Why the Fun Cup is My Favourite Series

“What’s your favourite race series?”

That’s a question I get asked all the time – and my answer might surprise you.

I’ve been lucky enough to drive hundreds of cars, from F1s to Mazda MX-5s and everything in between.

Quick single-seaters are great fun – there’s nothing more pure than a flat-out quali lap with tons of downforce and 700 horsepower.

But for me, enjoying motorsport is about three things: extracting the absolute most from a racing car, experiencing as much wheel-to-wheel action as possible, and enjoying that with a great bunch of people.

So when I’m asked what’s the most fun racing, I always say the Fun Cup.

They’re not the quickest. They’re not the most valuable. They’re not the prettiest.

But they do produce the very best racing I’ve ever experienced. Here’s why:

They’re proper race cars

Yes, they might look like VW Beetles, but underneath, they’re space-framed. And on track, they actually behave something like a Formula Ford. They’re pretty challenging to drive quickly too; lose a few miles per hour on the entry of a corner, and you’re going to be suffering down the following straight.

They’re not very aerodynamic

Which is quite obvious… but it’s a good thing!

When I’m talking about aero here, I don’t mean downforce (although they don’t have much of that either). I’m talking about drag. And it makes a huge difference to racing. A well-placed and timed tow in a Fun Cup car can be worth multiple seconds per lap.

That’s a lot of time, and it makes it very difficult to get away from the car behind. In turn, that creates trains of 5 to 8 cars all in a line, with loads of battling.

The competition is high!

I raced at the Oulton Park meeting and couldn’t believe how competitive the series was (I guess that happens as you get older ).

The lap time spread across the field is very small, which means you’re never too far away from an epic lap-long side-by-side battle (like I had here – I’m in the Marlboro car).

The cars are all the same

This goes without saying really, but in a single-make series like the Fun Cup, the racing is always going to be close.

However, the racing in the Fun Cup is probably the closest I’ve ever competed in, and I think that’s down to the huge slipstream effect I mentioned earlier.

The cars also have sealed engines and gearboxes as well as controlled parts, so you know there are no performance differences.

Endurance races are the best

Just because the Fun Cup races are 3 or 4 hours long doesn’t mean the drivers are saving fuel and tires after the first lap.

It’s actually much more like a 4-hour sprint, with massive action right from lights out!

Over a four-hour race, you get plenty of track time. I shared the car with my Dad, which was the first time we’d raced together and sharing the experience with him over the four hours was absolutely fantastic – not to mention the fact that he’s (just) over 55 and that got us into the Masters class!

All of the above means that the Fun Cup – as the name might suggest – is incredibly fun.

I just love the wheel-to-wheel action. The racing is close, hard, and fair, and the cars are pretty easy to understand from a driving perspective.

And that’s why I find the series so enjoyable. It is genuinely the first series I recommend and has become my go-to for “proper” racing.

If you haven’t heard of the Fun Cup or want to find out more, visit their website or YouTube channel.

Check out my sites Driver61 and Fluid Jobs!

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