Another newbie looking for advice: start SS with or without wings?

[Redracer77]

we have a new front wing for 07 and the front wing is close to £1500 and the rear wing is £1100. Then a diffusor is £800. If you want cheap and easy to run for a beginner then yes FF1600 and Vee is where you should be full stop

[andy97]

Originally Posted by Redracer77

we have a new front wing for 07 and the front wing is close to £1500 and the rear wing is £1100. Then a diffusor is £800. If you want cheap and easy to run for a beginner then yes FF1600 and Vee is where you should be full stop

Surely a F Ford Zetec in something like Mono 1800 is even cheaper to run - the engines are bullet proof for a start and don't need the re-builds that a Kent or a Vee engine needs. Purchase costs of a Zetec car are also lower than a FF1600 and you can run on second hand national F Ford tyres to keep costs even lower (most Mono runners do).

[Mando]

It seems to me that you're in the racing for the enjoyment of it, and I can gaurantee you that an F3 is incredibly enjoyable to drive!

I raced FVee, and moved directly to F3. It really was no problem, and Fvee racing teaches excellent racecraft, with *very* close racing. If you happen to touch wheels, people get a little angry, but at least it doesn't cost you (and them) an arm and a leg to learn the lesson (figuratively speaking!).

While wingless cars are less relevant than winged cars for an upcoming young driver, they do provide a much easier-to-understand basis of driving. There are less variables on car set up, and you can focus more on the driving & close racing.

I would say the last thing you want to do is to find the experience overbearing. If you haven't got the support of engineers and mechanics around you, then learning how to set up the aero package on a winged car is going to be difficult (if not scary at the same time).

Also, self maintenance of a FVee or FFord is much easier than an F3. The F3 requires an extremely diligent maintenance schedule, and requires a fair amount of experience. IMHO, they are a professional level car in terms of maintenance.

But in the end, just go for it and chase your dream!

[Redracer77]

Originally Posted by andy97

Surely a F Ford Zetec in something like Mono 1800 is even cheaper to run - the engines are bullet proof for a start and don't need the re-builds that a Kent or a Vee engine needs. Purchase costs of a Zetec car are also lower than a FF1600 and you can run on second hand national F Ford tyres to keep costs even lower (most Mono runners do).

True there a zetec is a cheaper car to buy and run but IMHO FF1600 has a much better "scene" than Mono but that is only my opinion and I am sure to pop out in a couple of mono rounds this year if my drivers will allow me to drive my cars!!

[twistedPT]

with all the feedback, this thread is proving even more useful for me than I expected

I am starting to realize that the self maintained issue alone is the major one. It might/will get too hectic for a novice. I self mantained the karts and there is always something to repair to take us away from the track and they are much simpler then SS...
So it seems that wingless is the place to start.

Regarding the driving and coming from the 100cc karting with (slicks and wets) , I didn't find it too difficult to deal with the mechanical grip of the Carina (Group A), also with slick and wets. On the slow bends I was on pace fairly soon but on the fastest bends needed much more time to adapt. But for me the major issue was braking after long straights to slow bends (the carina had good brakes). I reckon this is normal for any karter moving to cars and I expect to find the same difficulties driving a SS. The only experience I had with the SS was in silverstone (with F First 20m behind pace car + 20m "free" ) and used a (very) small circuit so no big braking or fast bends to check this...


Cheers

[StephenRae]

I instructed for years and was never happy telling folk to brake later on the basis that they could then blame me when it went wrong. What I did was to tell them to brake where they felt comfortable but to brake as hard as they could. Usually after coming to a near stop way before the corner they would work out for themselves the braking potential and adjust accordingly.
You could try this but don't blame me!