So what does it cost to compete in Castle Combe Hot Hatch Series?
As so many of you are local to the track and have shown interest in joining many of our members who are already on the grid of CCHH, we thought we would give a run down of costs for your first race and initial setup. Obviously once you have your car, kit and ARDS the race seasons beyond become much more affordable, only of course if you keep your car in one-piece 😉.
We based this on a budget entry into the series as Combe intended it to be. With our Honda Civic we entered Class C for 1400 – 1600 cars and aimed to enter our first race with everything sorted for under £10k, cheaper than it was to buy our M3 for example or probably do a season of trackdays…if we didn’t run them 😉. We have based this on rough costs as you can imagine it depends on the car you use and the kit you buy. Its also worth noting that many locals choose Castle Combes home series because it vastly reduces the costs for travel and accommodation. In our case the Civic is fully road legal so we drive it to track, race it, and then hopefully drive it home again.
In my case my first event incurred some extra costs in damage but in all honestly I could have taken both race a lot easier than I did but once you get out on the grid and into the race all your looking for are ways to get through and how to perfect your line to gain time. We have not included wear and tear in the run down, this is because actually aside from potential contact with other cars…ahem, your car will mostly suffer less stress than a full trackday. We know many of you exceed 100 miles at one of our days but with racing your doing say 15mins qualifying, then as we did two 15 laps races, but trust me the loss of track time is well worth it and after those three stints I was knackered.
I have done a breakdown below of costs to actually get ready to race a car in CCHH and then costs for the first event. We certainly wouldn’t recommend racing for someone who has only done a few trackdays, its more for those who are looking for a new challenge after lots of experience at normal trackdays. We are assuming that you already have some tools of your own and that you and your friends will be supporting the car during the event.
Getting Ready to Race CC HH
Honda Civic EK Vti Inc Build - £6,000
MSUK Go Racing Starter Pack - £107
ARDS - £360
Hedtec Rapido Open Face Helmet (New) - £169
Stand21 HANS (New) - £260
P1 Racewear Race Suit - £320
AlpineStars Boots (New) - £100
AlpineStars Gloves (New) - £100
Balaclava (New) - £40
CC Racing Club Membership - £99
Total: £7,555
The First Race CC HH
Transponder - £30
Fuel (2 races) - £60
Entry fee double header - £305
MSUK Stickers HANS & Helmet - £5
Total: £400
We will do a proper race report as well but I really wanted to get this out there to show you all that its possible with an average income and support from your mates and family on the day and prepping the car for racing along with deals from the right sponsors you really can go racing club level in an average car and still get reasonable results.
Our Civic aside from light breathing mods and a map runs a completely stick 1600 engine, that combined with a good handling package and setup it made mid grid on the first race. We ran 262 standard brake setup just with uprated discs and pads. We ran nearly warn out Nankang AR1’s given to us by Mike Norman for free…cheers mike 😉. So it just goes to show you don’t need to break the bank getting ready to race, if you bought everything second hand you could do it even cheaper than we have.
If you have any questions just drop a comment and either we or one of our members will answer best they can. We also have members who race in CC formula Ford, CC GT’s and CC Saloons so ask away about those too.
Hope to see some of you on the grid at Combe soon 😊.
Useful links:
ARDS Dates Castle Combe:
castlecombecircuit.co.uk/ards-personal-tuition
Castle Combe Hot Hatch Regs:
www.ccracingclub.co.uk/assets/downloadable-content/CCRC-Hot-Hatch-Regs-2019-Published-Copy.pdf
CC Racing Club:
www.ccracingclub.co.uk/
Our Trackdays for shakedown and keeping your eye in 😉:
As so many of you are local to the track and have shown interest in joining many of our members who are already on the grid of CCHH, we thought we would give a run down of costs for your first race and initial setup. Obviously once you have your car, kit and ARDS the race seasons beyond become much more affordable, only of course if you keep your car in one-piece 😉.
We based this on a budget entry into the series as Combe intended it to be. With our Honda Civic we entered Class C for 1400 – 1600 cars and aimed to enter our first race with everything sorted for under £10k, cheaper than it was to buy our M3 for example or probably do a season of trackdays…if we didn’t run them 😉. We have based this on rough costs as you can imagine it depends on the car you use and the kit you buy. Its also worth noting that many locals choose Castle Combes home series because it vastly reduces the costs for travel and accommodation. In our case the Civic is fully road legal so we drive it to track, race it, and then hopefully drive it home again.
In my case my first event incurred some extra costs in damage but in all honestly I could have taken both race a lot easier than I did but once you get out on the grid and into the race all your looking for are ways to get through and how to perfect your line to gain time. We have not included wear and tear in the run down, this is because actually aside from potential contact with other cars…ahem, your car will mostly suffer less stress than a full trackday. We know many of you exceed 100 miles at one of our days but with racing your doing say 15mins qualifying, then as we did two 15 laps races, but trust me the loss of track time is well worth it and after those three stints I was knackered.
I have done a breakdown below of costs to actually get ready to race a car in CCHH and then costs for the first event. We certainly wouldn’t recommend racing for someone who has only done a few trackdays, its more for those who are looking for a new challenge after lots of experience at normal trackdays. We are assuming that you already have some tools of your own and that you and your friends will be supporting the car during the event.
Getting Ready to Race CC HH
Honda Civic EK Vti Inc Build - £6,000
MSUK Go Racing Starter Pack - £107
ARDS - £360
Hedtec Rapido Open Face Helmet (New) - £169
Stand21 HANS (New) - £260
P1 Racewear Race Suit - £320
AlpineStars Boots (New) - £100
AlpineStars Gloves (New) - £100
Balaclava (New) - £40
CC Racing Club Membership - £99
Total: £7,555
The First Race CC HH
Transponder - £30
Fuel (2 races) - £60
Entry fee double header - £305
MSUK Stickers HANS & Helmet - £5
Total: £400
We will do a proper race report as well but I really wanted to get this out there to show you all that its possible with an average income and support from your mates and family on the day and prepping the car for racing along with deals from the right sponsors you really can go racing club level in an average car and still get reasonable results.
Our Civic aside from light breathing mods and a map runs a completely stick 1600 engine, that combined with a good handling package and setup it made mid grid on the first race. We ran 262 standard brake setup just with uprated discs and pads. We ran nearly warn out Nankang AR1’s given to us by Mike Norman for free…cheers mike 😉. So it just goes to show you don’t need to break the bank getting ready to race, if you bought everything second hand you could do it even cheaper than we have.
If you have any questions just drop a comment and either we or one of our members will answer best they can. We also have members who race in CC formula Ford, CC GT’s and CC Saloons so ask away about those too.
Hope to see some of you on the grid at Combe soon 😊.
Useful links:
ARDS Dates Castle Combe:
castlecombecircuit.co.uk/ards-personal-tuition
Castle Combe Hot Hatch Regs:
www.ccracingclub.co.uk/assets/downloadable-content/CCRC-Hot-Hatch-Regs-2019-Published-Copy.pdf
CC Racing Club:
www.ccracingclub.co.uk/
Our Trackdays for shakedown and keeping your eye in 😉: