I think this was mentioned either in the F1 or Indy car thread some time ago, but F5000, normally aspirated V8 5 liter single-seaters is coming back, in Australia, called "S5000" for some reason. My question is, would this be a viable class in domestic SCCA racing, or are there enough classes already? I would like to see something replace the former glory that Formula Atlantic racing had some time ago. Might this be it? Or are we stuck with regional open wheelers that then move up to Indy Lights? Formula Ford, Formula 2000, Formula 1000, Formula Mazda, Formula Atlantics....... SCCA does have many classes. This would be like the old Formula A that went away back in the 70's, if I recall correctly. https://www.s5000.com.au/
I raced Formula Atlantic in SCCA for over 10 years and FF and F2000 before that. I was a big F5000 fan but.... This is about the third or fourth attempt in the last few years to create a modern F5000 series down under, they all failed due to cost, lack of sponsorship and lack of actual buyers and competitors. I see no reason why this will be different. There is no class that this comes even close to fitting in the USA and if you did the expense would be on par with an Indy lights car, so over one million $ per season, have you seen how small the Lights grid has been this year? Amateur formula car racing is almost dead in the USA, look at the lack of entries at this years Runoffs.
It would be fun to watch, but with the power that much smaller engines make, where would you run such a large, angry animal ???? I remember seeing them on video a few times and the engines liked to change the chassis into pretzels.
Professional open wheel is essentially dead in the US. On the amateur level, SCCA has too many open wheel classes with very light car counts. SCCA Pro is anything but - F3 had like 3 cars run the entire season last year.
Owned ex-Jos Verstaapen Swift DB4/Toyota, raced SCCA nationals in CenDiv 1996-2007 and rented a pro Swift 14/Toyota 2003-2005
Nice. You were a step or 2 above me in equipment. What was the pro per weekend... something around $50K?
When Formula Atlantic was the most popular, say 1991-2006 a dozen regular pro teams fought every season, $35-50k per race and $500-1mil per car were the standard quotes to buy a seat. As a poor club Atlantic racer, I learned to suck up to several of the pro teams and got lots of cheap parts and lots of cheap test time in their cars. Often the teams would schedule a 3-4 day test and almost always one of the young(dumb) pro drivers would schedule a flight out at noon on the last day and the race car would sit at the track ready to go and paid for, but no driver, so they call me because I have cash, don't crash, buy mechanics beer, can be at track in 24 hours. I was doing half day of testing in a fully staffed/data pro Atlantic for about $1200. It would cost me four times that to run my own much older car!
