Open wheeler track days?

[I Like Tea]

pablo said:

shirt said:

pablo said:

I get the appeal of a proper racing car but you’ll be no quicker in a single seater than a fast Westfield or Caterham

Don’t be silly, they’re worlds apart.

For the OP, once you have some experience in the car, may be worth getting in touch with these guys:

http://monoposto.co.uk/

They advertise a season’s racing for £4k, and I’m sure will be able to assist with training and test days.

Yes the cars are worlds apart but if he only intends to use it a few times a year, its going to be hard to build up the experience to get the most out of a FRenault et al. Better to jump into a car that is easier to get to 8/10ths and 8/10ths in a Caterham MegaGrad is about the lap time as 5/10ths in a FRenault, which is all he will be driving it a few times a year on a test day with no crew, no telemetry and no coaching...

Mono on £4k a season.... so that covers Entry fees and travel.....

Can't agree with that. In the same car at a circuit they know, any good club racer will get within 90% of a good monoposto driver within about 20 laps. A FR is not some magical thing that only the chosen shall unlock the secrets of. Yes it would be helpful to have telemetry to get split times for comparison, but that should be enough to get down to a time. I love Caterhams and have a lot of time in them but for an experience I would take the FR and the OP wants an experience.

[Jim Spencer]

pablo said:

Mono on £4k a season.... so that covers Entry fees and travel.....

Hi, yeah but there's not a lot else..

Just finished my first proper season (did a couple of meetings in 2019) and it's cost less than that.. (6 events, normally 8 or 9)
I'm running a 88 Reynard, fitted with a mono spec VW (i.e. a bog standard golf 16v on a big set of carbs) instead of the spiess, and it's been entry fees, fuel and tyres - and lots of people run the 'run once for 10 laps by some 16 year old wanna be superstar F3/4 pirelli's, you's for £100 a set' - my tyre bill, 2 sets of slicks and a set of wets of the aforementioned..

If i've spent much more than £500 a weekend all in i'd be very surprised, though one doesn't count every penny of course.

Sure if you stack it it's going to cost a few quid, but you see a lot less bent cars than you might think and compared to anything with bodywork the bits to fix them are a lot less than one might imagine too.

I'd certainly not be overawed by the concept of getting out there either - my very first race meeting was at Donington last year, middle aged fat bloke sat in a F3 reynard.. driven for about half an hour around Three sisters.. it was a bit 'interesting' but good people are there to help you and once you've worked out how the day works and done a couple of events you'll be wondering why it took you so long..

If you want a single seater then something like a formula renault (or anything else that hasn't got an exotic engine in it) would offer a nice simple package and you'll have a blast.. it's all about getting out there and enjoying yourself and in something like mono you'll always have somebody to race against too.

Highly recommended.

[I Like Tea]

Jim Spencer said:

Hi, yeah but there's not a lot else..

Just finished my first proper season (did a couple of meetings in 2019) and it's cost less than that.. (6 events, normally 8 or 9)
I'm running a 88 Reynard, fitted with a mono spec VW (i.e. a bog standard golf 16v on a big set of carbs) instead of the spiess, and it's been entry fees, fuel and tyres - and lots of people run the 'run once for 10 laps by some 16 year old wanna be superstar F3/4 pirelli's, you's for £100 a set' - my tyre bill, 2 sets of slicks and a set of wets of the aforementioned..

If i've spent much more than £500 a weekend all in i'd be very surprised, though one doesn't count every penny of course.

Sure if you stack it it's going to cost a few quid, but you see a lot less bent cars than you might think and compared to anything with bodywork the bits to fix them are a lot less than one might imagine too.

I'd certainly not be overawed by the concept of getting out there either - my very first race meeting was at Donington last year, middle aged fat bloke sat in a F3 reynard.. driven for about half an hour around Three sisters.. it was a bit 'interesting' but good people are there to help you and once you've worked out how the day works and done a couple of events you'll be wondering why it took you so long..

If you want a single seater then something like a formula renault (or anything else that hasn't got an exotic engine in it) would offer a nice simple package and you'll have a blast.. it's all about getting out there and enjoying yourself and in something like mono you'll always have somebody to race against too.

Highly recommended.

Hello Jim, that’s exciting, never thought you’d leave the hills. Are you accumulating all the remaining 88 Reynards . How are you getting on? I’m guessing you’re comfortably within 90% of the class front runner.

There is also F3 Cup, although a chunk more expensive if you want to run near the front.

Robbie

[Jim Spencer]

Hi Robbie, small world!

Lol.. I'm still running on the hills, using my 883/ZX10.. just keeping to the midland hillclimb champs (or, some of it - that was/is the plan..)
There's a long story involving this one;- involving googling for Reynard spares, a trip to Spain to bring back a 883/ Spiess VW that last ran at Pau in 1990.. that I then recommissioned and ran 'as was' at Donington last year, a Spiess coming out over the winter and a Golf Gti 16v taking it's place ready for this season.

Monoposto, with it's KIS engine principle is ideal for me, and it's affordable because of it, simple engines are cheap, there's little to go wrong and they run on pump fuel, Club F3 is a totally different league, but something like the HSCC Geoff Lees Trophy invitational class might appeal - depending on where they go.

I had a simple plan at my first circuit race.. keep it on the tarmac bits, don't get in the way and preferably don't come last - managed all of those ok, the driving round the track bit being fine it just being odd having to share it with other people while you do it.. had a couple of class wins this season, people to race against at every event (as it's multi class) and had loads of fun as I've steadily found my feet - I can highly recommend mono as offering a huge amount of bang for ones buck.


Anyhow, you've gone a got a Force eh?

Sounds like you've found your feet with it pretty well! We going to be seeing you at some of the hills in 21?

[I Like Tea]

Been searching for F3 cars for sale this morning because of this . Looked at 2020 Monoposto results and the grids are bigger than I recall, noticed Jedi's go very well too. Certainly looks better value than the Caterham's I raced, they were expensive, but I was in a mod prod/silhouette championship with few limitations.

The Force is fun, a new challenge and still surprisingly competitive for a 20 year old chassis. Will do the Harewood championship in it next season, not had much running so far but am down to the previous owners best time at Harewood and he came 2nd in the FTD championship in 2019, happy with that.

I'll give you a call next season to blag some Monoposto tickets for when you're at Oulton