Ultimate trackday car?

If it's purely a car not to race, not to use on the road either...

Has to be a early 2000s Formula 1 car with a V10. Needn't be a Ferrari either as I'd need the tub extended so looks are ruined anyhow. Budget €200-300K for a running car with original engine and small spare package.

A rather more expensive but so good looking and likely a lot of fun to drive (decent power and skinny wheels!) is a 250 SWB Competizione.

 

kverges in 3...2...1...

 

Do like to add that with a somewhat normal budget in mind you'd be getting the best value for money with a Radical of some sorts. Big speed, affordable and maintenance is not crazy high.

 

Is there any 4wd purpose built track day car outside of regular road ones like mitsubishis and subarus?

 

^Interesting although not sexy in the least. Tnx

 

I was looking in the past on the possibility to request Norma cars to build a track day version of their succesfull cars with a Ferrari V8, so 500 hp in a 600 kg prototype looking more "modern "than 333 sp, could be the right solution!
Have a look on their web link: NORMA AUTO CONCEPT | Les voitures / Cars
By the way, they know since decades how to build a car, and they are regularly showing car at Le Mans, definitively a good project, I will restart my study!

 

http://www.norma-auto-concept.com/annonces/NORMA%20M%2020%20FC.JPG

So imagine it in red with the ferrari V8 of the 458 speciale, 610 hp on 625 kg!

 

This: ÉLAN VAN DIEMEN DPO2 - IMSA LITES 1 / CSR

Carbon tubbed, 6 speed seq. box with no lift shifting, outstanding downforce (tunneled) and good powerplant lifecycle. I've owned the openwheel version and have considered the sports racer version...perhaps in a few years.

 

If its for fun on the track, not necessarily racing I think a modern winged car is really fast but extreme and sacrifices a lot in the name of sheer laptimes. Aadical is hard to beat, but an order of magnitude more extreme than any road based car, and requires a skill leverl and proficiency to drive properly most do not have, or the time to acquire and stay current in.

A lotus Elige is hard to beat. Following that I am completing a SPF GT40 as it seems to be a sweetspot between looks speed ruggedness handling, classic experience etc. Plus mainatance might not be completly punishing.

An elise cost $400 per day to run at the track when you take into account all consumables and if you do your own miantanance. A Gt40 is easy to maintain and should not cost too much more, other than fuel and slightly faster brake and tire wear so say $600-700 per day. If you run somethign like a proche GT3 figure on close 1500 per day in consumables, at least that is what the porche guys say.

A track built up E36 BMW is really fast and prectable and about 30-40K for a good one.

Its all horses for courses, depends on what youa re looking for.

there was someone in france a few years back cutting 348's into ealry 70's can am style cars that looked really great, you know ferarri engine and chasis relatively light with moderate aero.

Unless you have aradical V8 or soem such car, there is probably somethign that is always going to eb faster than you, so its best to geta car you can master and run a lot, with all the performance charisma etc you value. One thing for sure, if you runa lot at the track, best eb getteing trailer, because a car setup for the road will quickly feel too compromised.

 

any links or pics of these "Radicals"? cant say ive ever seen them. and the cut up 348s sound awesome, love to see some pics of those...

 

Praga R1 looks like a fun time. Not cheap though....
Praga Global ? R1

The best car I have found factoring in speed, price, safety, availability of parts, fun to drive, ease of maintenance are the Ford powered Sports 2000 cars. They were OHC Pinto motors and are starting to be re-powered by 2 lit. Mazda engines now. There were many makers, (Swift, Lola, March, Tiga, Royale, etc. and later Carbir and Van Dieman) large fields, good grip, non ground effects. They are simply fun cars.

 

Drove aprga, a level of comitement above a radical. By the time you are expoliting it you may as well be professionaly racing.

 

Raddys have been around for a long time. Their website is here:

Home - Radical Sportscars

The Raddy has a decent level of support in the US, with Radical West stabling a significant number of cars and spares, and there is a Radical Cup series in the US as well. It is a bit old school, with a tube frame and either a Hayabusa-based 4 cylinder or 8 cylinder engine.

Very, very fast, and the SR8 will keep up with some pretty fast formula cars, like FA and F3000, if you know how to drive at that level. My rough estimate to run a SR8 at top pace (no junk tires, engine reserves, and other consumables) s $1000/hour. That shocks most guys who don't race or seriously track, but I view that as inexpensive compared to for example Porsche Cup Cars, and even more so for professional sports cars, like a 458GT or Porsche GT3RS, which can run $2000+ per hour to run.

The Radical is over the head of most casual DE drivers; I still don't think I am getting everything from the car, but I also don't want an off or incident in the quest of the last second of time.

Other sports racing options for trackday include the Wolf (with a significant effort to sell and support in the US), Norma, Caterham and Ligier, and at least the Wolf and Caterham have an option that uses the Honda K20 or K24 engine to give more reliability. The Radical engine requires a rebuild at 40 hours.

Another mac-daddy track car is the Riley Mk XXII track day version of their DP car:

Riley Technologies

Frankly, all things considered like cost to buy, cost per hour, fun to drive, pace, and reliability my favorite track car of all time is my Turbo Miata. It will run with most any street car for lap times, but is probably under $250/hour to operate including fuel and tires. Plus I don't care about road rash on the ugly little turd. And I've raced it many times with success, even an overall win in a 4 hour endure at Texas World Speedway back in 2009 I think. I drive this car more than all my others combined on track, as my old adage is that it is better to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow and I STILL get a kick out of overtaking even modern exotics like 458, GT3 and Vipers, especially in the wet.

Some of the other ideas are fun, too, it just depends on budget and objective. If I had a limitless budget, I'd have a Ferrari F1 car and run with the Corsa Clienti program, as you really need support to run that kind of car. I'd also love to vintage race a Can Am car, but safety is a genuine issue - remember Bruce McLaren himself died in an M8 in a testing incident. Those cars have nothing remotely like modern safety equipment and the racers of that era died like flies.

There are so many choices and subjectives that "best" is impossible to fully define.

 

How about a truck?
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that's not a truck, but I do think converted circle track cars, especially the type eligible for SCCA Trans AM 2 are very viable options for track day cars. The pluses are realtively low consumable and spare part costs. Minuses are weight and pretty agricultural engineering in some instances.

 

Since this IS a Ferrari forum, I'd say the 333.
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also, any of the older challenge cars would be a lot of fun, and give most drivers years of use before mastering it/getting bored. plus they have a roof, windshield, fenders, etc

but on a speed for dollar basis, hard to beat a Radical.

 

It would be interesting to come up with a formula for pace per dollar of operating time. It could end up being exponential if you just use dollars per second of reduced lap time. Also the vintage stuff is not all that fast but offers a subjective feel and sound that has its own appeal. Finally the "paddock appeal" is important to many and Challenge cars, Can Am cars or modern exotics offer a lot of that.

I personally like to track pretty hard and tend to drive near 10/10s if the traffic and venue permit. I find that almost all street cars (especially poweful ones) fade brakes and overheat and many race cars are not as developed or prepped as I like for the same reasons. A good track car simply must be capable of qualifying pace laps for 30 minutes at a time, at least and that weeds out many, many cars. It is staggering all the stuff that can go wrong when using max revs, max lateral Gs and threshold braking at all times on track. It gets very frustrating to have to clank and troubleshoot after repeated short sessions or worse have your day or weekend end early for something un-fixable or terminal.

So while bench racing is fun here, anyone seriously contemplating actually getting an "ultimate" track car should speak with others who have actually operated the car and find out the reality of cost, lap times, and reliability. To me there is nothing worse than being ready for a great track day experience only to find that the damn thing won't run right or is so expensive that it scares you to hang it out or limits your ability to use it due to budget.

Case in point: a good friend brought his magnificent and gorgeous McLaren M6B to MSR a few weeks ago and recently called me to pick my brain about getting a SRF because the Mac is simply too much to enjoy its full performance envelope without fear of costly damage or injury.

Sort of like the hot date that turns out to be less than enthusiastic in a fun romp.

 

The Raddy is a Baddy for sure and I am happy to visit with anyone seriously considering one. I'd recommend some Formula Mazda seat time at the Russel Race school to get an idea if you are up to one. No one has ever gone as fast with a passenger at MSR than me in my SR8 as far as I know and only DP or formula cars are faster and not by much.

 

Ferrari challenge car. Costs same as street cars like gt3, gtr, z06 but has cage, down force, suspension. And its ferrari looks and sound.

 

What vintage and have you actually run one for long enough to say? I think it runs the 458 Challenge folks in excess of $20K per weekend to run with prep and travel and support and at COTA last time I saw they were slower than the GT3 cup cars. Now the 355 is less, but it is not much faster than my Turbo Miata at my home track and takes slicks to my R888s to do that.

If you must have a Ferrari track car I suppose a Challenge car is great, but it is not very cost effective IMO and based on what racers I personally know have told me.

Oh and you can't be serious comparing operating costs of a Challenge car to a Z06

 

Best bang for the buck is a 360 challenge in the CCR Forza Tifosi challenge. Challenge Car Racing

For endurance cars, check out the Praga R1. CCR will be doing an endurance series in 2015 with these cars.