Formula Free - CSCC

[andy97]

Just noticed this on the Classic Sports Car Club's web site:

"This is a brand new Series for Single Seater Race Cars up to 2000cc of any age. There will be five rounds over the 2007 season:

2/3 June Anglesey (Double Header)

24 June Mallory Park

7/8 July Cadwell Park

22 September Silverstone National

The races are run over fifteen minutes with a 15 min qualifying.

The class structure is based on engine capacity with a separate division for tubular metal chassis and carbon fibre chassis.

Class Structure

1A up to 1200cc Tubular Chassis

1B up to 1200cc Carbon Fibre

2A up to 1600 Tubular Chassis

2B up to 1600 Carbon Fibre

3A up to 1800 Tubular Chassis

3B up to 1800 Carbon Fibre

4A up to 2000 Tubular Chassis

4B up to 2000 Carbon Fibre

5 Invitation class

Club Membership is £30, Registration for the Series is £50 and race entry fees will be £99 per race / £175 for double-header.

The CSCC would like to thank MotorsportAds.co.uk for their support for this new Series"

[TorqueWench]

Nice to see someone's awake out there! Tempted?

[Arty B]

When will a copy of the tech regs be available for download? I assume it is meant to exclude aluminium tubbed cars.

AB.

[TorqueWench]

The Regs are on the website but they are also shown at the top of this thread. We don't go in for lots of rules in the CSCC - if you can't police rules then there's no point having them. Sometimes we add in rules after a season of running if something needs sorting out, but otherwise we like people to race with us. The only thing we are sticklers for is safety, and mad/bad drivers don't receive any more entry forms!

Lots of cheap single seaters out there....

[Arty B]

So do I take it aluminium tubbed cars are not eligible or would they all go in the invitation class?

AB.

[TorqueWench]

I have an email query into our Coordinator Adrian Mossop - I confess I raced a '69 Formula Ford (Lotus 61) for 4 years, but I would rather be sure of my answer re tubs than get it hilariously wrong (and never live it down)!

I'll be back!

[JimW]

I wonder why they have not used the time-honoured Formula Libre name. But still good to see. I hope they will make sure that there are sufficient entries before running a race.

Regards

Jim

[TorqueWench]

We discussed "Formula Libre" - but wanted to update it a little. Since we run the race meetings we will run the races for as many as want to enter - it is up to us if we run at a loss for the first few races, that's just a commercial decision - we want the Series to do well and are quite prepared to encourage newcomers and oldtimers alike.

We started with this attitude when we set up the Tin Tops Series in 2005 with low entry fees etc and now we have great grids - so it's worked before!

[Lola]

What ride heights do you have to run? Club F3/FR or 40 mm?
Im very tempted at £99

[TorqueWench]

Originally Posted by Lola

What ride heights do you have to run? Club F3/FR or 40 mm?
Im very tempted at £99

As I say, the regs are VERY simple. We can't police things like ride height, restrictors, cylinder capacity etc.

In our other series (Swinging 60s and Tin Tops) we have introduced a new rule for 2007 whereby any car that wins a race outright has a mandatory minimum one minute pitstop in its next race - but of course the single seaters won't have pitstop races!

We like to let things develop - there may be no need for adding-on regs, sometimes these things are self-levelling, and sometimes people get hacked off because one particular kind of car or one driver is winning all the time, so they go away and your grids diminish. We can't tell what will happen - but we are a Club run for its membership, so if the members want a change, we react.

[kickstart]

Having raced with the BARC, BRSCC, Mono & 750MC and laterly the CSCC I think those competitors who come out to play with the CSCC are in for a real treat. Old fashioned club racing at it very best.
Good luck with the new series.

[ss_collins]

Whilst this sounds great andI hope it works - how will it sit with Mono, F4, Club F3, any others I've missed - where will the entries come from - personally I'd like to see at least one series culled now instead of 2.

CSCC are a good club and I only hear good things about them - however I'm concerned that an open 2ltr championship has been given the green light when the need is questionable - BUT LOOK AT THOSE FEES!!!

I still think 1 or 2 need to go but if CSCC can keep this going it'll be great - theres a whole load of FPA's about to hit the market allegedly too.

As a 750MC member but not CSCC could I for example turn up with a Vee at the Silverstone round and not pay chap reg fee?

[vaughan jones]

series not a championship, series only need green lights on the grid

[ss_collins]

good point well made

[TorqueWench]

Originally Posted by ss_collins

As a 750MC member but not CSCC could I for example turn up with a Vee at the Silverstone round and not pay chap reg fee?

You need to be a Club Member at £30, and Register for £50, and the entry fee is £99. I would hope you had been tempted to race with us before the Silv round...

[andy97]

Originally Posted by ss_collins

Whilst this sounds great andI hope it works - how will it sit with Mono, F4, Club F3, any others I've missed - where will the entries come from - personally I'd like to see at least one series culled now instead of 2.

CSCC are a good club and I only hear good things about them - however I'm concerned that an open 2ltr championship has been given the green light when the need is questionable - BUT LOOK AT THOSE FEES!!!

I still think 1 or 2 need to go but if CSCC can keep this going it'll be great - theres a whole load of FPA's about to hit the market allegedly too.

As a 750MC member but not CSCC could I for example turn up with a Vee at the Silverstone round and not pay chap reg fee?

I am not sure that there are too many single seater series - look at how many there are at club level compared to the hundered odd saloon/ hatch series! Trouble is that Single seaters are often perceived to be more expensive and difficult to buy and run (which they are not - I have convinced at least one guy to change from a Caterham to a FF Zetec because the costs of purchase and running were less than half!) and some think that saloons/ hatches are safer, which I also doubt, so most new entrants to club racing go down the saloon/ hatch route. There needs to be a bit more marketing of the true costs/ benefits of single seaters!

There must also be loads of cars in garages that are not currently being run inc hundereds of Zetecs, Formula Vauxhalls & older F3 cars and there may even be a few hillclimbers and sprinters who want to try circuit racing but whose car does not meet Mono/ F4 regs etc.

Initiatives like this are a good way to tempt people to try single seaters, get cars out of garages or have a toe in the water excercise with the car that they have hitherto used in speed events.

Its my view that Mono, F4 etc could actually benefit from this as it may tempt more people in to the single seater fold who may then opt for the more formalised championships that they run. Perhaps those clubs should even try and run a guest event with the CSCC (as Mono are doing at mallory in June) and then have the extra benefit of being able to enter a second race (Formula Free) for not much money at all.

BTW The FPA's may be a good buy for a clubman in the future but where would they run? There would need to be either an engine change or some significant rule changes in existing championships to alow them to be eligible. Time for one of the single seater clubs to think ahead, I think.

[ss_collins]

FPA's could run in this.

re only doing Silverstone - its my local track, and whilst my car would be way off the pace with those classes at £99 its fun but the extra £80 makes it cheaper for me to do a 750mc race where I'd be with other vees. Or to go and buy beer in France where I'd be with other booze hounds (much the same as vee then) .

The other tracks do not appeal - Wales is too far (yes I'm lazy), I'd write it off at Cadwell, and Mallory is really at the wrong time of year for me.

Out of interest how do you keep the fees so low? If I had a car that would run well in that (very good) class structure I would be signed up already. An FPA would be my choice or an IMSA Lite Panoz DP04 (Formula X) with its single seater bodywork on.

Love the idea - I don't like the name though - perhaps British open single seaters?

[andy97]

I don't see how FPAs could run - 1.8 Turbocharged engines?? Hmmm? Does not seem to fit to me, although I admit that forced induction engines don'r seem to be mentioned in the positive ort negative.

As for the name - BOSS, don't think so, that's been done!! I still think that F Libre would be most appropriate and would generate more interest. Now where can I find the cash to buy and run a Toleman TG280.

[JimW]

Originally Posted by andy97

I am not sure that there are too many single seater series - look at how many there are at club level compared to the hundred odd saloon/ hatch series! . . .

If the grids are not full (or well up there), then I would argue that there are too many series and the ones not attracting numbers should be ruthlessly killed off. I'm not, of course, saying that this initiative from CSCC won't be successful and look forward to watching at least one round.

But I do recall the old Formula Libre days. There were races with reserves and there were races with four cars with one of them lapping all the others.

Regards

Jim

[RushyRacer]

Originally Posted by kickstart

Having raced with the BARC, BRSCC, Mono & 750MC and laterly the CSCC I think those competitors who come out to play with the CSCC are in for a real treat. Old fashioned club racing at it very best.
Good luck with the new series.

Thank you for your kind comments, Like someone else says ( Old fashioned Club Racing at it's very best) " It's what we do ! "

Tony Rushforth ( CSCC)

[chris1600]

Thats a great idea, maybe I can get a race at Mallory Park afterall.
Bargin prices too!

[ss_collins]

theres nothing in the classes re Turbocharging from whats on here. I'm not sure but I think the FPA and DP04 chassis are very similar.

[andy97]

Originally Posted by ss_collins

theres nothing in the classes re Turbocharging from whats on here. I'm not sure but I think the FPA and DP04 chassis are very similar.

I think that you are right about the FPA & DP04 chassis being similar, as are, I think, the F Ireland and the Van Diemen Honda Blackbird engined Spec chassis that MSV use for their experience days.

As for the turbocharging issue, again you are right, in the strictest sense of the word but traditionally, forced induction cars have been given an equivalence factor of about 1.4 (making FPAs equivelant to 2.5 litre cars). 350 odd bhp engines with burst boost potential are not really in the spirit of the the formula, under its current guise, I think. Although I suppose they could be given over to the invitation class.

In addition, the CSCC has specifically eschewed forced induction cars in all its other series, unless they are diesel powered. Now, fitting the FPAs with the Audi 1.9 Tdi engine might be a good idea, given the "greening" issues that may be starting to come to the fore and the performance might then be more comparable with the other cars that are expected to compete.

[ss_collins]

surely if F3 is acceptable then FPA is? Or do you have to go to the bike or duratec rear end?

[andy97]

Originally Posted by ss_collins

surely if F3 is acceptable then FPA is? Or do you have to go to the bike or duratec rear end?

F3 cars don't have 350 bhp and equivalent capacities of 2.5 litres.

Of course, given the free nature of the rules old F2 cars would be eligible as would the "Open Fortuna by Nissan"/ Formula Nissan-Coloni cars from the late 1990's (there have been several of these advertised recently on other well known web sites).

TBH, we are probably just tyring to over complicate things, and that's something that the CSCC tries to avoid at all costs!

Maybe this exchange is irrelevant at the moment anyway, because the FPA cars are not available on the open market and their use seems strictly controlled by MSV. Its not an issue until JP decides to replace his current chassis. As I said earlier, perhaps its time for one of the single seater clubs to be proactive and establish somewhere to run these cars next year at club level.