What is a sportsracer?

A sportsracer is what?

A sportsracer is a road racing car, by that I mean it races on a road course, not on the public roads, unless they are of course closed. Funny sentence eh? Anyway, sportsracers are usually open top racing cars that have a body mounted that covers the wheels as viewed from above, from the side they look much like a convertible street car with the driver's head all poking out in the wind.

In the much lamented Can-Am series from the 60's and 70's the cars were sportsracers. Big, hairy chested sportsracers, but sportsracers none the less. These monsters had big horsepower and light weight, very few rules and drivers who feared no evil. If you ever wanted to experience what strapping a big block V8 to your backside might feel like, then an original Can-Am car was for you. You should leave your fear of death or injury behind as these cars were fearsome and deadly. The reward for driving them was just as big as the potential downside. It's the conundrum of racing, if the lows weren't so low, the highs would not be so high.

Nothing prepares you for the intensity of one of these animals, you strap in and look out over the nose of the car, feeling like you are sitting on the ground looking between your feet. You flip the switch and prod the starter button as the hounds from hell are unleashed behind you. There is little to compare to 500 cubic inches of unmuffled V8 right over your shoulder. A simply awe-inspiring device, those Can-Am cars.

The sportsracers of today are not quite as visceral, but their performance owes no-one an apology. Where their historical counterparts were best where they could unleash their awesome acceleration, the new cars just refuse to slow down in the corners. They grip to the road from a combination of extremely light weight, under 1000 pounds, great tires and almost unrestricted aerodynamic aids. These cars have tunnels under them that create downforce, shoving them to the ground and making the mid-corner speeds hard to describe. It's amazing to think of the performance levels these cars reach while using engines around 1000cc in size.

The Sports Car Club of America is the most fertile of the current playgrounds for these cars, they compete in the C and D Sportsracer category with the D cars being lighter with smaller engines. The classes have historically been populated with homebuilt cars, creations crafted in home shops by fanatically obsessed builders. Over the last decade the fastest in the class have come from factory built cars where racers buy a well conceived and constructed car and develop it to their best ability. That, along with the constructor's initiatives have pushed the performance envelope further than many could have imagined.

The cars available for sale include the Stohr, which has been the most successful, Radical, the most commercially successful, though not as intense a race car as the others. Also Merloy or Phoenix as it's known now, Speads, from South Africa and Prince are some of the competitors. A newcomer to the scene is the Mallen Alley chassis, this is so far the fastest of the competitors to the Stohr, showing potential to unseat the reigning class leader. This year's SCCA Runoffs should be an interesting event as these manufacturers come together to see who's fastest.

There is no better time than the present to explore the new sportsracers, they are seriously fast, very high tech and a relative bargain to compete with. If you consider the cost/performance ratio, they are a steal!!!

What is a sportsracer?

A sportsracer is a road racing car, by that I mean it races on a road course, not on the public roads, unless they are of course closed. Funny sentence eh? Anyway, sportsracers are usually open top racing cars that have a body mounted that covers the wheels as viewed from above, from the side they look much like a convertible street car with the driver's head all poking out in the wind.

In the much lamented Can-Am series from the 60's and 70's the cars were sportsracers. Big, hairy chested sportsracers, but sportsracers none the less. These monsters had big horsepower and light weight, very few rules and drivers who feared no evil. If you ever wanted to experience what strapping a big block V8 to your backside might feel like, then an original Can-Am car was for you. You should leave your fear of death or injury behind as these cars were fearsome and deadly. The reward for driving them was just as big as the potential downside. It's the conundrum of racing, if the lows weren't so low, the highs would not be so high.

Nothing prepares you for the intensity of one of these animals, you strap in and look out over the nose of the car, feeling like you are sitting on the ground looking between your feet. You flip the switch and prod the starter button as the hounds from hell are unleashed behind you. There is little to compare to 500 cubic inches of unmuffled V8 right over your shoulder. A simply awe-inspiring device, those Can-Am cars.

The modern day sportsracer is something of a more tamed beast. Not that the performance of the modern cars is any less, they actually get around the tracks quicker than the old cars. This is largely due to tire technology and aerodynamic downforce that pushes the car to the track. The "Hand of God" holding the car to the track surface is the best way to describe the grip level. These cars are usually powered by engines with displacements around 10% of their vintage counterparts. This makes their performance even more impressive.

These cars are most seriously raced in the SCCA, Sports Car Club of America's club racing series. They are classed by engine size and weight, with DSR being the lighter and CSR being the heavier. The C sportsracers have been the historically faster class with their larger engines, but recently the D sportsracers have begun to surpass their big brothers in performance. A lot of this is due to their powerplants that come from today's sportbikes, one litre 200+ horsepower, 12,000 rpm wild animals. Until lfairly recently, the cars in the classes have been mostly built by their drivers but that has changed some as fpurpose built cars have begun to take over at the top of the fields.

The cars available for sale include the Stohr, which has been the most successful, Radical, the most commercially successful, though not as intense a race car as the others. Also Merloy or Phoenix as it's known now, Speads, from South Africa and Prince are some of the competitors. A newcomer to the scene is the Mallen Alley chassis, this is so far the fastest of the competitors to the Stohr, showing potential to unseat the reigning class leader. This year's SCCA Runoffs should be an interesting event as these manufacturers come together to see who's fastest.

There is no better time than the present to explore the new sportsracers, they are seriously fast, very high tech and a relative bargain to compete with. If you consider the cost/performance ratio, they are a steal!!!