Fifth Gear, tonight 29th Oct at 19:30

[paulf968]

Might be a bit of Porsche 944 action on tonights episode as one of the presenters enters his first race.

Our own Ben Demetriou helped organise this.

 

[blaine54]

I forgot about this....Keep an eye out for black & white Golf no. 54 as that's me and my mate.....The race is from Snetterton on one of the hottest days of the year. They used an arrive and drive 944 from a company in maidenhead after Jonny had just passed his ARDS. I think it was a one off as we haven't seen him since. It's a MSV track day trophy meeting, aimed at novice track day drivers who are looking for an intro to racing. It's been a great year and if you're looking to get into racing I give it a big thumbs up[]

 

[CarreraRSR]

http://fwd.five.tv/fifth-gear/videos/features/trackday-trophy

 

[Neil Haughey]

Looked to me like the same car Ben raced in class 2 of PCGB a couple of years back?

 

[Big Dave]

ORIGINAL: Neil Haughey

Looked to me like the same car Ben raced in class 2 of PCGB a couple of years back?

Correct....

 

[paulf968]

Yes, Ben seems to keep all his old race cars but his championship winning 968 is actually for sale at the moment

Well the piece did capture the thrill of competing for the first time - anyone out there more tempted after seeing it!

There were a few shots of Ben and his Dad Andy on the pit wall encouraging the driver on -- link to Ben's site here for info
www.faze-1.co.uk -- NB actually based in Hoddesdon, Herts

 

[Northern924]

Missed this I'll have to look out for a re-run

 

[Mike_Pollock]

I missed it too, but CarreraRSR's link above is great!

 

[blaine54]

Well if that wets your appetite and you are interested the boys will be at race car live at Brands to talk about the series. There's a 944, 968 and at least one other 944 getting involved next year. Cars are put into categories based on bhp per ton, with the top class up to 200 bhp. 45 min races, with a shared drive to keep the price down and we usually get a 30 min quali, plus 30 min practice on the day. I stupidly thought racing was never going to be an option, but for a joint budget of 8k (including the car, ok it's not a porker but at least it's German) it's been awesome.

 

[Northern924]

Missed the video link at first just watched it (thanks for the link RSR), Jonny did really well, but you can be sure he's had a lot of coaching from Tif & Jason before he took the test []
Either way great to see a '44 in there

 

[Neil Haughey]

Sounds remarkably like Future Classics in format but more focused towards newbs.

 

[blaine54]

Exactly that.....MarkK's race series has been similar in race duration etc, but more of a championship so the need to do every round. I'm venturing away from the TDT for the 1st time next sunday at Brands so it'll be interesting to see how the racing compares in the tin tops, with shorter races

 

[Neil Haughey]

Its not a Championship though its a series. TBH it seems they do a tally or count back to give some end of season awards but they definitely do not dole out championship points at each race ala PCGB Championship or similar. This is a good thing not just so you don't have to do all the rounds (loads of them so would be expensive which defeats the objective of being low cost), and perhaps just as important you don't get the "extra" combative driving some championships develop as you approach the end of the season. They also penalise cars after a win so 1 win equals 30 seconds a second win is another 30 seconds and so on, all served in the pit stop which means in effect its like a 1 second per lap penalty on a lot of circuits. The result is lots of different winners. You also tend to see a lot of different entries from race to race, although there is a hard core that do a lot of the rounds.