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Racing a Blitz |
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The White Horse Blitz racing club was formed in 1998 to promote racing of the NCF Blitz kit car. These strongly built open frame buggies first started life taking the running gear from Fiats diminutive 650cc air cooled 126. With about 24 bhp on tap, these early cars could provide reasonably lively performance off road, with simplicity being the key word. A few have been road registered, with simply additional lights and an MOT. Unfortunately it was not possible to get this kit through the SVA test introduced for kit cars, and Fiat 126's where also becoming rarer. About 450 kits where sold before the development of the Blitz 2. Much bigger and beefier than the Fiat offering, it uses any Mini engine and 'box with the engine mounted behind the seat. Lack of power was no longer an issue. These kits are sold as SVA approved (i.e. the basic design will pass the SVA tests if the kit is constructed correctly) and sells for about £1000. The kit will JUST take two seats, but its very tight. The latest addition to the line up is the Blitz 3 using the complete running gear from the Suzuki SJ jeep. This overcomes the requirement to pass the SVA test as the kit retains the donors identity, making it much easier to become road legal.
Racing really hammers the cars, and can show up the deficiencies in the donors parts (The kit itself will take almost anything you can throw at it). A few points are worth bearing in mind if looking at a second hand car. In standard form the Fiats break the rear engine mount very easily so check for cracks. The gear boxes tend to break so check for jumping out of gear as a warning of impending failure (Mostly first). Also check for cracks in the frame around the rear spring turrets as the lack of bump stops can cause the springs to become coil bound and pass the shock into the chassis. Apart from that read on to make the car competitive. The Mini based cars have shown problems when fitted with big tyres. Apart from dodgy handling the extra load can cause broken diff's, stripped steering column spines, broken rear track rods and broken ball joints. Moral of this story don't fit huge tyres or get competition parts that can take the strain. Visit Blitz North East for lots of Mini stuff. Also see these clip 1 (600kb) and clip 2 (400kb) UPDATE 2005 Although independent Blitz racing is no longer running, potential racers are welcome to get involved with score --Short Course Off Road Racing. The racing fees are as follows membership paid annually £25 and Permit paid annually £40. We ask for a copy of your driving licence etc as per our insurance instructions. Please note we are not MSA registered and run as a completely separate body. We are inviting any Blitz member to run with us as a third class if they are interested. We currently run approx 50 to 60 races per weekend, racing from Saturday Morning until Sunday late afternoon. There is then a presentation with a nice trophy for the Class winners and the points go into an overall championship. The race fees per driver per weekend is £60 which is usually all they pay. We run wheel to wheel starting 6 cars on the track at the same time and this is a no contact sport although as you can imagine accidents do sometimes happen. I would be looking at Blitz racing with their own kind as the cars I currently have running have V8's, Golf GTI's etc in them. Please contact Helen Rowley for more details
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WELCOME TO BLITZ
RACING
