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Starting in Motorsport
Competing: car trials and grass autotests
Moving on to competing, car trials and grass autotests are the usual starting points. Club members Mark Hoppe and Shawn Franklin took the first two places in the Motorsport UK national car trials championship in 2018, and Mark’s thoughts on the subject can be found here….
Car trials and grass autotests are for two-wheel drive cars, but we also run trials for 4×4 vehicles, ranging from modified Land Rovers to modern SUV ‘soft roaders’ with section difficulty graded accordingly.
For trials and some autotests, drivers can take part from age 14 subject to parental consent and being accompanied by someone who has a full driving licence. Disabled drivers can also take part; recently our overall club champion was a wheelchair user driving a car fitted with hand controls.
Please refer to Motorsport UK’s website for further information and resources.
Trials & Autotests
trials@woolbridge.co.uk or autotests@woolbridge.co.uk
07967 646086
Please call out of office hours and no calls after 9:00pm
4x4 & SUVs
4×4@woolbridge.co.uk
01300 320784
Please call out of office hours and no calls after 9:00pm
Speed Hillclimb
speed@woolbridge.co.uk
Competing: speed hillclimbs
If you would like to try your hand at the speed hillclimbs, it is suggested that you attend some events to see what goes on, what cars can be used and what modifications are permitted. Most competitors are only too happy to talk about their cars, unless you interrupt them while they are trying to fix that elusive intermittent fault!
For these events you will need a competition licence issued by Motorsport UK in addition to belonging to Woolbridge or an invited club. With the competition licence you will get a rule book (called the Blue Book after the colour of the cover) and this needs to be studied. Provided the car is in standard road going specification, you will need a crash helmet, fireproof overalls and gloves to a specification, so budget for around £500 on these items. If the car is modified, then you may be looking at a HANS device, as used by all racing formulae and the WRC, and suitable crash helmet.
For an un-modified road going car, there are minimal car requirements – tyres as specified in the event regulations, vehicle excise duty, MOT if required and insurance (this is to verify the ‘roadgoing’ part; your insurance won’t cover you for competitions), a timing strut at the front to ensure the start and finish light or laser beams are cut in a clean consistent way, a yellow marker on the battery earth lead (most cars have this anyway) and an arrow on the ignition switch so that marshals can stop the engine in the event of an incident.
