Cheap motorsport

None - but buy an expensive car and you'll probably still be uncompetitive. That's just how it is. The good guys are really good. I just aim to get better. It's quite humbling actually, but no less enjoyable.

It has been derusted. It's just begining to rust again :)

But TBH if you bought a mint one it'd set you back maybe £2k. You could buy ours for £1k and still have another £1k to spend on it. And I'm sure it wouldn't take that much to get it right, and you'd know it wont have been bodged.

Hayabusa engined Lotus 7 replica.

None, unfortunately like most other forms of competitive motorsport some people are willing to spend a large amount of money to win.

Aye, but some cars are more suited to competition than others. I'd think 106 or 205 maybe. And there are always the classes for relatively unmodified cars.

To put things another way - what cheapy cars are relatively competitive. I mean, you'll obviously get further with a 205 than you will buying a Rover

800...

In news:4505efbc$0$1380$ snipped-for-privacy@news.zen.co.uk, Doki wittered on forthwith;

I'm preparing a 205 GTi 1.6 at the moment, well, over the next few months.

Let me out this into perspective for you. I have a friend with a 2.5 Impreza RA with a turbo the size of a small dog on it. It's stripped to withing a gramme of it's life. Last year he was in modified saloons, because he was on slicks. This year he is on road cars because he is on notionally road legal tyres. (Yoko 48s I think).

Everything is highly modified, even the standard stuff.

But - here's the crucial bit. There are always a few people who just want a go and to try to improve their times. They are your competition. If, after first practice, you look at the times ans there is someone in a different class who is close to you on time, they are your competition so to speak. Or, if you knock 5 or 6 seconds off over the course of the day, then that was a success.

Couldn't agree more.

Though doubtless SteveH'll pop up saying that they're not a proper motorsport in the true sense of the word, and are just for geeks and anoraks......

That's a very bad idea indeed. Unless you are very exxerienced indeed or exceptionally talented, you'll never use a fraction of the available performance. Or, you'll kill yourself trying I thought I wanted to have a Hayabusa engine until I experienced one. Best to build up to that level of performance.

He has said that already, he seems to labour under the misapprehension that averaging as much as 30mph, often in the dark on twisty lanes is easy. I've never tried a nav rally, but my experience of average speeds, even when I know exactly where I am going tells me that it is not.

IMLE, most people involved in motorsport are all geeks and/or anoraks in some way anyway. Why else would they bother?

Not to mention that at the first hint of an unsurfaced road you'll either have beached yourself or ripped your sump/diff/fuel tank/etc off from underneath the car!! :)

You just have to be careful for the first couple of months, for the first couple of weeks you probably wouldn't be able to use full throttle in the lower gears for any longer than a couple of seconds without wanting to back off. After a few months you get used to it and will start looking for ways to make it faster, at least that's what it was like when I got my Westfield. Now I'm not sure to go for something that's more practical but slower like an Elise or get another Westfield and make it really quick.

:)

The driver is there just to check the ABS from time to time.

The real skill is in the navigation.

Astravanman I'm tempted to do another...

Aye, I'd be up for having a crack at winning another "best in category" trophy :-)

Have a look on here:

That Nova at the top went for well under a grand, and the second one down went for about £2500

Or here:

There's a Superstox on there for under 2 grand. You saw them racing at the weekend.

Or how about getting a few mates together and doing this:

I imagine it's a bit like going from a Ka to a 1.8 Mondeo but more so :D. When I first got that car I couldn't believe how quick it was.

How do you suppose it feels on a 500lb two wheeler! And thats before you bump it from 160 to 400+ bhp with a turbo/nitrous.

Fun!

I thought the same thing when I got my first 1.3 Mk3 Escort (CVH) after a string of 1.1s.