Motor sports?

what sort of racing do u want to do? proper track racing? or oval racing?

Obviously things are different over on this side of the pond, but it really depends on what sort of racing you want to do.

Hillclimbs and autotests (I believe similar to what we call motorkhanas?) are at the cheaper end of the spectrum. They also tend to be a bit easier on equipment and consumables. For example, a set of street tyres will do a season of hillclimbs in Australia (our course are generally under 500m long though, so bear that in mind) while you will liekly destroy that same set of tyres in 1 track day.

If it is door to door racing you are after that makes things a little more difficult. I'd say you guys have a similar licencing system over there, with different level licences depending on the class/type of racing to be done. We have some great 1 make classes here (HQ Holdens and Commodore Cup being the main ones) which are generally the cheapest, and based on readily available cars. For example, a mid level HQ can be had here for $5000 - $7500 which is peanuts in race car terms! I would assume the situation is similar in England?

Our oval racing is a littl ebit different but the classes are somewhat similar. We race on dirt exclusively, and the cars are prepared accordongly. This is a form of racing that can be as cheap as you like (we have "street stocks" which are basically 6 cylinder road cars with roll cages and the doors welded up, through to sprint cars, with 700hp mechanically injected v8's). One good thing is there tends to be more ovals about than full race circuits. (An observation from my visits to England, so I might be incorrect)

The best way to get into it would be to get onto race car classifieds and see what falls into your budget. Withotu fail it is cheaper to buy an existing, sorted car than build from scratch. Then look into the class that car fits into (it iwll usually be listed in the ad) and research how that class is going. If it is a good strong class then there is likely a forum. Get on there, talk to the guys currently competing and see what costs look like. Things like fuel and tyre wear add up rapidly. You will also find towing a race car all over the countryside gets expensive quickly as well!

Also make sure you can either do most fo your routine mechanical work yourself or have mechanically able friends who are willing to travel with you for beer - if it wasn't for the beer economy in Australia I doubt we'd have motor racing in any form!

Hope this helps, I've pit crewed on a variety of circuit and oval cars so feel free to hit me up if you have any questions.

If you can get to Oulton Park on Saturday 22nd October, you can take a look at the MSV Trackday Trophy in action.
Novice race series with several classes suiting most levels of skill and financial commitment.
It's good fun, I've been to 3 of this years races supporting a mate.

drag racing? cheap and easy to get started RWYB then there are a number of series and championships you can join in from there.

Much of the grass roots stuff is not MSA either so no licence costs etc.

Might be worth the OP chipping in with what it is he enjoys about Trackdays -

Sprints & Hillclimbs give you the thrill of driving your car on the limit, and trying to improve your times as well as beat times set by others, but you're alone on the road.
Drag racing is a pretty direct route to the pursuit of more and more power. Wallet-emptying stuff, no two ways about it.
Drifting (at the budget end) is something that practically anyone with a working RWD car can have a go at, on and off. As robin has pointed out, the commitment level to it is very low. Worth a go even if it's just to find the absolute limits of a car you've built for another purpose.

For me it would come down to whether I wanted to race alone, or not.

+1

I desperately want to enter the ODC next year but I think I'm going to struggle to afford attending any drift practice days in the next year.

Autotesting is a great place to start, you can start at club racing level using your road car turn up at an event put the spare tyres on drive the car with in an inch of its life put the other tyres back on and drive the car home!!!
As you get further on in autotesting you will want to get more competetive, thus buyin a car that is competive in autotesting for example a nova, front wheel drive reliable and can be developed with in a budget,

Another approach would be to see what venues there are near you, then see what classes they run.
I was racing on ovals for a few years (only 15 miles to my local track , it caused BIG problems when it was closed for 2 years as the next nearest track is about 120 miles

Some local folk are very into grasstrack racing, low budget for the "near standard" classes, often run in a local field so no need for fancy (expensive) circuits which keeps costs down.

Also worth thinking about the trade off - race your road car and you will hold back in case you can't get it home - but a "track" car needs space to keep it and some way of moving it around.

Go karts ? Fast, competitive, cheap, will fit into the boot of many cars ;)and you can hang it on the wall of the garage when you're not using it

In other news, Rallycross International Grand Prix are bing held at Croft (Darlington) on weekend of November 6th ;D
www.sundaysun.co.uk/sport/motorsport-racing/2011/09/18/rallycross-spectacular-is-heading-for-croft-circuit-79310-29442372/
Moving pics on U-tube www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rallycross+croft&aq=4&oq=rallycross+c

Hope you get sorted, remember plenty of pics on your blog





You should be able to find something to ket the juices flowing

What about Road Rallying? I remember when I was at college one of my tutors used to compete in his Golf VR6. If I remember rightly he said that you only need the minimum liscence for racing (you could get it from the RAC or something) you can do it in a bare basic road car it didnt even need a cage. He was changing from using his VR6 to building up a Nova as he said that Nova's, Mini's and Metro's where the best cars to be competing in. It may be worth you checking out.