on transport and storage and spannering etc. Pay your own entry fees and arrange your own hotels. Easily affordable with that budget and you would have quite the chunk of change left over!

RC Developments

83 posts

123 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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Lotus Cup has a great production series or if you like historics I have a rotary engine Chevron B16 that we rent on an arrive and drive basis..

normal bloke

166 posts

186 months

Tuesday 29th July 2014
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Mini Seven Club?
£20k should get you a full season with testing in a competitive car in a competitive series.

andy97

4,691 posts

221 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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andrewcliffe said:
Depends what you want to race...

There are the ultra cheap and cheerful series like the Mk 1 MR2 club / Nippon Challenge / Hyundai Cup where you can get some very cheap deals.

Otherwise:

There are three tiers

a) you buy and run car yourself. Discounted due to storage problems

b) the team owns the car and you rent a seat per event/season. The risk on the car is passed onto you.
or

c) you own car and therefore risk, and someone else stores, maintains and transports it. Quite a lot of people own their racing car, but then its stored/maintained and brought to events for them to use.
There's a 4th option and that is to share a car in 2 driver races. Hook up with someone in CSCC who owns a car, transports it, prepares it and wants someone to share costs - there could be a wide choice of car types from classic 60s car through to modern tin tops or GTs.

Depending on the car and running costs I'd have thought that £20k would get a couple of seasons racing including outings at Spa.

normal bloke

166 posts

186 months

Wednesday 30th July 2014
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andy97 said:
There's a 4th option and that is to share a car in 2 driver races. Hook up with someone in CSCC who owns a car, transports it, prepares it and wants someone to share costs - there could be a wide choice of car types from classic 60s car through to modern tin tops or GTs.

Depending on the car and running costs I'd have thought that £20k would get a couple of seasons racing including outings at Spa.
Yes, a much better idea than mine! It's what I did to get started! Doh!