What do you need to race a single seater and have a good team behind you?
I am just wondering what do you need to race a single seater and have a good team behind you?
Can I start as a individual or will I need a few guys to set the car up for the track?
How much would it cost for each event?
How much do parts vary between?
How much a year would I spend maintaining the car?
etc...
All help/advice will be lovely. I guess one of the best people to help me here is Tristan as I don't know of any other people who race single seaters on this forum.
What do you need to race a single seater and have a good team behind you?
One thing - MONEY. Lots and lots. And lots.
Where do you want to go? Tristan is in (no offence) a series which isn't going anywhere, but is a hell of a lot cheaper than single seaters of FFord level etc.
If you’re vaguely serious about competing in a series which has the slightest hope in getting you somewhere in your racing then you'll most likely need to find a team that will run you. This will cost tens of thousands of pounds at least.
The karting centre I work for used to run a karting team which later formed into a team in the Scottish Formula Ford championship. The drivers they ran paid for their drives and they even had mechanics from the karting centre to run the cars yet they still couldn't finance it.
Racing a single seater is not cheap and any accidents are likely going to cost a lot of money. Someone I used to race ran in the Scottish Formula Ford championship last year and his budget got so tight towards the end of the season he was reusing his old tyres. Didn't help he rolled the car and took all four corners off it... which he had to pay the excess for.
I’d have thought the entry fees will be expensive for MSA sanctioned race, I think the MSA karting entry fee is up to £50 at my local club. So god knows what the fee will be, I assume Tristan will have a fair idea.
Hope he used safety matches. Try's to move it the matchstick makes contact with the floor, lights and all those matchsticks go up in flames with his house. Well all I can say it will be a non smoking car, be handy if you needed a light though for your fag.
I just would like to know the info on the subject, I wont be wanting to race in championships just in a club then see what happens from there, never know may get asked to race in a championship season, what will be very unlikely.
Maybe you should search for some tracks that are local, get yourself down there, talk to the people and experience it for yourself, this is a serious commitment and i dont really think you understand. You'll learn more at a day at the track than you would with a years worth of posts on a forum.
I totally agree with you, I know motorsport is a big commitment. Of course I will need to go down the track to see what it all involves but as I am 15 I can't get in a car and drive as I am not yet old enough. I am planning on doing single seater racing when I am in my 20's. Don't really want to get involved with karts as they don't intrest me as much as the formula cars do.
Its nice to hear that you have an ambition, but really any forumla racing is not easy, you have to have the technical knowledge and you have to have race craft and track time, am i correct saying you dont have either? Well your best bet would be to start off in karts, learn the basics and really get a feel for what the environment is like and then you can decide wether or not you still wish to persue it to the next level. In most cases, to run any formula car you really do need to have some poke behind you.
Are you a competent mechanic with a reasonable grasp of engineering principles? I guess not in which case you can forget about running a car on your own. Getting unskilled but keen helpers is relatively easy but somebody needs to have a good sense of direction and understanding, unless you happen to come from a family where at least somebody whose capable and motivated to work for free then forget doing it without professional help. Single seaters are not an easy starting point from a mechanical side lots of closed wheel cars will be better for an incompetent mechanic who gets a car professionally prepared but runs it himself on race days. It is possible and some people are successful in club single seaters building, running and maintaining their own car without helpers. It takes a special kind of person who can manage that pressure and generally the few that are successful doing this in single seaters and higher maintenance closed wheel cars do so by having a beautifully prepared car that doesn't have constant debugging to be done after every session are very well organised and are great guys that people in the paddock like and will help them when their in trouble and be much more open with their strategies and advice which often people don't want to share in a competitive arena.
I'd have thought between £500-£500000 would cover a race in most single seater championships.
Most parts are limited production runs and manufacturers don't normally keep molds or spare stock of old cars. Virtually no components will be interchangeable between cars.
Depending on what you want to do you can go from 4 to 8 figures with ease.
Tristan races and prepares a car in Monoposto. I have a fair bit of experience helping to run cars in 750MC F4. I think there are others on the forum who have raced various low level formulae but you want to be getting experience from people who've run their own and other peoples cars, the actual racing bit isn't what you need to worry about.
There's virtually no open single seater racing like their is for closed wheel cars. You'll have to choose and enter a championship and if necessary modify accordingly to meet championship regulations.
You obviously don't have a clue about single seaters. I'm guessing you want to compete at an amateur club level, you can compete for a few thousand pounds a year running uncompetitively in something like Formula Vee. Doing everything to maximise your chances of success in single seater racing, doing only a couple of races on a set of tires, frequent engine rebuilds, professional help including mechanics and also race training and lots and lots of testing, not to mention buying a new and better car can easily push your budget 10 times as high as someone who runs a second a lap slower than you. If you've got the money to spend there's almost no limit, you can keep going up to bigger championships or stick in one and get to a stage where there's no satisfaction because you have a car that should walk away from the pack and a win feels empty and a loss is embarrassing.
You seem to think you want to run wings and slicks, generally these cars require a lot of attention between sessions and whilst the budget isn't totally unaffordable I'd suggest you can forget about it unless you've either done exceptionally well by the time you're twenty or you're Dad will pay for it then your timescale is unrealistic. Most young people club racing, and I think this applies to Tristan as well, are largely financed and supported by their parents or another interested party, there are people who love tinkering with racing cars and who can afford to run them who don't have a great desire to race themselves and let their offspring race, unfortunatley my Dad doesn't fit this category
Unless your lucky enough to have someone already into racing and have probably been born and breed with cars then going racing as a driver/owner/bill payer probably isn't realistic. If you have a genuine interest though by all means get involved in motor racing, there are lots of ways you can volunteer your services and have a great time doing so (I've spent four days in the last 2 weeks at various race meetings and test sessions ). One of the best ways to get into it is find someone who needs help running cars, by doing so you can enjoy all the benefits of going racing except the actual driving bit. There are never a shortage of people wanting helpful people and you'll soon pick up enough experience to be more of a help than a hindrance, I'm sure I could easily go to motor racing events without spending a penny and getting lots of free breakfasts 7 days a week if reality didn't get in the way. Alternatively you could reduce the traveling by doing something like marshaling at your local track.
If you only want to race then I suggest that club single seaters are not the way for you and a professionally prepared one is going to be enormously expensive. Simpler activities like karts and stock hatches offer cheaper racing for those who can't afford to go single seater racing or who don't want the commitment and time a proper racing car demands from you.
Above all though don't just go and buy something, that's not the way to enter motorsport, you need to understand that you like the package and understand the necessary mechanical skills, you'll look as much of a tit if you turn up to a road sports race with 12 mechanics and an artic full of spares than you will if you turn up to a single seater race on your own without a clue. Any form of motorsport is a big commitment and you need to make sure you realise the costs, like the social crowd (because in the end of the day if you take it too seriously you'll just be a loser) and the type of racing, some series will tolerate a bit of carried away panel beating (although nothing like touring cars on the telly) and some will practically ex-communicate you for doing the same thing in the same car, point is you need to decide what suits you.
If your question is where do I need to be to start a career the answer is 300 000 € in FBM Euro. If it's how can I get some "cheap" track time ask Tristan.
Sam take ajp's advice, if you wat to start racing AVOID single seaters, at first. First things first id get yourself on some driver training days, i can recommend plansmotorsport they were going to give me tuition at 16 before i decided that at this moment in time GCSE's are more important. Just to summarise, my dad who races in a cost affective series spent over 20k last year, and thats not with new tyres every race etc.
Just to summarise, this is what you will need:
Training (£100-£200)
ARDS's test (£300) i think
Suit, helmet, gloves, fire protection (depends how mad you are)
CAR (depends)
Tyres (from what i know £500 a set depends which car) x 15 approx
Fuel (depends how many races you do and for how long)
Travel Costs (god knows)
Accomodation (hotels etc or if you have a motorhome you will have to pay for that)
Entry fee's (depends)
Maintenance (oil chnages etc)
Car repairs (judging from you rpedal bike skills this car won't last long)
Team (unless you can fix it and set it up yourself)
Upgrades (if you want any cost again depends)
That's just a small list of what you will have to pay for, im sure someone with first hand race experience on paying for racing will be along to correct me
Have you given them a try? I suggest you you at least go to a decent meeting, and you may change your mind. I can't tell you how how may club car racers (90% of pro car racers come from, or still do karting ) I have met who have come to karting after years in cars and just wish they had entered karting earlier. It is at the VERY least worth a look. You may not be interested now, and you may not be after, but go down to a meeting and see what you think. And if a guy like Senna says that 'Karting is even more breathtaking than F1' it's at least worth a nose
You just destroyed your chances. You an't just buy a car and race, it won't happen. Many people in karting spend $30 000 a year in karting and will never go anywhere, I don't think you fully understand the scop here; this isn't the 60's; you can't spend a couple grand on a car and have fun for a year, it doesn't work that way any more.
Thanks, I have opened this thread to see how Single Seaters work, as in events and maintenance. I just want to know how it all works and you have gave me a more understanding of what goes on. Hopefully the time I'm 30 I should have a fair few pennies in my pocket as I am aiming to run my own software and web development company what will bring some money in what I can use to race but a lot of the money will obviously have to go to the company I would like to set up.
I am looking at it as more of a hobby then a career. Just something to do at weekends. My dad knows a lot about the setup of cars so he will be able to help me a bit, his friend also prepares banger racers and Formula stock cars So he will have a bit of knowledge about racing setup.
Note *The picture is not the ones he prepares just quickly put a link to a picture of a formula stock car*
What on earth are you doing with them? A set will last a single seater a season at a stretch and two sets should be enough to get you through a season relatively competitively by the time you're down to two meetings a set the advantage is going to be mostly psychological and you'll be struggling to have them scrubbed in by the time you bin them.
A tent, box trailer, lorry, caravan or pit garage all provide cheap accommodation.
There has never been a better time to just go and spend a relatively small sum to go and race a single seater for a couple of seasons, there are lots of teams professionally preparing pay drive cars in pretty much every grass routes formula now.
Without meaning to sound at all harsh stock cars are rather a different ball game and whilst a car is a car only engine building skills are likely to be at a level that's immediately of some use, the other skills will have to be developed over time, it's all a long learning curve, even to do it professionally you'll do years of training and experience before you can really build and run a car well, doing it in your spare time just takes longer. If the whole engineering side of it interests you then it's probably worth trying to get experience with circuit racing cars before trying to run your own. Of course if that isn't the bit that interests you there are plenty of pay drive options that don't require any mechanical input on the car at all.
[quote=ajp71;764961]What on earth are you doing with them? A set will last a single seater a season at a stretch and two sets should be enough to get you through a season relatively competitively by the time you're down to two meetings a set the advantage is going to be mostly psychological and you'll be struggling to have them scrubbed in by the time you bin them.
If he wants to get into a competative series then i would have thought he would use a new set every weekend. My dad does not buy a set every weekend suaully every 4 or 5 races.
Sam, my cousin races in formula palmer audi and thats 50K just to enter!! Youve got costs on top of that still. He doesn't pay for it pesonally because he has a sponsor, but don't think it's easy to get a sponsor they only sponsored him because A: He's good and B: He had won a forumla ford championship.
Ill just wish you luck, but your too hopfull that everything will work out which it most probably won't i.e starting your own software company, we all have these thoughts at yourage then get more realistic.
4 to 5 races is still verging on excessive, I doubt there's a substantial advantage that can justify the cost to anyone who is stretched to go racing to replacing tires more than every two meetings like I said (assuming a test session to scrub them in then 2 qualifying and 2 races at each meeting, so 5 heat cycles for each set of tires) you can get away with much more than that though. I've known people be competitive on third and even fourth hand tires (bought by an F3 team couple of heat cycles > sold to lower budget F3/professional team for a couple more heat cycles > sold to top budget club racers for a couple of heat cycles (who normally buy tires second hand from teams because Avon won't sell current spec F3 tires, which F4 allows, to club racers for a reason best known to them) > sold on to budget club racers who'll often get a full season out of them.
Like I said if you've got the money you will spend it, if you don't or are very disciplined you can be almost as fast and have as much fun at a fraction of the cost. Club F3 claim that the average season is 6% of a current F3 season, Tristan runs a fundamentally similar (although older and cheaper to buy) car for no doubt a fraction of that. The only difference is the current cars are a bit faster, but all proper single seaters with wings and slicks are fast in a completely different way to road cars anyway and they all offer pretty similar racing.
I'm guessing there is some advantage to be had from new tyres. The person that run in Scottish Formula Ford with the company I work for used new tyres every meeting and I'm assuming many others did as well. The wear indicators show lots of tread left and they probably only did half a dozen heat cycles if that. Unfortuantley we cut them all in half and are using them around any solid objects
