One of the next race series for the club will be the Racer Sideways Group 5 series. This series has been run before in 2021 but Covid got in the way so the series was run as a club proxy race with cars being prepared by competitors and then being raced by the same three vaccinated club members. The rules for that series were very simple with cars running almost stock with a limited number of changes/modifications.
There were five cars that ran this series with a good mix of makes and models.
As you can see from the chart below, the dimensions for the cars are all over the place, with no real common measurement between any of them.
The 2021 proxy series was won by Marty’s Lancia Stratos, followed by Randy’s Ford Capri, then Russell’s BMW 320, then John’s BMW M1, and finally Mark’s BMW M1. I don’t there is much to take away from these results as it was a proxy race with limited modifications allowed on the cars.
If you are looking for a Group 5 series with a more open set of rules, then you don’t need to look beyond the club’s 2017 series. That series was run, like this one, in the third quarter of the year, with track temps being higher and the allowed modifications being more open. That series was dominated by David and his well-prepared BMW M1. David’s car was not just quick, it was the class of the field. It was easily a tenth of a second or more ahead of the other racers. Here are the results from Round 1 of that series with lap times.
It’s 2025, and we are running the Group 5 series again, and it’s limited to Racer Sideways cars with a very open set of rules for tuning to get the most performance out of every car. This series is very different than some of our previous series that were basically box stock cars. Tuning a car with such open rules can seem daunting and too big of a task to take on when you don’t know what each modification will or can do for your car’s performance. For this reason, don’t hesitate to reach out to other club members for help, guidance, or maybe you can have them build a car for you. After all, racing is the fun part for most of our members.
The Racer Sideways Group 5 series kicks off in July but there is no time like the present to get your car prepared. Looking forward to some great racing and some great car builds for this amazing series. I can’t wait.