hi i just want to know what raing serieses are open for a 14 year old. the only ones i know off are karting, t-cars, ginetta juniours and saxmax is here anymore

Edit: it must be in uk

If you're into bikes, look into mini bike/pocket bike/minimoto racing. Or 125GP.

u've named quitea few there already

there's this as well - http://www.juniorrallying.co.uk/

There is also the Junior Rallycross championship, there is one over here and I'm positive theres one in the UK too

Ginetta Juniors is rather expensive and professional, steer clear if you're in it just for kicks, Saxmax appears a bit more laid back to me, but the cars are FWD (Yuck) and after every accident it becomes rather expensive to have to straighten out the shell, and T-cars is dead now and it was mighty expensive anyway.

TBH I recommend rallyx as mentioned above, or waiting until you are 16 and racing in one of the lower club championships, e.g. look up the South East Motor Sport Enthusiasts Club, who run open saloon and sportscar championships with several different classes from Lydden Hill and Brands Hatch.

Or perhaps Locost racing, a single make Caterham style championship which it is claimed you can build a car for under a grand, I'm looking into this myself.

As for Karting, I know very little, except drivers that come out of karting all seem to have egos the size of elephants, and complain/burn clutches a lot.

Quote from 5haz :

As for Karting, I know very little, except drivers that come out of karting all seem to have egos the size of elephants, and complain/burn clutches a lot.

such a shame they do so much winning then

But to be fair most 17-18 years old are cocky and egotistical with or without prior karting experience.

autograss?

Quote from Intrepid :

such a shame they do so much winning then

But to be fair most 17-18 years old are cocky and egotistical with or without prior karting experience.

The lads that come out of karting seem to either win or have a very embarrasing accident, theres nothing in between.

Quote from 5haz :

The lads that come out of karting seem to either win or have a very embarrasing accident, theres nothing in between.

win it or bin it aaaiiii

the arrogance, and maybe naivety may also come from the fact most of their dads are freakin' cagillionaires and they don't care to much about piling it into the wall.

I know Ashley Craig, who is driving, (called me an **** and rolled his car,) in the Ginetta Juniors and enjoying it, but it is as you say very expensive. I went along to an autograss event in Masham not so long ago, and it looked great fun, but you will probably kill yourself and a few others quite horribly (the safety standards ain't great . There are only metal barriers going up to halfway between your knees and your feet separating the track and the crowd. The Masham track is a dirt oval with long straights and quite tight corners. There are loads of spectators standing around 2 feet away from the barriers all around the track, apart from a small area where there is a bus with the commentators on top. Most of the cars are very, very fast. In one of the semi-finals, two open-wheeled cars came together, and one rolled eight and a half times straight over the barrier into, thank god, the area directly in front of the bus! Seriously, I'm not exaggerating. You can probably find the video somewhere, as the event was being covered by Sky, iirc. Yeah, I know it's easy to lie on the internet, but I'm not making this up. It scared me to death, and the commentators too! :schwitz

He was ok btw, but taken to hospital for precautionary checks. Took a while to cut him out of the car, though.

Thanks for the replies,
my friend at school does autograss personally i dont think it looks good she drives a citreon ax round a 1/4 mile dirt oval. i would rather race round a track personally i think sax max is the best option

Quote from Intrepid :

the arrogance, and maybe naivety may also come from the fact most of their dads are freakin' cagillionaires and they don't care to much about piling it into the wall.

That's it in a nutshell.

Quote from Timdpr :

I know Ashley Craig, who is driving, (called me an **** and rolled his car,) in the Ginetta Juniors and enjoying it, but it is as you say very expensive. I went along to an autograss event in Masham not so long ago, and it looked great fun, but you will probably kill yourself and a few others quite horribly (the safety standards ain't great . There are only metal barriers going up to halfway between your knees and your feet separating the track and the crowd. The Masham track is a dirt oval with long straights and quite tight corners. There are loads of spectators standing around 2 feet away from the barriers all around the track, apart from a small area where there is a bus with the commentators on top. Most of the cars are very, very fast. In one of the semi-finals, two open-wheeled cars came together, and one rolled eight and a half times straight over the barrier into, thank god, the area directly in front of the bus! Seriously, I'm not exaggerating. You can probably find the video somewhere, as the event was being covered by Sky, iirc. Yeah, I know it's easy to lie on the internet, but I'm not making this up. It scared me to death, and the commentators too! :schwitz

He was ok btw, but taken to hospital for precautionary checks. Took a while to cut him out of the car, though.

Ouch, I can imagine there was a lot of shit to clean up afterwards as well.

The scariest I saw was at Brands back in 07 when someone ploughed allmost full speed into the side of a stationary car (no names mentioned), took quite a while to get the poor lad out, you can imagine the bollocking we all got by the clerk of the course in th next drivers briefing.

Quote from 5haz :

That's it in a nutshell.



Ouch, I can imagine there was a lot of shit to clean up afterwards as well.

The scariest I saw was at Brands back in 07 when someone ploughed allmost full speed into the side of a stationary car (no names mentioned), took quite a while to get the poor lad out, you can imagine the bollocking we all got by the clerk of the course in th next drivers briefing.

I think I might know which one you mean...what do you race, anyway? I think I asked before, but don't recall getting an answer.

Imagine this with one more roll and it happening in a bit over the space of a double decker bus. Also imagine the road being lined with 5 rows of people!

worst one i have seen personally(actually at the event) was banger racing at arena essex this year for the caravan racing one off and in one of the races cant remember which may have been the last race(caravan one) when they let them have a dd but cant remember, a pile up with a few cars but 2 mainly and it resulted quite a large fire ball. all involved were ok as far as i know

the worst ive watched live on tv was last year the porche carera cup when kelvin burt rolled it over the fence at dodington right by some marshalls but again he was fine(shows how god roll cages are)

ive also seen a few dodgy ones at brands and lydden

watching andrew jordans focus' rear get anialated being one of them in the easter monday anniversary event last year or the year before (again cant remember lol)

Quote from Timdpr :

I think I might know which one you mean...what do you race, anyway? I think I asked before, but don't recall getting an answer.

Imagine this with one more roll and it happening in a bit over the space of a double decker bus. Also imagine the road being lined with 5 rows of people!

Ouch, I'm sure that kind of thing can make your brain come loose in your skull.

Sorry if I didnt reply, I raced in tyhe Ginetta G20 Juniors in 07 then race in the G20 seniors (the open top ones ), no money for racing this year though.

Tim, is Ashley Craig the guy who used to do Karting, his Dad was one of the main men at Forest Edge circuit. Had a yellow and red suit and was #64? If so, I used to race against him in Cadets, I remember one race we actually drew with each other, the time sheets (accurate to .000 of a second) said we crossed the line at the exact same time.

Anyway brt900, about a year and a half ago we started looking seriously into Saxmax. I even did a test day in one of the cars at Brunters. However, after more research we decided against it for a few reasons:

1) The price. A year of racing, including the car, would cost around £15 -£20k
2) Only one guy was allowed to build the cars, and his son was racing in the series and was the driver beating everyone by miles. I'm not saying the only reason he was winning was because his Dad was giving him an advantage by doing something extra to the car, he could well have simply been a brilliant driver, but the fact he was constantly winning was just too suspicious, and immediately reduces your chance of success
3) From what we'd seen / heard, the series was largely full of young, hot-headed lads who'd just progressed from karting with exceedingly rich Dads, who didn't care if they wrote the car off at each meeting, they'd just fork out and get it repaired. Not the right way to go about it.

Just giving you a few reasons why SaxMax may not be the way to go.

So, in the end we waited until I was 16 and could get a proper MSA Racing Licence, and entered in the Red Dragon Mk1 MR2 Racing series. This is, by far, the cheapest form of track motorsport, and it included about 13 races, all at big tracks - Silverstone, Rockingham, Snetterton, Cadwell etc. It's brilliant fun, very friendly but still very competitive.

Quote from Minimaxman :

Tim, is Ashley Craig the guy who used to do Karting, his Dad was one of the main men at Forest Edge circuit. Had a yellow and red suit and was #64? If so, I used to race against him in Cadets, I remember one race we actually drew with each other, the time sheets (accurate to .000 of a second) said we crossed the line at the exact same time.

That's the one! http://www.ashley-craig.com/

That's pretty sweet, who was classified in front? Or was it considered a draw?

what is the price of ginetta juiniours on average per year

Well the cheapest cars I have found in Autosport are 8k, and then theres the rest of the expenses

so is saxmax he best overall as ive seen cars 3k to 5k and i want it for a little bit of excitment

Quote from brt900 :

what is the price of ginetta juiniours on average per year

Well they really do frown on Privateers now, so just about everyone has to hook up with a team (there are several), and they will cost you somewhere above £10k a season.

It used to be dirt cheap up until the season I started.

Quote from pacesetter :

Well the cheapest cars I have found in Autosport are 8k, and then theres the rest of the expenses

With a Ginetta G20 you spend more money making it race worthy than you do actually buying it.

Although with the space frame construction, its a bit easier to 'straighten up' a car after a shunt than with a Saxmax 'body shell'.

Personally I would go with Saxmax, although they are front wheel drive which isnt anything near as fun as RWD G20s.

Quote from 5haz :

With a Ginetta G20 you spend more money making it race worthy than you do actually buying it.

Although with the space frame construction, its a bit easier to 'straighten up' a car after a shunt than with a Saxmax 'body shell'.

Personally I would go with Saxmax.

Really when you get them are they in really bad condition?

Quote from pacesetter :

Really when you get them are they in really bad condition?

The problem is that the build quality varies, older cars were thrown together in a chicken shed, now they're put together in a massive clean modern warehouse, so newer cars are probrably better, mainly the problems are things falling off/becoming detached, so thats ok so long as you make sure everything is tightened/secured properly. Some of the cars track a bit funny because they've been a bit bent in accidents.

Also a lot of second hand cars haven't been put together by Ginetta, often by people who seem to have little clue what they are doing, as we found at our expense this year.

Quote from 5haz :

Well they really do frown on Privateers now, so just about everyone has to hook up with a team (there are several), and they will cost you somewhere above £10k a season.

It used to be dirt cheap up until the season I started.

I am pretty confident Junior Ginettas cost quite a bit more than that. I would hazard more like 50k + if you want to be competitive. Doesn't appear to be any testing restrictions. I have seen em down at LLandow a few times as well and no one was checking

It's a competitive series so. unless you are willing to spend I wouldn't reccomend it. And to be honest they looked pretty miserable to drive

I don't know how much interest there is here in bikes, but it's generally very easy to double the purchase price on a bike (say, $4-6k USD for a nice street bike, such as an SV650 or 600 supersport) in order to get one fully race ready (proper suspension, body work, and safety compliance, including safety wire on a lot of nuts and bolts).