Is there a future for Formula Ford?

[Oldfart]

I have seen "buying" formulae work in some cases. A registered competitor can buy any other of the competing equipment at a price, and the owner must sell for that, and the completion of the competiton. ie no take it home and change stuff. It's a great dis-incentive to spend just to win as you can't hope to recover! Would it work? Who knows. Could perhaps work with the engine package having a fixed price???

[Russ Noble]

That could work, except the guys with the money would just look on it as another racing cost, and take the hit. However what about just doing a mid season woppa swappa amongst the top say six contenders. 1st place and 6th place swap motors. 2nd and 5th also, and 3rd and 4th. That could make things interesting! And also remove the incentive to have a trick shit motor if someone else is going to have it for half the season.

[jim short]

Strange no one agrees with the Aussies ,when they have between twenty and thirty cars competing, and how hard they go all using the motor supplied by their own club an unbreakable $12,000 motor I am missing something for sure

[crunch]

Strange no one agrees with the Aussies ,when they have between twenty and thirty cars competing, and how hard they go all using the motor supplied by their own club an unbreakable $12,000 motor I am missing something for sure

The main problem I have with that Jim is they are now running an engine that is two generations old internationally. What would be the point of us moving from engine/equipment that is 3 generations old to this spec?
Either we stick with the current spec and incorparate all the suggestions here, or move to the new spec with manufacturer support?
Just my own thoughts...

[jim short]

Is the Focus that long out of date???life must be slipping away faster than I thought

[Racer Rog]

Jim you have a very good point, and I even agree with some of Crunch's reply, the engine is 2 generations old, one of the big problems for Ford, is that they don't make a "world" engine any more, the engine used in Formula F, in the States is a "world" engine, its marketed in Honda vehicles world wide, so it fills the bill on that account. The tolerances in Honda engines, is such, that no amount of "blue printing if allowed, will produce any greater power if it were allowed, these engines are standard and must remain so, they will take a lot more abuse than a Kent engine, and a test mule has been running in the States for 3 seasons now untouched, no reduction of power, now no matter how good your engine builder is, a Kent engine will not do this.
Now given all this, and with what Carl has said about Ford, this could explain a lot about Fords reasons for not supporting the Formula, personally I think their thinking is flawed, and think they have missed the bus on this, it would have been great if the class had kept up with the play when they changed the engines in the UK, but this goes back to the availability of a Ford "world" engine again, and the fact that market different engines in different markets, and thus making the engine package very expensive, which I believe was the case here in NZ, plus all the engine builders were onto a good thing, in fact when discussing this with a well know FF engine builder, who claimed the Kent engine was very cheap to run and do up, when another party in the conversation asked why he was charged $30k for his son's engine work, you could have heard a pin drop, and there was a lot of mumbling into beers after that!
So that is some of the reasons I support going to Honda, but would also support Ford, if they were able to suck it up big time, and come up with as good a package, remember win on Sunday, sell on Monday, is still true today, even if its just the T shirt.
Roger

[jim short]

Google states the Focus{not the kent} last ran in 2010 Rally,when racing FF in Aussie 4 or 5 yrs ago that mtr, was unbreakable and in some ways it would pay to do the same as our cousins,then heard a story with the new faster Toyota coming out ,the current ones can be made slower and sold off to replace the FF

[Racer Rog]

Google states the Focus{not the kent} last ran in 2010 Rally,when racing FF in Aussie 4 or 5 yrs ago that mtr, was unbreakable and in some ways it would pay to do the same as our cousins,then heard a story with the new faster Toyota coming out ,the current ones can be made slower and sold off to replace the FF

The problem here as I see it, is that then you are locked into a one make Chassis, which is very expensive to repair, and a sealed engine, there is nothing wrong with a well designed space frame chassis, and what is turned out these days is stffer than the the early monocoupe chassis and it takes away any engineering input, in terms of rebuilding your own engine etc, and therefore increasing costs. so I don't think that is the answer.
Roger