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No, I haven't misspelt that - I don't mean NASCAR, but ASCAR, the UK/European equivalent.
Any of you interested, or ever been to a race?
A friend recently got me interested, and as we live in Northampton, we are within an hours drive of Rockingham Motor Speedway - the UK's only oval racing circuit, and one of only two in the whole of Europe - the other being EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany.
It's a great day out for the whole family, costing only £15 per adult. Races vary for each meeting, but events generally start at 10:00am and finish anywhere between 4:00pm and 6:00pm.
In that time, you get two 60-lap ASCAR races, and the support races as well - usually two 'Legends' races and two Pickup Truck races (see below for descriptions of these), as well as all the warm-ups and practice sessions.
'Legends' are 5/8th scale replicas of Ford and Chevrolet NASCAR racers of the 1930s, powered by 125bhp Yamaha 1250cc motorcycle engines. Fast and light, these are exciting to watch as they skit around in the turns, and often spin out. You get two Legends heats and a Final race.
More info at http://www.legends-cars.com
The Pickups are special racing pickups - purpose-built 230bhp racing vehicles, and not the type of thing you'd see working at your local garage! :-) Fantastic to watch and even better to listen to, hearing the engines whine and the exhausts pop as they decelerate for the chicane is a lovely sound. You get two races from these low, sleek beauties.
More info at http://www.pickuptruckracing.com
Occasionally you'll also get a qualifying session and race of the BARC Formula Renault's too. These are open-wheel cars, very similar to F1 cars - only not as powerful.
More info at http://www.renaultsport.co.uk/formularenault/
At the last two meetings, there displays over the circuit between races, by Team Alpine Aerobatic Displays - http://www.winwithalpine.com/site/team.html
Then of course you have the main event - the ASCAR races. Billed as "the most exciting motor sport in the UK", and they're not far wrong! All the cars are the same spec - there are three basic body shapes, and all the cars are powered by 500bhp V8 engines. The only differences are the set-up of each car, and the skill of the driver - so no-one has an advantage.
You won't see any boring F1-style processions here; this is REAL racing, with bumber-to-bumper action and overtaking! (For F1 fans - overtaking is when one car actually passes another; I know that's a concept you're not really used to.)
PS2 owners should pay special attention to car #5, driven by Rob Speak - sponsored by PlayStation 2! As a result, there's a PS2 truck at the events, which has several PS2's running the latest games, which you can play on free of charge at any time. :-)
Getting back to the ASCARs... there's no poncy high-pitched hairdryer engines here. These beasts give you a real meaty sound, and when the pack roars past the grandstand, you can feel the ground shaking. And real excitement throughout is guaranteed - cars frequently come into contact with each other - and the wall.
Races at tracks like Silverstone are best seen on TV, because you will see everything. If you're actually going to a race, though, ovals are far better. I've always found oval racing boring on TV, but when you're actually there it's fantastic. At somewhere like Silverstone, you only see an incident if it happens to occur in front of you, because you can't see the whole track. On an oval, you can see the entire track, and have a clear view of every car, every inch of the way. If something happens on the track, you know about it.
I've now been to three race meetings, and yesterday's was by far the most exciting. In the Legends races, cars were spinning all over the place. In the first Pickup race, as the accelerated over the start line from the rolling start, one vehicle's engine exploded, dumping oil all over the track.
In the first ASCAR race, car 24 (John Mickel) lost the back end and hit the wall at about 170mph, completely demolishing the back end of his car.
Video of the result of this at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/mickelincident.WMV
And in ASCAR race 2, rookie driver Kevin McGarrity hit the back end of Jason Plato's car, pushing him into Mark Proctor. Both Plato and Proctor hit the wall at around 150mph.
Video at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/turn1incident.WMV
The race was red-flagged and re-started after about 15 minutes. While the cars waited in the pit lane for the re-start, apparently Proctor had to be restrained from confronting McGarrity.
More video of today's and previous races can be found at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/ascarvids.htm
As you will see from the clips, it's never dull. I have a some photos and a few video clips of my own, which I'll upload to my own website as soon as I can; I'll post again when I do.
The best thing about the ASCAR events is that there are pit-lane walkabouts. You can - at set times, and at no extra cost - walk down the pit lane and take photos and video of the cars, get autographs etc. Try doing THAT at an F1 race! Two weeks ago at the last meeting, we were walking the pit-lane taking photos of the ASCARs while the Pickups were out racing - so I also have photos of a Pickup race *from the pit-lane*!
ASCAR still has a very small following in the UK, but if you can get to any of the races, I really do recommend it - I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Give it a try if you can, because ASCAR needs more support. It's easily affordable for most people, and is one hell of an entertaining day out. The races are also covered on Channel 4, but the program is on in the early hours of the morning (next edition: Tuesday 29th August - 2:50am), which doesn't exactly help increase the audience.
The next ASCAR round in the UK is on 13th & 14th September, as a support race for the Rockingham 500 FedEx CART Championship Series (that's the US IndyCar championship), and the next full-on ASCAR main event is on 5th & 6th October.
More information can be found at:
http://www.rockingham.co.uk
http://www.ascar.co.uk
Any of you interested, or ever been to a race?
A friend recently got me interested, and as we live in Northampton, we are within an hours drive of Rockingham Motor Speedway - the UK's only oval racing circuit, and one of only two in the whole of Europe - the other being EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany.
It's a great day out for the whole family, costing only £15 per adult. Races vary for each meeting, but events generally start at 10:00am and finish anywhere between 4:00pm and 6:00pm.
In that time, you get two 60-lap ASCAR races, and the support races as well - usually two 'Legends' races and two Pickup Truck races (see below for descriptions of these), as well as all the warm-ups and practice sessions.
'Legends' are 5/8th scale replicas of Ford and Chevrolet NASCAR racers of the 1930s, powered by 125bhp Yamaha 1250cc motorcycle engines. Fast and light, these are exciting to watch as they skit around in the turns, and often spin out. You get two Legends heats and a Final race.
More info at http://www.legends-cars.com
The Pickups are special racing pickups - purpose-built 230bhp racing vehicles, and not the type of thing you'd see working at your local garage! :-) Fantastic to watch and even better to listen to, hearing the engines whine and the exhausts pop as they decelerate for the chicane is a lovely sound. You get two races from these low, sleek beauties.
More info at http://www.pickuptruckracing.com
Occasionally you'll also get a qualifying session and race of the BARC Formula Renault's too. These are open-wheel cars, very similar to F1 cars - only not as powerful.
More info at http://www.renaultsport.co.uk/formularenault/
At the last two meetings, there displays over the circuit between races, by Team Alpine Aerobatic Displays - http://www.winwithalpine.com/site/team.html
Then of course you have the main event - the ASCAR races. Billed as "the most exciting motor sport in the UK", and they're not far wrong! All the cars are the same spec - there are three basic body shapes, and all the cars are powered by 500bhp V8 engines. The only differences are the set-up of each car, and the skill of the driver - so no-one has an advantage.
You won't see any boring F1-style processions here; this is REAL racing, with bumber-to-bumper action and overtaking! (For F1 fans - overtaking is when one car actually passes another; I know that's a concept you're not really used to.)
PS2 owners should pay special attention to car #5, driven by Rob Speak - sponsored by PlayStation 2! As a result, there's a PS2 truck at the events, which has several PS2's running the latest games, which you can play on free of charge at any time. :-)
Getting back to the ASCARs... there's no poncy high-pitched hairdryer engines here. These beasts give you a real meaty sound, and when the pack roars past the grandstand, you can feel the ground shaking. And real excitement throughout is guaranteed - cars frequently come into contact with each other - and the wall.
Races at tracks like Silverstone are best seen on TV, because you will see everything. If you're actually going to a race, though, ovals are far better. I've always found oval racing boring on TV, but when you're actually there it's fantastic. At somewhere like Silverstone, you only see an incident if it happens to occur in front of you, because you can't see the whole track. On an oval, you can see the entire track, and have a clear view of every car, every inch of the way. If something happens on the track, you know about it.
I've now been to three race meetings, and yesterday's was by far the most exciting. In the Legends races, cars were spinning all over the place. In the first Pickup race, as the accelerated over the start line from the rolling start, one vehicle's engine exploded, dumping oil all over the track.
In the first ASCAR race, car 24 (John Mickel) lost the back end and hit the wall at about 170mph, completely demolishing the back end of his car.
Video of the result of this at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/mickelincident.WMV
And in ASCAR race 2, rookie driver Kevin McGarrity hit the back end of Jason Plato's car, pushing him into Mark Proctor. Both Plato and Proctor hit the wall at around 150mph.
Video at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/turn1incident.WMV
The race was red-flagged and re-started after about 15 minutes. While the cars waited in the pit lane for the re-start, apparently Proctor had to be restrained from confronting McGarrity.
More video of today's and previous races can be found at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/ascarvids.htm
As you will see from the clips, it's never dull. I have a some photos and a few video clips of my own, which I'll upload to my own website as soon as I can; I'll post again when I do.
The best thing about the ASCAR events is that there are pit-lane walkabouts. You can - at set times, and at no extra cost - walk down the pit lane and take photos and video of the cars, get autographs etc. Try doing THAT at an F1 race! Two weeks ago at the last meeting, we were walking the pit-lane taking photos of the ASCARs while the Pickups were out racing - so I also have photos of a Pickup race *from the pit-lane*!
ASCAR still has a very small following in the UK, but if you can get to any of the races, I really do recommend it - I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Give it a try if you can, because ASCAR needs more support. It's easily affordable for most people, and is one hell of an entertaining day out. The races are also covered on Channel 4, but the program is on in the early hours of the morning (next edition: Tuesday 29th August - 2:50am), which doesn't exactly help increase the audience.
The next ASCAR round in the UK is on 13th & 14th September, as a support race for the Rockingham 500 FedEx CART Championship Series (that's the US IndyCar championship), and the next full-on ASCAR main event is on 5th & 6th October.
More information can be found at:
http://www.rockingham.co.uk
http://www.ascar.co.uk
Awesome. I love Nascar, somehow the Americans seem to make it confusing but it still is fun. Looks like I would enjoy this. Cheers Wookie. (Y)
I've got the pictures up on the website now. I've only done it quickly and not worked on flashy pages for them, nor have I removed any similar or not-so-good images.
There are three indexed sets of photos and one short (15 sec) video clip. Clicking on any thumbnail will start a slideshow of that set from that point, and you can pause it using the navigation controls at the top. When the slideshow gets to the last photo, it'll take you back to the index page.
Anyway, you can check them out at:
http://wookieemonster.com/album/ascar
Hope you like.
There are three indexed sets of photos and one short (15 sec) video clip. Clicking on any thumbnail will start a slideshow of that set from that point, and you can pause it using the navigation controls at the top. When the slideshow gets to the last photo, it'll take you back to the index page.
Anyway, you can check them out at:
http://wookieemonster.com/album/ascar
Hope you like.
MikeAll wrote:
> Some good drivers, Plato, Minassian, Turner etc take part and get
> decent pay for just turning left but they only drive on 2 ovals
I believe I said that!
The sport doesn't have the following at the moment to race at the more major venues, especially in the UK.
The average crowd at Rockingham is around 16,000, while the venue's capacity is around 50,000. However, if you watch the rounds from Germany, the EuroSpeedway at Lausitz is full to capacity. We need that sort of support here.
> Some good drivers, Plato, Minassian, Turner etc take part and get
> decent pay for just turning left but they only drive on 2 ovals
I believe I said that!
The sport doesn't have the following at the moment to race at the more major venues, especially in the UK.
The average crowd at Rockingham is around 16,000, while the venue's capacity is around 50,000. However, if you watch the rounds from Germany, the EuroSpeedway at Lausitz is full to capacity. We need that sort of support here.
Some good drivers, Plato, Minassian, Turner etc take part and get decent pay for just turning left but they only drive on 2 ovals (a trapezium and a triangle) and unlike NASCAR there are no races held on road courses. I might video it to see what it like.
I like most forms of motor racing. I'll have to check it out. Cheers Wook!
No, I haven't misspelt that - I don't mean NASCAR, but ASCAR, the UK/European equivalent.
Any of you interested, or ever been to a race?
A friend recently got me interested, and as we live in Northampton, we are within an hours drive of Rockingham Motor Speedway - the UK's only oval racing circuit, and one of only two in the whole of Europe - the other being EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany.
It's a great day out for the whole family, costing only £15 per adult. Races vary for each meeting, but events generally start at 10:00am and finish anywhere between 4:00pm and 6:00pm.
In that time, you get two 60-lap ASCAR races, and the support races as well - usually two 'Legends' races and two Pickup Truck races (see below for descriptions of these), as well as all the warm-ups and practice sessions.
'Legends' are 5/8th scale replicas of Ford and Chevrolet NASCAR racers of the 1930s, powered by 125bhp Yamaha 1250cc motorcycle engines. Fast and light, these are exciting to watch as they skit around in the turns, and often spin out. You get two Legends heats and a Final race.
More info at http://www.legends-cars.com
The Pickups are special racing pickups - purpose-built 230bhp racing vehicles, and not the type of thing you'd see working at your local garage! :-) Fantastic to watch and even better to listen to, hearing the engines whine and the exhausts pop as they decelerate for the chicane is a lovely sound. You get two races from these low, sleek beauties.
More info at http://www.pickuptruckracing.com
Occasionally you'll also get a qualifying session and race of the BARC Formula Renault's too. These are open-wheel cars, very similar to F1 cars - only not as powerful.
More info at http://www.renaultsport.co.uk/formularenault/
At the last two meetings, there displays over the circuit between races, by Team Alpine Aerobatic Displays - http://www.winwithalpine.com/site/team.html
Then of course you have the main event - the ASCAR races. Billed as "the most exciting motor sport in the UK", and they're not far wrong! All the cars are the same spec - there are three basic body shapes, and all the cars are powered by 500bhp V8 engines. The only differences are the set-up of each car, and the skill of the driver - so no-one has an advantage.
You won't see any boring F1-style processions here; this is REAL racing, with bumber-to-bumper action and overtaking! (For F1 fans - overtaking is when one car actually passes another; I know that's a concept you're not really used to.)
PS2 owners should pay special attention to car #5, driven by Rob Speak - sponsored by PlayStation 2! As a result, there's a PS2 truck at the events, which has several PS2's running the latest games, which you can play on free of charge at any time. :-)
Getting back to the ASCARs... there's no poncy high-pitched hairdryer engines here. These beasts give you a real meaty sound, and when the pack roars past the grandstand, you can feel the ground shaking. And real excitement throughout is guaranteed - cars frequently come into contact with each other - and the wall.
Races at tracks like Silverstone are best seen on TV, because you will see everything. If you're actually going to a race, though, ovals are far better. I've always found oval racing boring on TV, but when you're actually there it's fantastic. At somewhere like Silverstone, you only see an incident if it happens to occur in front of you, because you can't see the whole track. On an oval, you can see the entire track, and have a clear view of every car, every inch of the way. If something happens on the track, you know about it.
I've now been to three race meetings, and yesterday's was by far the most exciting. In the Legends races, cars were spinning all over the place. In the first Pickup race, as the accelerated over the start line from the rolling start, one vehicle's engine exploded, dumping oil all over the track.
In the first ASCAR race, car 24 (John Mickel) lost the back end and hit the wall at about 170mph, completely demolishing the back end of his car.
Video of the result of this at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/mickelincident.WMV
And in ASCAR race 2, rookie driver Kevin McGarrity hit the back end of Jason Plato's car, pushing him into Mark Proctor. Both Plato and Proctor hit the wall at around 150mph.
Video at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/turn1incident.WMV
The race was red-flagged and re-started after about 15 minutes. While the cars waited in the pit lane for the re-start, apparently Proctor had to be restrained from confronting McGarrity.
More video of today's and previous races can be found at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/ascarvids.htm
As you will see from the clips, it's never dull. I have a some photos and a few video clips of my own, which I'll upload to my own website as soon as I can; I'll post again when I do.
The best thing about the ASCAR events is that there are pit-lane walkabouts. You can - at set times, and at no extra cost - walk down the pit lane and take photos and video of the cars, get autographs etc. Try doing THAT at an F1 race! Two weeks ago at the last meeting, we were walking the pit-lane taking photos of the ASCARs while the Pickups were out racing - so I also have photos of a Pickup race *from the pit-lane*!
ASCAR still has a very small following in the UK, but if you can get to any of the races, I really do recommend it - I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Give it a try if you can, because ASCAR needs more support. It's easily affordable for most people, and is one hell of an entertaining day out. The races are also covered on Channel 4, but the program is on in the early hours of the morning (next edition: Tuesday 29th August - 2:50am), which doesn't exactly help increase the audience.
The next ASCAR round in the UK is on 13th & 14th September, as a support race for the Rockingham 500 FedEx CART Championship Series (that's the US IndyCar championship), and the next full-on ASCAR main event is on 5th & 6th October.
More information can be found at:
http://www.rockingham.co.uk
http://www.ascar.co.uk
Any of you interested, or ever been to a race?
A friend recently got me interested, and as we live in Northampton, we are within an hours drive of Rockingham Motor Speedway - the UK's only oval racing circuit, and one of only two in the whole of Europe - the other being EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany.
It's a great day out for the whole family, costing only £15 per adult. Races vary for each meeting, but events generally start at 10:00am and finish anywhere between 4:00pm and 6:00pm.
In that time, you get two 60-lap ASCAR races, and the support races as well - usually two 'Legends' races and two Pickup Truck races (see below for descriptions of these), as well as all the warm-ups and practice sessions.
'Legends' are 5/8th scale replicas of Ford and Chevrolet NASCAR racers of the 1930s, powered by 125bhp Yamaha 1250cc motorcycle engines. Fast and light, these are exciting to watch as they skit around in the turns, and often spin out. You get two Legends heats and a Final race.
More info at http://www.legends-cars.com
The Pickups are special racing pickups - purpose-built 230bhp racing vehicles, and not the type of thing you'd see working at your local garage! :-) Fantastic to watch and even better to listen to, hearing the engines whine and the exhausts pop as they decelerate for the chicane is a lovely sound. You get two races from these low, sleek beauties.
More info at http://www.pickuptruckracing.com
Occasionally you'll also get a qualifying session and race of the BARC Formula Renault's too. These are open-wheel cars, very similar to F1 cars - only not as powerful.
More info at http://www.renaultsport.co.uk/formularenault/
At the last two meetings, there displays over the circuit between races, by Team Alpine Aerobatic Displays - http://www.winwithalpine.com/site/team.html
Then of course you have the main event - the ASCAR races. Billed as "the most exciting motor sport in the UK", and they're not far wrong! All the cars are the same spec - there are three basic body shapes, and all the cars are powered by 500bhp V8 engines. The only differences are the set-up of each car, and the skill of the driver - so no-one has an advantage.
You won't see any boring F1-style processions here; this is REAL racing, with bumber-to-bumper action and overtaking! (For F1 fans - overtaking is when one car actually passes another; I know that's a concept you're not really used to.)
PS2 owners should pay special attention to car #5, driven by Rob Speak - sponsored by PlayStation 2! As a result, there's a PS2 truck at the events, which has several PS2's running the latest games, which you can play on free of charge at any time. :-)
Getting back to the ASCARs... there's no poncy high-pitched hairdryer engines here. These beasts give you a real meaty sound, and when the pack roars past the grandstand, you can feel the ground shaking. And real excitement throughout is guaranteed - cars frequently come into contact with each other - and the wall.
Races at tracks like Silverstone are best seen on TV, because you will see everything. If you're actually going to a race, though, ovals are far better. I've always found oval racing boring on TV, but when you're actually there it's fantastic. At somewhere like Silverstone, you only see an incident if it happens to occur in front of you, because you can't see the whole track. On an oval, you can see the entire track, and have a clear view of every car, every inch of the way. If something happens on the track, you know about it.
I've now been to three race meetings, and yesterday's was by far the most exciting. In the Legends races, cars were spinning all over the place. In the first Pickup race, as the accelerated over the start line from the rolling start, one vehicle's engine exploded, dumping oil all over the track.
In the first ASCAR race, car 24 (John Mickel) lost the back end and hit the wall at about 170mph, completely demolishing the back end of his car.
Video of the result of this at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/mickelincident.WMV
And in ASCAR race 2, rookie driver Kevin McGarrity hit the back end of Jason Plato's car, pushing him into Mark Proctor. Both Plato and Proctor hit the wall at around 150mph.
Video at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/turn1incident.WMV
The race was red-flagged and re-started after about 15 minutes. While the cars waited in the pit lane for the re-start, apparently Proctor had to be restrained from confronting McGarrity.
More video of today's and previous races can be found at http://www.tonymann.plus.com/ascarvids.htm
As you will see from the clips, it's never dull. I have a some photos and a few video clips of my own, which I'll upload to my own website as soon as I can; I'll post again when I do.
The best thing about the ASCAR events is that there are pit-lane walkabouts. You can - at set times, and at no extra cost - walk down the pit lane and take photos and video of the cars, get autographs etc. Try doing THAT at an F1 race! Two weeks ago at the last meeting, we were walking the pit-lane taking photos of the ASCARs while the Pickups were out racing - so I also have photos of a Pickup race *from the pit-lane*!
ASCAR still has a very small following in the UK, but if you can get to any of the races, I really do recommend it - I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Give it a try if you can, because ASCAR needs more support. It's easily affordable for most people, and is one hell of an entertaining day out. The races are also covered on Channel 4, but the program is on in the early hours of the morning (next edition: Tuesday 29th August - 2:50am), which doesn't exactly help increase the audience.
The next ASCAR round in the UK is on 13th & 14th September, as a support race for the Rockingham 500 FedEx CART Championship Series (that's the US IndyCar championship), and the next full-on ASCAR main event is on 5th & 6th October.
More information can be found at:
http://www.rockingham.co.uk
http://www.ascar.co.uk