One make Ultima race series, whos interested ?
Discussion
hi all
some of you may know that my business involes building & racing Evos. and i have wondering how many of you would be intrested in taking part in a one make race series for Ultimas ?
Please post away and let me know your thoughts, these things are never cheap but they really are good fun. and i really think a car like ours (which basiclly is a race car )should have its own race series here ?
cheers
bily
some of you may know that my business involes building & racing Evos. and i have wondering how many of you would be intrested in taking part in a one make race series for Ultimas ?
Please post away and let me know your thoughts, these things are never cheap but they really are good fun. and i really think a car like ours (which basiclly is a race car )should have its own race series here ?
cheers
bily
The car is built all wrong for a race car.
To make any sense it would have to be possible to remove and replace all the outer body panels so that damage could be rectified relatively easily. With every panel bolted, riveted and bonded into position a simple mid corner side swipe would require an almost complete rebuild.
I don't imagine any existing owners have deep enough pockets for that sort of thing. I most certainly don't having taken a second mortgage just to build it without having to rebuild it every other weekend.
Steve
To make any sense it would have to be possible to remove and replace all the outer body panels so that damage could be rectified relatively easily. With every panel bolted, riveted and bonded into position a simple mid corner side swipe would require an almost complete rebuild.
I don't imagine any existing owners have deep enough pockets for that sort of thing. I most certainly don't having taken a second mortgage just to build it without having to rebuild it every other weekend.
Steve
Haven't you guessed by now Billy that most Ultima owners are happy to own and drive something that looks a lot like a race car and drives something a little like a race car but don't actually want to race it? As Steve has quite rightly pointed out, these cars are not only fundamentally flawed design wise ( actually, I said that , not Steve ) but the replacement panel fitting alone is just not feasible. It's a bit like fighting I suppose, we all like to talk about it and think that we are no pushover but when push comes to shove, we are happy to talk about it and stop there, not many will actually want to physically be involved in a punch up 
The panel thing is not really an excuse and the cars are more made to be a race car than say one make series cars. Body panels once you have a mold are cheap and easy to fit- just change some of the bits in the build, add the odd bit of strength, rose joint the car and move the fuel tank (passenger side) and it would be very quick car and cheap to run- just not for me
Having raced my Ultima and hoping to do so again I would love to see a race series for them.
I think it would be a fantastic sight and a good crowd pleaser.
The difficulty you have when racing the Ultima is that many championships don't want them as they are very capable and tunable cars in the most basic form and therefore excuses such as lack of homologation have been quoted as reasons to decline entry .
As there are only relatively few Ultimas around I believe you would need to have a single class series. This itself raises issues as no two Ultimas are alike and to keep the racing interesting you would have to carefully control regulations.
A series would therefore have to use cars built to specific regulations – in my opinion this would need to be the LS7 as the latest engine approved by Ultima and likely to give good performance, reliability and more easily controlled.
All this means that you would not be promoting the series to existing Ultima owners but a whole new breed who buy them purely for the race series. You would therefore have to promote the series with the knowledge that you could supply up to 20 plus cars all built to the same spec – or at least have them all buy a kit from Ultima with a standard spec LS7
I would love to see it but don’t see it happening.
I think it would be a fantastic sight and a good crowd pleaser.
The difficulty you have when racing the Ultima is that many championships don't want them as they are very capable and tunable cars in the most basic form and therefore excuses such as lack of homologation have been quoted as reasons to decline entry .
As there are only relatively few Ultimas around I believe you would need to have a single class series. This itself raises issues as no two Ultimas are alike and to keep the racing interesting you would have to carefully control regulations.
A series would therefore have to use cars built to specific regulations – in my opinion this would need to be the LS7 as the latest engine approved by Ultima and likely to give good performance, reliability and more easily controlled.
All this means that you would not be promoting the series to existing Ultima owners but a whole new breed who buy them purely for the race series. You would therefore have to promote the series with the knowledge that you could supply up to 20 plus cars all built to the same spec – or at least have them all buy a kit from Ultima with a standard spec LS7
I would love to see it but don’t see it happening.
Chewy said:
A series would therefore have to use cars built to specific regulations – in my opinion this would need to be the LS7 as the latest engine approved by Ultima and likely to give good performance, reliability and more easily controlled.
All this means that you would not be promoting the series to existing Ultima owners but a whole new breed who buy them purely for the race series. You would therefore have to promote the series with the knowledge that you could supply up to 20 plus cars all built to the same spec – or at least have them all buy a kit from Ultima with a standard spec LS7
I would love to see it but don’t see it happening.
I'd love to see it too. I think it would take some work to make the panels easily replaceable (or you end up with racing which is not attractive to spectators or sponsors) but with fixed specification cars like Caterham use it might be possible, as such factory backing would be most beneficial. I am sure that Caterham make a fortune out of the various Academy classes and as such Ted & co may be interested. Mind you, they've been in the game a while and I suppose the question should be asked - why hasn't it been done already?All this means that you would not be promoting the series to existing Ultima owners but a whole new breed who buy them purely for the race series. You would therefore have to promote the series with the knowledge that you could supply up to 20 plus cars all built to the same spec – or at least have them all buy a kit from Ultima with a standard spec LS7
I would love to see it but don’t see it happening.
Not that that has stopped a good idea in the past....!
I'd love to.......but for me the idea of spending 6 months to 2yrs building a 50K + car, to see it stoved in at the first corner, of the first race of the season is way beyond my financial or emotional risk profile, and probably wouldn't do my heart any good either.
Trackdays are enough of a risk for me, and I'm spending all my time trying to concentrate on smooth laps and lines to even contemplate sticking it up the inside!!
A 20K car might just be bearable.
However, what a great spectacle, budget groups C racing!! Imagine the fly bys on the start finish straight!!!
Trackdays are enough of a risk for me, and I'm spending all my time trying to concentrate on smooth laps and lines to even contemplate sticking it up the inside!!
A 20K car might just be bearable.
However, what a great spectacle, budget groups C racing!! Imagine the fly bys on the start finish straight!!!
hi all
thanks for taking the time to reply, its been real interesting reading your thoughts.i know it wont be for all owners for many reasons, but i think its good to what people think.
Regarding the panels etc, that hopefully wouldnt be a problem that we couldnt overcome, as we have composite workshops around the country that speacialise in carbon fibre & grp. i am looking at doing some performance replacemant panels anyway as iam doing them for mine, so i might as well make them avaiable to all that are intrested i.e replacement front end with slats similar to gtwaynes (they look well cool top job, i have to say)' & carbon fibre bumper intake air & cooling ducts etc.iam also going to get carbon side intake ducts made real soon.
I dont know if the ultima has ever been in a wind tunnel but iam going to get it put into a computer by a colleague who is an aero engineer who works for a F1 team, and see what suggestions he comes up with.
I think we just need to see how many would be intrested & how much owners could afford. i think as others have said the ultima surely must be the most suitable car to go 'straight' on the track. The same as Evos are the simplest car to rally or track as they basiclly are rally cars. Owners spend anything from £1000 to £10000 plus to 'tune' thier car & the results are amazing. It takes a lot of money to beat a mildy tuned evo.
Regarding 'building 20 plus cars' if that were needed thats no problem as we build group n evos & race prep other cars already.
Someone mentioned why hasnt anyone done this before & thats exactly the thought i had. the cars are truely awesome & i think that a lot of people would love to see them race at any level.
by the way how many track days & meets do you guys do a year as i would love to come along & meet some of you?
keep the post coming guys.
cheers
billy
thanks for taking the time to reply, its been real interesting reading your thoughts.i know it wont be for all owners for many reasons, but i think its good to what people think.
Regarding the panels etc, that hopefully wouldnt be a problem that we couldnt overcome, as we have composite workshops around the country that speacialise in carbon fibre & grp. i am looking at doing some performance replacemant panels anyway as iam doing them for mine, so i might as well make them avaiable to all that are intrested i.e replacement front end with slats similar to gtwaynes (they look well cool top job, i have to say)' & carbon fibre bumper intake air & cooling ducts etc.iam also going to get carbon side intake ducts made real soon.
I dont know if the ultima has ever been in a wind tunnel but iam going to get it put into a computer by a colleague who is an aero engineer who works for a F1 team, and see what suggestions he comes up with.
I think we just need to see how many would be intrested & how much owners could afford. i think as others have said the ultima surely must be the most suitable car to go 'straight' on the track. The same as Evos are the simplest car to rally or track as they basiclly are rally cars. Owners spend anything from £1000 to £10000 plus to 'tune' thier car & the results are amazing. It takes a lot of money to beat a mildy tuned evo.
Regarding 'building 20 plus cars' if that were needed thats no problem as we build group n evos & race prep other cars already.
Someone mentioned why hasnt anyone done this before & thats exactly the thought i had. the cars are truely awesome & i think that a lot of people would love to see them race at any level.
by the way how many track days & meets do you guys do a year as i would love to come along & meet some of you?
keep the post coming guys.
cheers
billy
Edited by billy2k on Sunday 27th April 01:24
I know that back in the day when there was 20 Renault R5 Turbos in Southren California we used to run as a group on track days with other clubs we would typicaly see 6 to 7 Renaults on a given weekend. The Alfa Club in particular were some real gentelmen, AND VERY GOOD RACERS. They would put us in with maybe 10 other cars of equal speed for a run group and then seperate our results. It was a lot of fun, nothing got horribly broken and there was a lot of good driver instruction given by the more experinced racers to the newbys. I bring this up because I know I would set here in So Cal and get a giggel out of the posts the week after the event. You guys are really good at insulting each other in the most civilized manner. Lee
billy2k said:
Someone mentioned why hasnt anyone done this before & thats exactly the thought i had. the cars are truely awesome & i think that a lot of people would love to see them race at any level.
it has been done before, it was called the ProSport championship, launched in 1990#cars were identical, they cost ~£60K a pop, and the racing was great, eventually it goe killed off by Tuscan's...
realistically, Ultima's would not be cheap to race, you would de better starting from scratch, using a road car has a shed load of stuff you don't want (and costs money).
last point, if your going to go racing, you have to work on the assumption that you could end up totalling your car, if you can't afford to do this, DON'T go racing...
LuckyP said:
What sort of times were you lapping Snett in Scuffers in the ProSports?
not run mine there yet (yes, I know how sad that sounds!)at the time, the lap record for the Prosport championship was something like 1:07's
since then, Ian Flux in Mike Christopher's car has done low 1:04's (hid car is somewhat worked on relative to the championship spec's)
Scuffers said:
LuckyP said:
What sort of times were you lapping Snett in Scuffers in the ProSports?
not run mine there yet (yes, I know how sad that sounds!)at the time, the lap record for the Prosport championship was something like 1:07's
since then, Ian Flux in Mike Christopher's car has done low 1:04's (hid car is somewhat worked on relative to the championship spec's)
qwick said:
Very nice indeed, any racing done with Prosports now?
not sure what Mike's up to these days, last I saw they were baiting Radical SR8's etc in Britsports...Mines not moved for a year (politics and budget issues!)
I belive Ian has sold one of his.
My mate has just sold his (in bits)...
the real problem is limited places to run them..
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