OK, instead of spamming up the Clio thread, as requested I'm opening a new one.

Rich and I have bought ourselves a Clio Cup car. For those of you that don't already know, the Clio Cup racecar is built by Renaultsport in Dieppe for a 1 make series in several countries using a Clio shell, 2.0 engine with a few motorsport goodies thrown in (most significantly a sequential box).

We'd decided a couple of years ago we wanted to share the costs and the time involved in racing, but we lived at opposite ends of the country, so when I moved up to Yorkshire at the beginning of the year, we got our heads together.

We came up with the idea of sharing a car in the Northern Sports and Saloon Car Championship based around Croft circuit (8 miles from where I live) and with outings to Cadwell, Oulton and Knockhill.

We started with a car budget of £3000 after going to a meeting and chatting with a couple of guys doing the series. Somehow that's gone up to somewhere in the region of £12000 thanks to our enthusiasm and the advice of a few 'old-timers' in the series. The Clio puts us in class C (under 2.0) but the power to weight, the sequential box and the sheer pace of the car means the car, if not the drivers should be capable of decent results. The main thing for both of us is that we get some decent racing, the Clio should give us that, with the ability to be competitive as we improve.

Our car is the car driven to the 2002 and 2004 championship title by Paul Rivett and campaigned by him until 2006 when it was retired and has sat in the workshop at Boulevard Team Racing ever since. We approached the boss, Martin Johnson at the recent S2Ki Rockingham trackday and asked him if he had a car to sell - he did and here we are.

The only pictures I have so far are a couple of mobile phone ones, and a few of it racing in 2006;











We'll update this thread with progress and more pictures when we actually go and pick the car up. We're currently speaking with prospective race mechanics and looking for a trailer, once they's sorted, we'll be out doing some testing somewhere (which Martin has kindly offered to help us with, so we'll get BTCC driver tuition and setup advice thrown in with the car - which is something you don't often get).

 

You doing Oulton then?

Weight?

Standard engine?

Nice looking roll cage given the door bars.

£3k -> £12k

 

Ahh so it is sequential Mark; I was looking at the interior piccy and had half decided that had to be a sequential shifter with the bar going into the dash from it but was convinced that the clio cup cars were all H-Gated, I was wrong clearly

LOve watching the Clio's on the BTTC bill, they always look to be a total hoot; nippy little buggers.

This looks like another great venture and once again I'm green with envy

Do you have a link to the official site for the series Mark?

 

Not sure yet Nige, we need to sort out a mechanic, this isn't some £300 snotter of a BMW you know......

It's a very well put together car, impecabbly maintained.

The engine is putting out about 190bhp, 170 at the wheels and weighs just over the tonne - comparable to the Exige in that respect. But with the sequential box (don't have to use the clutch other than for starts) it accellerates quicker and we will be given the setups for several drivers at most of the UK circuits, including Paul Rivett and Andy Rouse, so we can try them out and see what suits or use them as a base for tweaking our own preferences.

First job will be getting used to FWD again, sitting on the wrong side and not using the clutch. And stopping Rich crashing it

 

ODM, think it's this link;

http://www.cliocup.com/index.php

 

Mark, I'm undoubtedly going to follow this thread with some enthusiasm.

Am I right in thinking that from your post, you don't need the clutch for changing down either?

Good luck.

Get your race dates up ASAP, my Mum lives about 30 mins from Cadwell, so I could put some lycra on and come and hold a brolly for you

If not, at least come and watch

 

Really

 

Good luck for the winter tests and the race series. Shame it's a northern based series, well for me a I'm down South. But if you do have any southern escapades I'll be there to lend support.

 

Cheers Paul

Dan, race dates won't be up just yet, they tend to be announced towards the end of the year, they were 28th June and 13th/14th Sept this year though, they are often the same weekends year to year.

Nige, I'm pretty sure Martin said that the car was just over 1000kg, but I could have been too busy drooling to hear correctly

 

Ahh sorry Mark, I meant for the series you'll be doing; Norther Saloons and Sports at Croft