Ascar 2003

[thommo_fan]

what are peoples thoughts on this years ascar series?

last year people were talking about ascar being as popular as the btcc but since then 4 of its top drivers have left, manning, turner, burt, minassian. plans to run races on circuits such as brands hatch have fell through, as have plans for longer races.

[Reynard]

With regards to a similar post by myself on the official ASCAR forum a while back, the answer is that ASCAR needs to find its own way. One of the reasons behind the current uncertainty is the fact that Bob Berridge has left the management team and things have yet to settle back down again.

Some of the ideas such as refueling and longer races have been shelved for financial reasons since most of the ASCAR field are privateers on limited bugets, and for safety reasons. Plans to race at Brands and Knockhill were dropped because the drivers and the teams came to a common concensus that the championship should remain based on ovals - for the time being at least. There are new oval venues being looked at for 2004 over and above Rockingham and Lausitz.

As for drivers in ASCAR, a lot of last year's regulars are coming back this year: Derek Hayes, Stevie Hodgson, Phil Weaver, John Mickel, Mark "Bullwinkle" Proctor, Anthony Swan etc. Some teams have also confirmed entries without naming drivers: Deuce-RML, Bintcliffe Sport, Team WestTec, FastTec, Hodgson Motorsport, Colin Blower Motorsport, HTML, CWS and Team Catchpole.

There is also an increase in the number of drivers taking their rookie tests with a view of entering the series full time. The latest of these is Barbara Armstrong, but Vincent Radermecker has also expressed a genuine interest.

Both Darren Manning and Darren Turner have options open to contest selected races in the series, as does Nic Minassian while AFAIK Kelvin Burt also still has a drive available to him should he wish to take it.

Once the dust has settled following Bob Berridge's departure and once Deuce-RML and Bintcliffe Sport confirm their driver line-ups (they are the two major players in the series) then things will become a lot clearer. The season is still a long way off - the first round is on the 11th May - and anything can happen between now and then.

I for one can't wait for the ASCAR season to start, and I'm keeping everything crossed that "The Iceman" will be there on the grid too...

[Claire]

Things have been very quiet on the ASCAR front, it's great that some of the teams have already confirmed entries but like most championships it's the drivers that seem to wait till the last minute to let us know what is happening.
I went to ASCAR for the first time in May last year and I have to say that I thought I would be bored with them just going round and round in circles but there is a whole lot more to it than that and now I'm hooked. We were lucky enough to make some good friends in the mechanics with XCEL motorsport and that made it that bit more interesting as they allowed us in the garage and see what went on behind the scenes. 2003 is going to be even better, Rockingham are very committed to making the championship work and for it to get bigger and better. Hopefully we will see the return of Jason and some of the other drivers who competed last year as well as some new talent. May 11th can't come fast enough for me.:D

[Amanda]

I have to agree that things have been very quiet on the ASCAR front but there are still a few months to go before the start of the season.

Like Claire I went to ASCAR for the first time last year, before my first visit I couldn't work out how the cars could pass each other (well, I am blonde!) and was worried that watching cars go round and round in circles would be boring! How wrong could I be?!

I am now a fan of ASCAR and can't wait for the start of the new season.

[touring fan]

I've been to nearly all the ascar races at rockingham (didn't go to the very firsone that was part of the historic festival and didn't go to any that were on qualifying day) and I can't wait for this season to start. The new prize fund seems very good, hopefully ascar can make it's own "star names" rather than rely on teams bringing them in to promote the series. (BTW, Anyone know if they're still going to run the superpole experience this year? I really want a go:cool:)

[Amanda]

We went to all the ASCAR races at Rockingham last year and had a great time. As well as enjoying the racing, we made lots of new friends.

This year we will miss a couple of ASCAR rounds because of clashes with the BTCC.

[Peter]

I attended the ASCAR race, which supported the CART event at Rockingham. It was a fantastic spectacle.

I aim to get to a race or two this season.


I must add, however, that the calendar leaves a little to be desired. I think it would be well advised if ASCAR ran at the Eurospeedway on May 11. Thus it would perform in front of the CART crowd that day. It would also make sense if they held a BTCC support race at Rockingham, again to boost the ASCAR following.

[Ann]

I went to quite a few of the ASCAR rounds last year and enjoyed it far more than I expected to. If you think the BTCC paddock is laid back then you should try ASCAR!

As usual with most motorsport we are waiting for everything to be confirmed but with the financial package on offer this year I doubt we will be short of entrants. Looking forward to making good use of a good value season ticket.

[Reynard]

Last year, I went to the first ASCAR meeting at Rockingham with a bit of trepidation as I didn't know what to expect. My background is in circuit racing i.e. F3, GT & BTCC and I only went along to support Kelvin Burt. Initially I intended to do just a couple of the meetings (race day only) but enjoyed the experience so much, that I did every day of every meeting... Guess I had a reasonable excuse as Rockingham is one of my local circuits.

I made some great new friends through ASCAR; fans, photographers, team personnel, mechanics and drivers and hand on my heart, I would say that ASCAR is one of the best all-round racing experiences in the UK at the moment.

To be honest, I also gained a new respect for the drivers as well, over and above what I had before - particularly when you see them just inches away from a concrete wall at 170 mph - and that in the company of other cars. Unlike circuit racing where there is always plenty of run-off and gravel traps, there's no margin for error, so the drivers have to trust each other implicitly when running close together. On the whole it worked out well and made for some amazing race action, but there was one persistant culprit on the track who thought otherwise... I won't go into that here because a) I will rant and rave for the rest of the day and b) I want to keep my nose clean on this one - those who know me will know what and who I'm getting at.

My best ASCAR experience was watching Kelvin take three wins in a row during the course of a single weekend - it was like living a dream and only now I'm beginning to realise exactly how special that weekend was.

However, I'm planning on doing every round again this year, so LET THE WARS BEGIN... ;)

[acorn]

Originally posted by Peter

I must add, however, that the calendar leaves a little to be desired. I think it would be well advised if ASCAR ran at the Eurospeedway on May 11. Thus it would perform in front of the CART crowd that day. It would also make sense if they held a BTCC support race at Rockingham, again to boost the ASCAR following.

surely it would have been up to cart and eurospeedway to determine the programme for the ccws on may 11th. perhaps ascar were available.
btcc support? with a tight timetable a regular category would have to drop out (not sure they'd be happy). and would they(ascar) be allowed to use the oval because that would mean time being allowed to move the infield entry/exit wall.
ascar could have been left on the brands hatch cart meeting but were unceremoniously dumped .

[Reynard]

Originally posted by acorn
ascar could have been left on the brands hatch cart meeting but were unceremoniously dumped .

ASCAR were never dumped from the CART support for the UK race.

The reason why the BTCC was brought in when the race was moved from Rockingham to Brands Hatch was because the ASCAR management, team owners and drivers came to a common concensus that the series was to remain based on ovals for the forseeable future.

Had the UK CART round remained at Rockingham (it were financial reasons that prompted the switch to Brands), ASCAR would likely have been retained as the primary support.

[touring fan]

I just can't imagine ascars going round brands for some reason. Donington seems better to me didn't they do some of the initial testing there when they were first building the cars?

[acorn]

Originally posted by Reynard
ASCAR were never dumped from the CART support for the UK race.

The reason why the BTCC was brought in when the race was moved from Rockingham to Brands Hatch was because the ASCAR management, team owners and drivers came to a common concensus that the series was to remain based on ovals for the forseeable future.

Had the UK CART round remained at Rockingham (it were financial reasons that prompted the switch to Brands), ASCAR would likely have been retained as the primary support.

ok, ascar wasn't dumped from the support- because it was never on it.
we know you have close links and probably inside info but i still find it odd that the decision to go for all oval wasn't made until after the cart race was announced with the btcc as the support. after all, wasn't the decision to have ascar at brands with the f3/gts made before the cart announcement.
you're right about the financial reasons for rockingham dumping the 2003 race but wasn't the decision to retain a race in britain and to race at brands more to do with what cart was willing to do for brands and what it wouldn't do for rockingham (like did the $4m cart fee get waived for brands?) and the fact that octagon handles some of cart's business.

touring fan, it's not that difficult to imagine. if you remember the eurocar series(not just the v6s but the v8s) always put on a good show at brands- 3widedown the home straight and round the bends i seem to remember. the first ascars(which are actually built in the usa) were tested at croft and donington but used different engines.

[The Stig]

Don't know enought about ASCAR to contribute to the most recent part of this thread. My 12 year old son raved about ASCAR, because he is a huge Plato fan. I watched some races on tape and can see the appeal immediately. I wouldn't be surprised, as more people switch on to it, to see ASCAR really take off. Quite a few TOCA forum participants rave about it and from what little I've seen the appeal is obvious. Would the series benefit, (it's own profile and fan base), from competing around circuits other than ovals, places like Silverstone or the Brands GP circuit. If not, how many Oval circuits, if any, could be considered ?

[Reynard]

No ñ the BTCC support for CART was announced after ASCAR decided to remain all oval and the opening round moved to Rockingham from Brands Hatch. There was about a week between the two announcements being made. The original assumption was that ASCAR was going to be the official support for CART at Brands if the series was going to go ahead as originally planned.

That is why there was so much uncertainty about both the ASCAR and BTCC calendars about a month and a half ago. The BTCC was meant to be at Thruxton that weekend, but after ASCAR pulled out, the TOCA package calendar was then re-scheduled to take into account for the BTCC being nominated as the support for CART. Initially the opening ASCAR meeting was still supposed to have been on the same weekend as the CART, but it was decided to put it back a week to allow fans of ìAmerican-styleî (and I use that term quite loosely) racing to be able to do both meetings.

The decision to keep ASCAR all-oval was made quite a while back and was based on a combination of related financial, safety and technical concerns ñ particularly since a majority of the teams contesting the series are privateers and do not enjoy the budgets or engineering expertise available to Deuce-RML and Bintcliffe Sport.

To put it simply (I am an engineer and could therefore go on at great length) an ASCAR is built specifically to turn left. The whole car is built asymmetrically in order to make that easier ñ in fact it is hard enough to drive one of these cars in a straight line, hence the beefy power steering coming as standard. While it is possible to convert a ìstaggeredî car to run on a pure road course, it wouldnÃ*t handle particularly well. There were emergency provisions to convert cars to run on the road course at Rockingham last year following the introduction of wet weather tyres from Goodyear in order to prevent a repeat of the early-season washouts, but the changeover from oval to road-course spec takes a minimum of three hours to complete when undertaken by a team of experienced mechanics and engineers. For the lower speeds used in wet weather running, this compromise set-up proved to be adequate during testing, but you must remember that the road course the ASCARs were running on at Rockingham during the wet weather testing still used nearly half of the oval.

The same type of set-up used in the dry would be quite frankly dangerous, as the car would be in ASCARspeak ñ loose i.e. very oversteery. It all boils down to the fact that a car built specifically for oval racing is far too specialised to be tinkered with. It is not like a typical circuit car where you just play around with spring rates, damper settings, wing angles and gearbox rations. Over and above that, youÃ*ve got the asymmetry of the chassis, the ratio of stagger from left to right, tyre sizes, tyre pressures etc. to take into account.

The concerns about handling were such, that to run on dedicated road courses such as Brands Hatch and Knockhill, additional non-staggered cars would have to be built over and above the staggered ones that the teams already had to enable them to race at these circuits safely. (This is what they do in NASCAR Winston Cup) However, when you realise that an ASCAR costs some £60,000, that approach is way beyond what any team would consider reasonable. If you are running two drivers, you are talking about a £240,000 investment for four cars (two of each type) and this is before you even think about the rest of your equipment. That initial outlay can be doubled for Deuce-RML who will have four cars on the grid this year.

That was basically why the decision was made, since the smaller teams who make up the bulk of the ASCAR grid would not have been able to afford this option and the two big teams in ASCAR would not necessarily have been able to justify it either. The voice of the drivers was also quite important in the decision to keep ASCAR all-oval ñ in their view, ASCAR was conceived as an oval racing series and that was the reason they were driving in it and why it appealed to them so much. They implied that if they wanted to compete on road circuits, they would have plenty of other choices outside of ASCAR.

Changing tack somewhat:

The prototype ASCARs were in fact ASA cars brought over from the US ñ the specs are essentially identical, and I believe it was either Stevie Hodgson or John Mickel who did the original evaluation at Donington. The actual ASA-spec engine was used by ASCAR in the inaugural series, but since the unit was designed to run at lowers speeds and revs than are achieved at Rockingham, it tended to be a bit of a hand grenade much to the consternation of the series organisers. It was for this reason that the inaugural ASCAR race was actually a demonstration run rather than a full-out race. At the end of 2001, ASCAR changed their engine supplier to the tuning company that now supplies all of the teams and these power plants have proved to be extremely reliable and pretty well nigh unburstable, even at Lausitz where speeds reach over 190mph.

The Eurocars were essentially the forerunners of ASCAR in the UK as the basic concept was the same. However, the main difference was that although they did compete on the 1-mile oval at Mallory Park, the cars were built with road circuits in mind rather than speedways like Rockingham. Because they were essentially aimed at the club racer, they were simple and durable ñ and not staggered like a car that runs on speedways. (I live just up the road from where they used to build Eurocars, so IÃ*ve seen plenty of them over the yearsÖ) In fact, ASCAR frontrunner Stevie Hodgson made a name for himself in Eurocars.

[acorn]

thanks for that reply reynard, it was quite revealing. i still have some areas of confusion.
you say the reason ascar pulled out of brands was because of the decision to go all oval which was made some time ago. if as you imply the all oval decision was as a result of team concerns, was the provisional ascar calendar which included a road corse with 2 tbas made without team consultation?
i'm still wary of the reasons for the decision to switch the btcc to be the cart support. i believe it was more to do with octagon not wishing to have the premier british package which it has a large stake in racing on a circuit that it doesn't own up against cart racing on a circuit that it does own on the same weekend. call me a cynic but thats the way it looks.
you say that the reason rockingham moved the may5th opener for ascar to the 11th was to allow american racing style fans to attend both meetings. did not rockingham state that they were approached by the local community who had several events going on that weekend which might have been affected attendance wise if rockingham operated at the same time. rockingham agreed to put the opener back to the 11th becuase it had no other commitments for itself or ascar(which also indicates that there was no intention for ascar to support cart at lausitz). any how, fans could have done ascar on the sunday and cart on the monday.
i didn't realise you are an engineer and cannot claim any formal training myself. i have however been a short oval racer and general fan of 4 wheel sport for forty years plus and understand most of the engineering priciples that go into chassis construction for different disciplines either through reading articles or through personal experience.
you say that asa/ascar cars are costructed assymetrically for optimised oval use. if this is the case, why even consider using them on road courses.
i was under the impression that the engines used in the "demo" race at the rockingham opener were not the asa engines but ones that had been specified by the original series organisers. are the engines in the current ascars not the same engines as used in asa.
to finish , i believe mike jordan was involved in the testing and development of the original.
go to go, dinner's on the table.

[Reynard]

I believe that the inclusion of non-oval rounds (Brands Hatch & Knockhill) were initially related to the proposed changes to the ASCAR series that had been put forward by Bob Berridge last Autumn. If youÃ*ve been following the discussions on the official ASCAR forum, youÃ*ll likely be aware of the upheavals happening as a result of BobÃ*s departure from the setup, and I think that the decision to remain on the ovals, apart from the explanations I gave in my previous post regarding team concerns, is possibly related to all the goings on surrounding those events. I will say that the whole situation is certainly considerably more complex than anyone is willing to admit, and I guess I am scratching my head about this just as much as you are.

Regarding Octagon (formerly Brands Hatch Leisure) ñ theyÃ*ve always moved in mysterious ways and sometimes their motives are hard to fathom. But I do believe that you are right in saying that there was a definite case of ìYou scratch my back and IÃ*ll scratch yoursî between Octagon and CART which may have something to do with CART going to Brands instead of Rockingham. At the last ASCAR round in October, Rockingham was already selling tickets for the CART event ñ I wonder what happened to those people who already bought tickets before the venue was switched.

As for the opening round of ASCAR being moved ñ the reason I gave was the one that appeared in Autosport though IÃ*m sure, now that you mention it, IÃ*d seen something about various other things going on in Corby over the Bank Holiday weekend. ASCAR never intended to be part of the CART support for Lausitz ñ they were more interested in being part of the American car festival being held there in September, as they believed that they would get better exposure from that event.

The thinking behind running ASCAR on road courses was ostensibly to bring the series to a wider fan base outside of the typical crowd that turns up to Rockingham (read between the lines to get publicity and money) but to be honest I donÃ*t think it was properly thought out. Yes, Colin Bennett did help develop a setup to be used on road courses, but it was initially designed for wet use only. The bottom line is that good ideas in theory are not necessarily easy to implement in practice and I think that this was one of them. When looked at in the cold light of day, I think people within ASCAR realised that it would be unworkable in the short term. In the long term who knows, but if it ainÃ*t broke, why try fixing it? I personally think ASCAR works well enough as it is and I like seeing the big cars on the oval at Rockingham ñ right where they belong.

Was it Mike Jordan who did the initial evaluation? If it was, I stand corrected since I wasnÃ*t entirely sure. Thing is, MikeÃ*s done so many different things in his career: Porsches, British GTs, Eurocars, TVR Tuscans etc that itÃ*s easy to lose track.

The blocks used for the ASCAR engines are identical to those used in ASA i.e. the small-block Chevy. The problems with the ones used for the first series were down to a miscalculation by a) the series organisers and b) the tuning shop they employed to build the engines, as to the revs and gearings used and compression ratios needed for running on a speedway. The bottom line was that ASA tends to run on short, lower-speed ovals and that is what the initial ASCAR specs were based on. While no problems seemed to appear at the initial shakedowns at Donington, once they finally got the cars out onto the Rockingham oval, all they got was a batch of very capable hand grenades; the speed of the cars were considerably higher than expected and the original spec engines couldnÃ*t cope. I remember it all being a very embarrassing situation at the time.

BTW, as an aside, I am a Mechanical Engineer (MEng) whose background is in vehicle structures and composite materials. Right now, IÃ*m studying for a PhD in the impact damage of composites, my research area being connected to the FIA crash testing of F1 cars. As for motorsports, IÃ*ve been following all sorts of stuff from F1 through to Mini Se7ens for nearly 20 years i.e. since I was an ankle-biterÖ I donÃ*t race, but I have friends who do ñ I stick to hiding behind a camera at race meetings. :)