Recent Photos of Yourself

[Jim]

Yup exactly.

[DoS]

The newest picture of me, that I have.

[Womble]

Went to Thailand. Met an elephant. It snotted on me. Good tiiiiimes.

[Jobdone]

"baby, not tonight, I've got a headache"

[VizardAmata]

[Podgie.]

A workmate mate a gif of me...

[Smindas]

I might need to stop making the same expression in every photo.

[Tet]

Seat fitting in Switzerland yesterday for my new race car:

[Jim]

Suited up ready for rallycross coaching sessions this year!

[Danroush]

>>Keeps posting about stuffing his face
>>Is always really slim

Bah. That is all I have to say. Bah.

[Tet]

Suited up ready for rallycross coaching sessions this year!

Nice. I wish I'd been able to get OMP kit when I first started out. It seems to be better made than the Sparco gear I ended up with. Of course, these days, I have to have a custom made suit and accessories (which I got from Stand 21). The quality's out of this world, but it cost the earth too. It's a sufficiently niche market that you can't just buy it off the peg like you can in the lower classes.

I'm guessing the plan is to do some coaching sessions, and then go on to do some racing? If so, are there going to be any rounds anywhere vaguely down south that I could come and watch?

[Jim]

Yeah mine was £350 which I thought was a really good deal. There was a Sparco one for about £280, and another OMP one that was cheaper, but I personally preferred this style, and its double layered too. I know the custom made ones ain't cheap though! £3-4k I've seen, though that includes active cooling underwear too, for the endurance racers.

Coaching's the plan, I have a coaching session at the end of April, then I'll do another later this year then one early next year before the 2016 season starts.

I would look to compete this year if I seriously slammed on my own expenses, but there are too many clashes on the British Rallycross Championship calendar with other things I have this year. So this year I'm training and saving up - gonna be leasing a car next year I think, as I currently lack storage for transportation stuff and the logistics might be a pain for my first year (where I'm not sure what I'm doing) - plus the cost of leasing adds up to about the same for a first year (donor car, parts & preparation, transportation to each event, servicing).

As for events down south - there's always guaranteed to be at least one even down at Lydden Hill in Kent, the rest this year are all over the place - http://www.rallycrossbrx.com/events - The only one I might be able to attend this year is Lydden in August.

[Danroush]

That active cooling underwear sounds awesome, how much would it cost without the rest of the suit??

I've always wanted to get involved at some level but have never had much money available, what's a rough figure for total expenses to compete at the lowes levels?

[Jim]

Coolshirt - £560: http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorspor ... -coolshirt

Water cooler: £236: http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorspor ... m-24-quart

Controller: £160: http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorspor ... ontrollers

Total: £956 incl VAT

The series I'm looking to get into (Swift Rallycross in Suzuki Swifts) you're looking at around £14k for the first year's competition (hence saving now for next year), and much, much less after that if you own your own car - probably £4k for a season, and a chunk of that you could seek sponsorship for, though Tet will tell you all about how tricky that is. The bulk of that £4k (which is a guess) is your championship fees, event entry fees, MSA licence and transportation. And then you have repairs if you bin it.

Of course you could spread out the cost over s couple of years (like I'm trying to do) by building up what you need over a year then using it the following year. I could, for example, buy a donor car now, then in a few months take it to a preparer to have it stripped, have rollcage, harness, seat, wheel, brakes, suspension, fire extinguisher, etc fitted and I'd be in a grand position next year, but like I said I'm tight on storage and I've currently no idea how I'd get it to & from the venues.

There are also club level racing series, mostly run by the BRSCC - http://www.brscc.co.uk/ - that do have smaller, lower cost series like the MX-5 Championship or the Alfa Romeo Championship right up to the British GT Championship.

For even less (I think, I've actually no idea), and it does look like a shitload of fun, there's Autograss: http://www.ukac.org.uk/ which are basically series of dirt buggy type things and stupidly overpowered Minis.

I can't not mention Trackstar / BriSCA stock car racing though, pretty good fun to watch (though mostly ovals): http://www.stockcar-racing.co.uk/ but again I've no idea on budgets, I reckon £5k or so would get you on the track, £7k for F2 cars.

Don't be fooled into thinking that Karting is a lot cheaper either. A lot of the time the parts are specific purely the karts and there's a massive premium on them (because nearly all the components are hand-made). It's not on the order of the above but considering the size of the machines the costs are still fairly high.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the English Rally Champsionship - http://www.englishrally.co.uk/ - seems you can get cars for that for a lot less, £2k or something if you look around but you'd probably need to be handy with a spanner I imagine at that price.

[Danroush]

Thanks man, bookmarked this page now so I can come back to it when I have some money