From: pjd@ecs.soton.ac.uk (PJ Dickinson)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport
Subject: Stock Car Racing
Keywords: Stock Cars UK Description
Date: 27 Aug 92 08:56:05 GMT

In <1992Aug25.173521.708@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov>
cornutt@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov (Dav
id Cornutt) writes:
>I resent the use of the word "isolationist" (how much racing has Europe
>imported from the U.S.?), but this does raise an interesting topic.
>Obviously, the things that have been successful in Europe are very
>different from what has been successful in the U.S.  How did things
>evolve this way?  Why, for instance, is there so much oval track racing
>in the U.S. and Australia, but almost none (as far as I know) in
>Europe or Asia?  A possible topic for another thread...

...Yep.

There is oval track stock car racing in the UK. It is over 1/4 mile
ovals.
The sport is not yet commercialised, but has many thousands of
supporters. There is both non-contact and contact racing. The main
formulas are as follows:

Non-contact:
 National Hot Rods
        cover the 1/4 mile in about 15 seconds. small cars, with much
fibre glass bodywork, full roll cages, highly tuned engines. Base cars
are the Ford Escort, Toyota Starlets and Peugeot 205's (converted to
rear wheel drive).  The Escorts are now too old to be competitive, and
the Starlets were used because they were already rear-wheel drive. Due
to a shortage of Starlets, drivers are looking for more modern cars,
like the Peugeot and the Renault 5, which are being converted to rear
wheel drive. Engines used to be the Ford 1600, but others are now
being used. Run on slick tyres. Cost is about 24,000 pounds for a new
car, half of which is for the engine.

 Stock Rods
        a cheap formula. Cars are either the escort or the starlet,
but there is no fibre, and the engines are stock. Cost less than
2,000 pounds for a new car. Due to their popularity, there are many
of these cars, and they get considerable panel damage.

 other Hot Rods
        there are various other non-contact rods, like Super Rods
(larger saloon cars, large engines, too expensive to be very popular),
Lightning Rods (larger saloon cars, 2 litre engines, new formula, but
very popular) and Hot Rods (small cars, minimal mods, but more than
stock rods).

 Grand Prix Midgets
        Open wheel racers. I haven't seen these racing, but they
are very fast. Also run on grass tracks. Look like small US Sprint
Cars?

Contact:
 Formula One Stock Cars
        Custom built, open wheel. More popular in the north of
england. V8 engines (Chevy, Rover). The original British stock cars.
Some parts taken from vans (axles, steering). Heavy, but with the
torque of the large capacity engines, go well. Power steer round
corners. Large wings are very common. Cost: similar to Stock Rods.

 Formula Two Stock Cars/Superstox
        Smaller versions of above, with Ford Pinto 2 litre engines.
The formula 2's race in the North, although both have similar specs.
In both these cars, the driver sits astride the gearbox, with the
gear lever between his legs. Hope that harness works well... As
the F1 stocks, front engined.  Cost: could cost more than 6,000
pounds, but there are many cheap second-hand cars. The idea of the
contact is to nudge the car in front with your specially-designed
bumper when going into the corners so that he goes wide.

 Saloon Stock Cars
        Saloon cars (Escorts, Mazda 323s, Talbot Sunbeams). Heavily
armoured. The original body shell plays no part in protection- it is
just wrapped around the mass of metalwork which makes up the car.
Large bumpers to blitz the opposition. Cost: cheap, less than 1,000
pounds. Engine: 2 litre pinto. Engine is secured in the car with
a large piece of chain or cable, so that when stuffed into the fence,
the engine remains with the car. Have had problems with speed, and
measures have been taken to slow them down. (When they go so fast,
the drivers reduce contact, and the fence can be severely damaged
which means there must be a stoppage to repair it). Crowd pleasers,
and very partisan.

 Bangers
        Fun formula. Cars are taken from the scrapyard, have
all excess trimming removed (glass, seats, etc.), replace the
radiator with a large container of water (radiators are broken
when you drive into the car in front), replace the fuel tank
with a smaller one attached to where the rear seat used to be.
Roll cages are optional, only a small amount of welding is
permitted on the doors, and no extra metal must be attached to
the car. Most popular cars are Ford Cortinas/Granadas, old
Jaguars (V12 engines!), Austin A40s (Farinas) (they reckon
that out of a total production of 1 million of these cars (which
were re-badged several times), 75% of them have been used as
bangers!). Although the cars have minimal protection, they cannot
get up much speed, so drivers tend not to get injured when their
car is fenced. The tactic is to go _through_ the other
cars instead of round them :-). Occasionally, there are 
destruction derbys, where you can drive in whichever direction
you choose, and the winner is the last car moving. Also race
over figure of eight courses, but these tend to eliminate too many
cars in the heats (normally on the first corner of the first heat),
so that the final will be a bit sparse.


        Sorry to have gone on a bit, but someone did say
there was no oval racing in the UK :-). There are a few other
similar tracks in Holland, Germany, Austria and South Africa.
In England there are about a dozen tracks in the South, and maybe
just as many in the North. There are a couple of tracks in Scotland,
3 in Northern Ireland, and none in Wales (?).
        The sport startedin this country about 40 years ago. The
first cars came from France, where it had already been established.

P.

--
Paul John Dickinson, pjd@uk.ac.soton.ecs,
University of Southampton, UK.
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport