The Sprinting & Hillclimbing season starts in March.
For those that wish to know, this disipline of motorsport is broardly speaking similair to a 1 stage tarmac rally over a course of between 1 and 2 kms.
Sprint courses are on the flat, often on airfields or around existing race tracks.
Hillclimbs are up country manor drives, farm tracks or some sort of tarmac access road.
Cars eligable are from road going shopping cars, hot hatches and sports cars ...... right up to F1 style cars and home built specials.
Car safety : pretty simple at the bottom end, a roll cage is not required.
Personal safety : you need an MSA certified Helmet, overalls and gloves.
Event admin : you need numbers on the doors and a timing strut on the front of the car.
You need to be a member of an MSA certified club, of which the ROAC is.
You need an MSA licence, no medical required, £39.
Every event is regulated by the MSA, safety is paramount.
There will be a doctor, an ambulance and medically trained marshalls at every event. They will have all the gear to cope with offs and emergency situations. This form of motorsport is many times safer than going for a Sunday afternoon blast down some country lanes. No sheep crossing, old ladies dreaming along in an old Morris Minor, no oncoming traffic or even hidden policemen. For your runs, you will have exclusive use of the course to go as fast as you like.
At the end of the course you will get a time, to 100th of a second.
You will get a minimum of 2 timed practice runs followed by between 2 and 4 competative timed runs.
As well as an award for Fastest Time of the Day (FTD) there will be classes awards broken down into car types and engine capacities with individual awards/trophies.
If you want to know more, please do get in touch with me, I'm very happy to help out and assist you to Go-Racing! Event entry is anywhere between £70 and £150, but this can often include upto 4 entrance tickets for your mates and helpers. Allow £100 as an average.
During a day of racing, you will find that all the other competitors are friendly and they will also help you out, even if you are faster than then.
Here are some very usefull links, but please don't get put off, like all sport, the emphasis is on Fun and Enjoyment, but at the competive end of the spectrum, there are those that take it all very seriously.
An introduction to Sprinting: (many more are available on the net)
http://b19.tjgraphics.co.uk/index.php?o ... Itemid=100
The MSA, regulatory body:
http://www.msauk.org/custom/asp/home/default.asp
The MSA "Blue-Book", all the rules, mostly section S (sprinting) page 321-322.
http://www.msauk.org/site/cms/contentvi ... ticle=1101
And a list of UK Events, Sorry guys I think this is focused on the southern half of the country, but be assured, actually Motorsport is even more popular in the North where venues are just as good.
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/allevents.asp
Youtube can give you a good flavour of how it works, action as well as spills, but there is no substitute for doing it yourself.
So, maybe you have decided to give it a go this year
