GETTING STARTED IN MOTORSPORT |
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| A few years ago the Club organised a promotional event to attract new
members. For this we produced a booklet to help answer some of the questions
that are always asked by those new to the sport. Here is a web-based version of
this booklet. Motor sport is one of the most popular and successful sports in Britain. There are over 750 registered motor clubs who organise over 4,000 events every year. Club membership nationally is in excess of 200,000, over 30,000 of whom are competition licence holders, and the number of active competitors in all forms of motorsport is probably at least 100,000. Anyone over the age of 8 can drive competitively, and there are opportunities for even severely disabled drivers. Many forms of motor sport can be tackled with completely standard road cars, while others permit only very limited modifications. Actually, you don’t even need a car to compete; several types of motor sport require each car to carry a passenger, often as an active participant. If you prefer not to compete at all, there are opportunities to marshal, to help with organising, or simply to spectate. And finally, you can seek permanent employment in motor sport. Great Britain is the very centre of the motor sport world: three-quarters of the world’s single-seat racing car production is British-built, and 80% of Formula 1 World Championship races in the past decade have been won by British-built cars. The motor sport industry employs around 38,500 people nationwide, has a turnover value of over £1.5 billion, and is responsible for around £930 million of Britain’s export earnings each year. This is indeed an industry of which we can all be justly proud. Motor sport is as old as the car itself, and stems from the basic human instinct to compete; if you give two boys bicycles, they’ll be racing each other within minutes! International and professional motor sport attracts a lot of media coverage: Formula 1, Formula 3, Formula 3000, Touring Cars, Sports and GT Cars, International Rallying etc. But thousands of ordinary people across the country take part each weekend in competitive motor sport that receives virtually no coverage. This is National and Club level motor sport - Classic & Sporting Car Trials; Production Car Trials; Autotests; Navigation Rallies (NavX); and the high-speed events: Sprints; Hillclimbs; Drag Racing; Stage Rallying; Off Road and Rallycross. One of the main aims of Bristol Motor Club is to promote affordable motor sport at club level, so we are not involved in Drag Racing, Stage Rallying, Off Road and Rallycross events. This introduction will therefore concentrate on the events that we do promote – the low-speed events, plus Sprints and Hillclimbs. |
