[bluezak]

Last year I decided to go to a new hobby that my dad used to do years ago and both of us decided we were going to race together. We spent months looking for cars that as a road car handle well anyway, thought about an MR2 but decided they swap ends too easily. We decided to race in the group called supersaloons which is any engine sixe, and drive configuration but no 4x4 and and modifications bar nitrous. The local track to us is chalk and we spoke to a few drivers who said that getting the power down was more important than a huge engine so we dicided something nippy would be better. My dad had some contacts from when he used to race and one owned a scrapyard, so we went there and there was a ford puma. (the one that started life as an x-reg green road car - see pics further down) He had taken it in just days before and wanted £300 for it. It had a slipping clutch but other than that was it was sound and had a nearly brand new exhaust. In December I brought my puma to go with my dad's, cost me £225 as was about to be scrapped too. We then started on the builds of them. (my race number is s62 and his is s141 so will refer to each as these)



It joined the other one on the drive and then they both needed to be stripped



s62 (red) then went off to have its roll cage fitted and seat positioned followed by s141 (green)




s141 in the process of painting, sprayed them ourselves in standard gloss for the first year as they are bound to be pranged.



Mine on the other hand, I fancied a bit of greenso s62 went green and red.



They finally both hit the track on 7th April 2013, the roof fins were only painted on the morning of racing and the final bits like tightening the fuel lines under the bonnet were all done on then too as we ran really tight to be able to get them on the track but here they are on a parade lap that everyone racing that day did.



First meeting all ran smoothly with no crashes but they were very slow as we learnt the track.

Second meeting, I was close to another car and ran wide and hit them, just cosmetic damage to me and none to his very solid wheel arches!



Same meeting in the 3rd race, my dad hit the barrier which broke the track rod and bent the wishbone on the N/S/F.



Jacked her up at home to take off the front wing and fix the bits that were broken.



Puma s141 then rebuilt with new light apperture covers too! My dad did a really good job at redoing the front wing and it looked brand new again, just 1 small crease in it.



In the meantime, we decided to get rid of the horrible but did the job roof fins and built some small spoilers (they have no downforce effect as we only hit 60 MPH before we go into the corners) Painted mine myself



And finally loaded up on the trailer ready to go with the car with the new spoiler on it

[happy-kat]

Great read, the Puma is seeing a lot of racing like this :-) cheap as chips you picked up those two