Toyota Sprint Series 2010

[PaulT]

Hello everybody!

It is now 2010 and that means the third season of the Toyota Sprint Series is not far away. If you didn't know, sprinting is a form of competitive motorsport where each driver aims to set the fastest time of the day along a tarmac stage either on a race track or at an airfield.

Typically the courses are between one and three minutes long and are suitable for either factory standard or modified Toyotas. It is not side-by-side racing, and the chances of damaging your car are pretty slim as long as you drive within your limits. In a stock car you will not especially wear your clutch or your brakes.

You normally get between six and eight chances to set a fast time depending on the length of the course, so quite often we get two practice runs and three timed runs in before lunch, and five afterwards.

The racing is divided into classes by engine size and modification. Us Aygo drivers will be interested in class F which is for naturally aspirated 1-litre cars. Modifications are allowed (eg. lowering springs, coilovers, removing seats), but no forced induction or boring out the cylinders. Essentially it is Aygo vs. Yaris :D

Since Yarises (and Vitzes) outnumbered Aygos in 2009, we now need to find more Aygo competitors. It turns out that the Aygo is very competitive against 1-litre (and above) Yarises

The dates of the rounds are:

21st March – Rockingham

4th April - Barkston Heath

6th June - Sculthorpe

24th July – Barkston Heath

19th September - Woodbridge

16th October - Tockwith (York)

Car preparation:

Your car must be road legal and you need to do a few small things to prepare it for racing. Put yellow tape around the Battery lead from the cathode, mark the tow points and fit your front towing eye at the circuit, and generally make sure your car is in good order. It will be scrutineered, but young cars like the Aygo would have to be a right mess to fail scrutineering. One thing which could go wrong is if you have fitted a loud exhaust (> 102db), in which case you will be thrown out of the competition promptly.

Costs:

Basically in line with a cheap track day. Each round costs £100, you need a helmet (£10 hire/day if you don't have a proper car helmet, motorbike helmets are not allowed), and you need a £15 race licence valid for the year.

If you want to compete for the championship and enter every event, a £120 deposit is needed and you pay £80 as you do each race day. Otherwise, if you only want to do one or two races, you can enter as a reserve and just pay £100 per race day.

Links:

Series home page

Registration details

Rules and regulations

Sprinting FAQs

I've competed for the last two years in the TSS and found it great fun. If you are looking to get started in motorsport cheaply, then it's difficult to find a better organised, friendlier race series. It's not all tooth and claw competition, we do have a proper laugh in the pits and everybody has made a lot of good friends.

If you have any questions, please post and I'll try to answer. Would be great to see more Aygos in the competition this year

Paul.

[SJandMR2]

You well know I always wanted to do this but always got the impression from the forum that places were booked up Very quick and it was even over subscribed?

When do you need to sign up for each race by as I am being made redundant at the moment so financial commitment is a bit iffy?

[PaulT]

You well know I always wanted to do this but always got the impression from the forum that places were booked up Very quick and it was even over subscribed?

When do you need to sign up for each race by as I am being made redundant at the moment so financial commitment is a bit iffy?

I'm pretty sure they have the capacity to cope with quite a few more than last year, so I wouldn't worry about that.

Check the reserve list a week before each event, but there should be no problem getting a place.

Paul.

[SallyIQ]

Im very interested...although each round is between 2 and a half TO 4 and a half hours away!

How much petrol would you say you use in an average day of racing? And have you ever broken anything serious while doing it?!

Just worked out prices, for a whole season it would work out at under 1k so very appealing!

[PaulT]

Im very interested...although each round is between 2 and a half TO 4 and a half hours away!

How much petrol would you say you use in an average day of racing? And have you ever broken anything serious while doing it?!

Just worked out prices, for a whole season it would work out at under 1k so very appealing!

It's the same for me apart from Rockingham, which is nearer; I drive 2-3 hours normally to get to the tracks. I find that in the Aygo if I start with a full tank I normally have about a third left when I get home, which is quite reasonable after five hours driving plus track laps :D

Even with the 1-litre cars, you will get about 20mpg on the circuit, but you are only driving 8-15 miles flat out.

I have not had any breakages in the two years I have been racing. My Aygo is now at 38000 miles and I still haven't replaced the brakes or the clutch, drives well in fact. And I have been doing other track days including Nur, Brands, Silverstone and Donnington in the last two years as well, so Toyota build quality does count for something. (It doesn't leak either )

I think costs really come down with the lighter cars, because wear and tear on brakes, clutch, gearbox and tyres is so much less then with a heavy powerful car. Every few rounds, the high-power Celica guys blow another engine---not a problem we have to worry about

I'm on my second set of tyres, having used up a track set in about 10 track days. You'll probably use 1mm of rubber / day on the more abrasive airfield circuits, but less than that on smooth tarmac on the other tracks.

We have had a couple of accidents this year. Somebody came off in an MR2 and picked up some wheel and chassis damage, and another person clipped a concrete block (on the inside of a very slow hairpin, an unlikely accident) in his GT4 which snapped one of the front driveshafts, so they had to get a truck home. But that's two mishaps in probably about 2000 laps in the season, so the chances of an accident are rare. I don't think any of us in class F has had any incidents.

Would be very interesting to see how the iQ does on the track. I drove one when they came out, on the road, and I initially thought it probably had too short a wheelbase to be really fast, but having seen some of the track videos and all the Gazoo stuff I'm wondering if it might have a lower centre of gravity than the Aygo which may help a lot in the corners. Plus the iQ has support from Japanese tuners like Tein, so if you really wanted to add performance parts, you could. None of that lot have ever seen an Aygo---it's a tuning disaster!

Paul.

[zakelwe]

None of that lot have ever seen an Aygo---it's a tuning disaster!

Paul.

You can say that again :(

Andy