i was looking at getting involved the beginning of this year. This never went through though. Its a love or hate sport. The people that do Vee's love the sport and treasure the close, exciting racing it provides. however the people that dont like it, bag the slow speeds and overall boringness fo driving a Vee. to claim its cheaper than Formula Ford is true, however, to be competetive this isnt the case anymore. you can be set back around $42,000 for a brand new car from Jacer (leading manufacturer for Formula Vees), then you have to buy a trailer for it, spares and acquire some racegear. i decided the cost wasnt worth the outcome, but im one person. Many karters have moves into the category, to name a few
Paul Sharman (Raced the 1200 Vee's last time i saw)
Jack Le Broq
Cameron Waters (over a contreversial appeal i believe)
Gemma Deakin
Asher Johnstone (has done formula ford also)
Daniel Westcott
like any sport, including karting, the budget increases massively when you want to remain competetive. The state series for Formula Vee's is biggest in NSW i think, they attract some pretty big numbers for a normal state round. The national series is also well numbered, however not as big as your normal karting field.
Personally i think Vee's are good to start off your car racing career, but also not the best. Formula Ford seems to be the trend for most, but their budgets dont apply, to even coping with running the local State Series in Duratec or 1600.
if you are looking to stay in Vee's. i wouldnt bother, kartings racing offers much mroe excitement. if you are looking to use it as a stepping stone, to something bigger, then jump right in.
42 grand you could buy a second hand aussie racing car :P
yeah your right. But then you have a category agreement to pay for, Accomodation, travel to the races it all adds up. you can get a 2nd hand Aussie Car for as cheap as 22k these days. they haul a lot more arse than a Vee, and seem like even better racing.
i think its definatley worth racing. i've tested my dads mates car and they are pretty damn quick and at a track like phillip island where i had a go u always have to pay attention to wat ur doing. they dont handle extremely well but that means it comes more down to driver skill. i know a couple of people that race them and most of them get bout 18 months out of a set of tyres, although the engines do need a rebuild quite a bit.
We looked into it a number of years ago when I was coming out of Juniors (1997..) and what we found out was that unless you had one of the 'good' manifolds (forget weather it was intake or exhaust now) then forget being competitive..
The reason for this was that the manifolds were made back in the day by being heated up and they dragged a steel ball through the manifold to shape it. As time went on, the ball got smaller and smaller and so did the ID of the manifold. We were told people were paying anything up to $5k for these manifolds - wait.. how's that different to karting again?! :)
These days it may be different though.
I have raced FVee, back in '96/97. The cars like the Jacers were just coming onto the scene at the time, it was mainly NG Elfins and the Sabre. A really expensive car was around 16 grand. Things have changed...
Yes the cars aren't all that fast in outright speed, but the trick was that you just did everything you could not to slow down. The corner speed was huge, and the slip streaming battles brilliant. Going through Turn 1 at Phillip Island you were only doing 170k-ish, but when you go through 5 abreast it's awesome!
It was about as cheap motor racing as you could get. I haven't really followed the technical changes since the 1600's were introduced, but the cost of a car has really risen (looking at the classifieds on the FVee website).
My CV - I raced some production motorcycles when young, karts for a little then FVee. I did bite the bullet and drove FFord (with a Spectrum), but the cost and maintenance killed me. Just State Series racing and the odd bigger event. Wheels have turned almost full circle and I'm just about to get back into karting (TaG/R). I looked at getting back into FVee, but the upfront cost and accessibility of driving one (i.e. having to get to a circuit like Calder / Winton) was too difficult for me.
But the answer to your question, from the perspective of someone who has, is YES!!!
Comments6
i was looking at getting involved the beginning of this year. This never went through though. Its a love or hate sport. The people that do Vee's love the sport and treasure the close, exciting racing it provides. however the people that dont like it, bag the slow speeds and overall boringness fo driving a Vee. to claim its cheaper than Formula Ford is true, however, to be competetive this isnt the case anymore. you can be set back around $42,000 for a brand new car from Jacer (leading manufacturer for Formula Vees), then you have to buy a trailer for it, spares and acquire some racegear. i decided the cost wasnt worth the outcome, but im one person. Many karters have moves into the category, to name a few
Paul Sharman (Raced the 1200 Vee's last time i saw)
Jack Le Broq
Cameron Waters (over a contreversial appeal i believe)
Gemma Deakin
Asher Johnstone (has done formula ford also)
Daniel Westcott
like any sport, including karting, the budget increases massively when you want to remain competetive. The state series for Formula Vee's is biggest in NSW i think, they attract some pretty big numbers for a normal state round. The national series is also well numbered, however not as big as your normal karting field.
Personally i think Vee's are good to start off your car racing career, but also not the best. Formula Ford seems to be the trend for most, but their budgets dont apply, to even coping with running the local State Series in Duratec or 1600.
if you are looking to stay in Vee's. i wouldnt bother, kartings racing offers much mroe excitement. if you are looking to use it as a stepping stone, to something bigger, then jump right in.
42 grand you could buy a second hand aussie racing car :P
yeah your right. But then you have a category agreement to pay for, Accomodation, travel to the races it all adds up. you can get a 2nd hand Aussie Car for as cheap as 22k these days. they haul a lot more arse than a Vee, and seem like even better racing.
i think its definatley worth racing. i've tested my dads mates car and they are pretty damn quick and at a track like phillip island where i had a go u always have to pay attention to wat ur doing. they dont handle extremely well but that means it comes more down to driver skill. i know a couple of people that race them and most of them get bout 18 months out of a set of tyres, although the engines do need a rebuild quite a bit.
We looked into it a number of years ago when I was coming out of Juniors (1997..) and what we found out was that unless you had one of the 'good' manifolds (forget weather it was intake or exhaust now) then forget being competitive..
The reason for this was that the manifolds were made back in the day by being heated up and they dragged a steel ball through the manifold to shape it. As time went on, the ball got smaller and smaller and so did the ID of the manifold. We were told people were paying anything up to $5k for these manifolds - wait.. how's that different to karting again?! :)
These days it may be different though.
I have raced FVee, back in '96/97. The cars like the Jacers were just coming onto the scene at the time, it was mainly NG Elfins and the Sabre. A really expensive car was around 16 grand. Things have changed...
Yes the cars aren't all that fast in outright speed, but the trick was that you just did everything you could not to slow down. The corner speed was huge, and the slip streaming battles brilliant. Going through Turn 1 at Phillip Island you were only doing 170k-ish, but when you go through 5 abreast it's awesome!
It was about as cheap motor racing as you could get. I haven't really followed the technical changes since the 1600's were introduced, but the cost of a car has really risen (looking at the classifieds on the FVee website).
My CV - I raced some production motorcycles when young, karts for a little then FVee. I did bite the bullet and drove FFord (with a Spectrum), but the cost and maintenance killed me. Just State Series racing and the odd bigger event. Wheels have turned almost full circle and I'm just about to get back into karting (TaG/R). I looked at getting back into FVee, but the upfront cost and accessibility of driving one (i.e. having to get to a circuit like Calder / Winton) was too difficult for me.
But the answer to your question, from the perspective of someone who has, is YES!!!