Although it costs a barrow-load of cash to succeed at the highest levels of motor sport, there are some channels that can cost very little - you can use your partner's car if you dare ..
Autotesting, Production Car Trials and Road Rallies can all be done with few modifications from standard specification.
As your eyes fall on the more adventurous and dare-devil-like activities, so you need a more specialised vehicle. Special stage rally cars are still basically road cars, but the safety regulations require a fair number of items of equipment, and you'll want to make sure that the car doesn't fall apart when it hits the rough stuff!
Then there's the real specialised areas of the sport - hill-climbing, circuit racing and so on. For these you will generally have a car that is used for nothing else. The preparation and maintenance becomes expensive and you just wouldn't take even a saloon-car racer to the shops ...
The sport's governing body, the Motor Sports Association (MSA) can help you find your way through the rule book and our members will be glad to find somebody that hasn't heard their stories yet. And, while they're telling them to you, they'll help get you sorted out and into your first event.
Rally drivers are the heroes of club motor sport. And remember - even the World Rally Champion had to start somewhere ... If you like a bit of excitement and aren't afraid to go 'bump', then rallying could be for you.
There are two main types of rallying - road rallies and special stage rallies. They're very different types of event and require a totally different approach.
Road rallies are generally contested in more-or-less standard vehicles. You don't need any specialised equipment other than a map reading light and a pencil sharpener. Road rallies, you see, are based on navigation. Think of a treasure hunt - you get a list of clues that help you find the way to your destination. Road rallies (also known as navigational rallies) are like a very advanced treasure hunt. You know where you're going to start, and where you will finish. In between, you must find your way around a complex route, visiting maybe 12-15 points (controls) on the way. And, to comply with the law, you cannot average more than 30 miles per hour. Sounds easy, doesn't it?
But now, imagine that you don't know where any of these controls are, that you get penalised if you deviate from the proper route, and that it might take you half of your time to work out where you have to go. And you still have to get to the control via narrow country tracks that rarely see more than a tractor. Get the idea? Now you can understand why very few competitors finish the night (did we say that you had to do all of this in the dark?) with a clean sheet. You need a reliable car, good driving ability and - most important of all - somebody who's brilliant at solving problems.
This is the type of rally that you are most familiar with. Brightly coloured cars that hurtle at high speed along gravel tracks that thread through dense forests. Most forest events in Scotland are rounds of the Scottish Rally Championship, and several of them count towards the British Rally Championship too. For this you need a specialised car with many modifications. At a minimum, you must comply with the MSA safety requirements. That means a hefty roll cage to protect you if you land on your roof (!), fire extinguishers in case your car catches fire (!), electrical cut-off to help stop it catching fire in the first place (!) and so on. Now if that makes you nervous, don't worry. Because of all of these measures, it's very rare for someone to get seriously hurt in a rally car.
Just to confuse you further, there are two types of special stage rallying. There's the forest stage rallies that we've already mentioned. And there's asphalt (tarmac) stage rallying. Asphalt is generally cheaper than forest - the entry fees are lower, insurance cover for driving on public roads is often not required, and cars tend to suffer less punishment that those that bounce along rutted gravel tracks. GMSC's Kingdom Stages Rally, held in November each year, is an asphalt special stage rally - the final round of the Scottish Tarmack Rally Championship. Scotland's premier asphalt stage rally is the Tour of Mull. Held each autumn, this super-long event takes crews across the single-track roads of the Isle of Mull and is a test of nerve and stamina that will test any competitor. But Glenrothes MSC members have a good record on the island.
Because racing is not allowed on the public road, it has to take place at proper racing circuits. The closest to Glenrothes MSC is Knockhill in the west of Fife. GMSC doesn't organise races, but it does hold a couple of track nights each year, when members can take their road or competition car onto the racing circuit.
Speed events (sprints and hillclimbs) are much the same as circuit races, but cars run one at a time, and drivers compete against the clock. There are championships for both sprints and hillclimbs, with events taking place throughout Scotland.
Although you tend to see some pretty specialised machinery at events (ex-circuit racing cars are the most competitive on speed events), you can fit basic safety equipment and a simple timing beam breaker to your family saloon, put on your crash helmet and have a go.
