Category: Motorsport

Fact (and possibly some fiction) from my motorsport events.

How to Get Started in Motorsport

Getting into motorsport isn’t especially difficult, expensive, or even all that time-consuming. Of course – there are a few things you need to sort out first:

  1. Access to a car of some description. Always handy. Any car will do – there’ll be a motorsport to suit, though levels of preparation and costs may vary.
  2. A license. There’s a few choices in this, we’ll get to that later.
  3. A good attitude – a bad one will expose you and those around you to unnecessary risks. It’s a risky sport if you don’t do things right. Do things right and you’ll be unlikely to come to any harm, though you must remember that it is a danger sport.
  4. A little bit of money – at the very cheapest end, perhaps about £35 for each event you enter. Sprints are typically about £75 per event.

So – where to start? That all depends what you want to do. If speed is your thing, then sprints, in a roadgoing car, are going to be your cheapest way in to competitive motorsport. I’d recommend learning some track sense first with one of the better track day operators like the Gold Track Driving Club, or Book-a-Track. Once you’re comfortable that you enjoy the sensations, and that your car is capable of providing fun (at this level, it’s more about fun than winning anyway) you should start approaching some clubs to find out what events are running in your area. In the North West the ANWCC provides a directory and calendar of clubs organising events in various disciplines.

Other forms of motorsport that are cheap to start with include autotesting, production car trials and hillclimbing. Of course, if you want to compete at a high level costs will quickly mount up – just like any other sport.

Autotesting is all about maneouvering as quickly as possible around a set of traffic cones. You’re going to need a good handbrake and a good memory in order to take part.

Production car trials are slow-speed off-roading, around a set course marked with gates, in a production car. A lot of basic cars are suitable for this sport. I’ve long suspected that the Ford Ka would be brilliant for the job. It’s cheap, rides high, and has a nice wheel-at-each-corner layout.

In the video clips section of this site you’ll find videos of sprints and autotests.

How I started in motorsport

I’ve been involved in motorsport since the end of 2002 after my inaugural sprint at New Brighton. Myself and my friend Gordon Holmes (a champion Autotester) set off in a pair of Golf GTIs with the aim of finishing approximately mid-field in our very standard, very ordinary cars.

It would have gone a lot better for me if I hadn’t clipped a kerb, dislodging the battery, which then bounced into the radiator and subsequently caused the car to overheat. A quick decision was made, and Gordon allowed me to borrow his car for the remaining runs. And that was the start. A year later I had an Elise, and then I accidentally took a corner off (thankfully with no chassis damage!) at the same track! Needless to say, New Brighton always makes me nervous these days – I’ve not suffered damage at any other circuit in the country. Yet!

We achieved what we set out to do, comparing well to experienced drivers in faster machinery. Gordon stuck to his Autotesting, while I set plans to compete in the regional sprint championships. I quickly established myself by becoming Novice Champion for 2003 in the ANWCC (North West) sprint championship. I’ve since gone on to take and hold the class record at Aintree, second overall in the Liverpool & Chester Championship. Although 2004 and 2005 were low-key due to other commitments, my aim is to attack the 2006 season with a little more determination and commitment. In the longer term I hope to take up circuit racing – at least for one season, and at a reasonably high level. If I don’t, I’ll never know for sure whether I had the potential to live up to my boyhood dreams.

I compete through the Liverpool Motor Club – a jolly nice bunch who organise the excellent Aintree sprints as well as other events in the North West.

Aintree, 24th June 2006 – Pushing harder and harder… yet…

When you compete in motorsport one of the peculiar things is the change in your perception of what’s possible. You do an amazing run and you just think to yourself “there’s no way I could go any quicker there.” And then next time out, you go that bit quicker again. And you wonder where on earth the extra time comes from. I have some theories – but more on that further down the article.

If you’ve followed previous posts you’ll know that having the car in a fit state for this event was a problem. The toelink had failed and gave the car handling that could most charitibly be described as ‘novel’. With the field at Aintree being full of quality drivers such as Bobby Friars and Gary Thomas there was no way to compete without a well setup car. At 4:30pm the day before, I collected the car from Christopher Neil in Northwich – Paul there had done a sterling job in getting the Eliseparts kit fitted in time for me. You have to give credit to any franchise dealership willing to fit a third party item to a car. Unfortunately, apart from a quick run on local roads there was no way to be sure that the kit was going to work properly or the geometry hadn’t been messed up.

After first practice at Aintree it was quite obvious that everything was just fine. The car still handled beautifully and I was able to post a first time of 52.40 – only a third of a second slower than the record which stood until this year. I felt good, though I noticed Gary Thomas had gone fractionally faster. We’d set out our markers and it was obvious where the battle was going to be.

For second practice it rained. I was able to go much quicker than Gary, but quite possibly that’s just because I’m much more stupid. If it continued to rain I might have a straightforward win, but frankly I wasn’t interest in just winning – I wanted my old class record back. It stood at 52.07, before Gary took it with a 51.84.

First competitive run… and… 51.44! I cheered the car as I passed the finish line – it was .63s faster than my best ever and a long way inside Gary’s best. I felt like I had the record! Which is a shame because when I came I was told Gary’s time… 51.07! How on earth….? I was wondering where this extra time was going to come from. I’d beaten my own target of breaking 51.5s but finding another half a second was going to be some challenge.

Second run. I’ll mention now that Gary went a little slower. But me… I had to nail it. The first corner was slightly wild, but still quick. The rest were great, everything coming together. As you come towards the finish line at aintree you can see the clock ticking up for what seems an age. 49… 50… and as I crossed the line it flicked over to 51… point 14. Damn!

Third and last competitive run. I had to really be perfect this time. And I was – the start was great, the first corner utterly perfect, the second just right… and then I decided to go asleep for a second. Really – I was so angry with myself. As I approached Bechers I braked just a tad too early. It’s not a huge problem, but perhaps worth 1/10th of a second. But what really messed me up was that as I turned in I realised I’d not shifted down for the corner. Now, in a race, if you’re followed by someone slower they still won’t pass you if you make a mistake like this. And if you’re chasing someone slower… well, you’ll make up the lost time on the next lap. But in a sprint at a simple (ish) and fast circuit like Aintree you have no chance of recovery. So what did I do? Well of course I made things even worse by changing down to third, mid-corner…. corrected the resultant slide, and headed for the finish line.

Stupid stupid stupid. Now, let’s go back to my first paragraph – when I set the 51.44 time it felt rapid. Really good and it was hard to see how I could go faster. And now, in spite of rampaging stupidity and careless driving I’d managed a 51.40. Huh?!

But it was game over. Gary drove a stonker on the next lap and is now the first to take a road-going production car around the sprint circuit in less than 51s, with a 50.97s time. Damn – he was the first to crack 52s as well! We’d pushed each other so hard that we’d smashed up all the old records. Gary has a distinct power advantage over me, but it’s possible for me to drive better still. I believe I’ve managed to develop the car to a point where its handling is pretty much perfectly balanced and benign. I could add more power – the underbonnet engineering is done now to handle over 200bhp and I guess that would bring me in line with Bobby and Gary’s cars.

Theories on speed

At some point I’ll write up an article on what I think it takes to get quick on the race circuit. But for the time being I’ll expound one little theory I’ve been building up.

I reckon there are three phases that you go through in becoming a decent driver, maybe more. I can only really speak from my own experiences.

But it’s kinda hard to explain. You get through these three step changes – from first fumblings in a kart you realise that winning isn’t always feasible – so you learn to maximise what you have. Then you discover that a ‘moment’ won’t necessarily turn nasty if you keep cool. So then you go a bit quicker again because you’re not scared of the car. Then suddenly something else happens – a smoothness develops, along with courage over recovering the car, and so on. And suddenly you’re getting there. I guess there’s more still to come, but I’ve no idea where it comes from. If it happens to me… I’ll let you know!

Of broken toelinks (Anglesey May and June 2006)

A bit of a long time since the last update, but here we go…..

At the end of May I did the MGOC Anglesey weekend sprint and, on the day before I did a trackday at the same place. All seemed great at the start of the trackday – the Elise going beautifully and showing itself well even amongst sticky tyred race cars. I was confident about the sprint.

But then, about half way through the day, the handling seemed to go somewhat awry. I put it down to the tyres going off, but the handling never seemed to return to where it should have been. Oh well – I continued on. The next two days I competed in the sprint but as there was only one Elise (me!) I accepted a class amalgamation into the mod-prods. All slick shod race cars and there’s me with standard road tyres. But I do like a challenge :o) Day one I did ok and came second, and day two I won it by a modest margin. Happy enough I went home, parked the car up, and didn’t think about it. My times hadn’t been amazing, but I didn’t worry.

Two weeks pass and the car is unused. I have enough to deal with on my house refurbishment without stressing about the car. I hopped in and drove off to Anglesey for another sprint – this time with Chester Motor Club and just for the Sunday. I was a little late and going at an, erm, modest pace along the A55 when I hit a bump and…. weave. Weave?! That was a new feeling. I wasn’t sure if it was me being tired or the car but it certainly did feel a little out of sorts.

Once I arrived I started checking over the car and then found the source of all my problems – the rear nearside toelink was rattling around like it was about to drop off! Not good for handling, and potentially dangerous too! I managed to tighten it a little, and others were a great help offering parts and assistance. In the end it was tight enough to nervously compete for a single run before I decided to cut my losses and head for home. As the Elises were once more under-represented I ran alone this time and got my win and, more importantly my championship points – though if you run alone you can only get the equivalent of second place.

This coming weekend I’ll be at Aintree and there’s a great field, including four Elises. That’s more like it! It should be a fun event, so long as my toelink can be sorted by then. I’ve ordered the Eliseparts kit as Lotus are all out of replacements. It means spending £280 instead of £30, but this is the problem with competition cars. Sometimes you need to spend in order to keep alive in the championships and compete effectively. The upside is that the new kit is substantially stronger than the old and should put up with years of track abuse.

Aintree, 22nd April 2006

Ok – I’ll admit it…. I’ve become so used to making Aintree my own that I was getting complacent.  Last year Gary Thomas was running me close but I stayed ahead, kept my record, and was happy.  Ish.  But I knew the car wasn’t perfect – roll oversteer made it a sometimes tricky proposition and getting it back in line always meant a big lift and sometimes even application of brakes.  The only closed-season work I really did to the car was to sort the geometry and to fit the braided hoses at the back that have been waiting two years to go on.

And what a dream to handle she now is!  The biggest difference seems to be the effect of mid-corners bumps.  Before they would throw the car around, often resulting in oversteer, whereas now the correct ride-height means the dampers can work properly.

The big problem, for Aintree, would be my utter and complete lack of track time.  Not only did I have no time to get used to the new suspension, but I hadn’t even driven for two of the past four months, let alone been anywhere near a race circuit for six months.  It wasn’t a good way to start the season.

First practice run was very much setting out feelers.  Seeing where the circuit had grip, and how the suspension would react to different situations – in particular the very fast Bechers corner which has a vicious bump as you head for the apex.  It all felt good enough, but it was a timid start with a 54.84 and Gary setting down a healthy 53.9 run – nearly a second quicker and setting an early pace.  Third quickest was James Kerr – always a good driver but at Aintree it’s tough for the 205 cars to compete against the Elises in spite of often being more powerful and only a little heavier.

Second practice run finished with identical times for myself and Gary.  It was going to be a close day.  As we lined up for the first competitive runs my heart felt like it was trying to get out of my chest and do its own sprint.  I needed to set a good early time to let myself play a little with the rest.  And while waiting, I just had enough time to spot Gary setting his first time – a 51 something… and a new record!  With a trap speed of 120mph at the finish line his car was also obviously a lot more powerful than mine.  Uh-oh!  I did my best… honest I did, but a 52.69, whilst it would have been fine a few years back, was nowhere near good enough today.  I got in, checked his time, and it was 51.89.  A time I felt was a long way from me.  It’s also at this point that it occurred to me that perhaps the 160bhp he always said his car generated might be at the wheels.  I asked him, and he couldn’t keep his face straight.  Rumbled!  Well… I’m not a big believer in power… but in spite of everything I could only turn in a 52.11, and a 52.04 – the latter a personal record.  But not good enough, even though Gary never bettered his time.  I had to be satisfied with second.

I did, however, continue to get quicker….  At Aintree, the efficiency of the organisation means that in spite of running 140 entries, they often manage to squeeze an extra ‘fun’ run in at the end of the day.  I usually take these as track time’s important – but I usually find myself a little slower and less commited.  Still, this time it was important – I needed to push the car harder, to see if the Bechers bump would upset it if I threw it in even faster.  It wasn’t a great run – the giveaway being my trap speed of 114mph.  Yet the time flashed up… 51.89.  Just 5/100ths slower than Gary’s record setting time.  And there’s still some speed in the car.  So hopefully, just hopefully, that record can be mine once more come June.

Pre Aintree Jitters

Right…this is my first ever posting using a mobile phone. And it must be said that my usual 69wpm typing has rather gone astray but it ain’t half bad either…

Anyway, it’s the night before Aintree and I’m more nervous than usual due to lack of prep and track time. The car has been set up beautifully by Albert Walsh but without track time I can’t be sure of the handling.

More after the event….