by Michael Hogg

Created on: February 23, 2009   Last Updated: March 03, 2009

The world of motorsport when it comes to four wheels can quite easily be spilt into two categories straight away: custom-built racing cars with no roof and roadcar derived sports, touring and stock cars with a roof!

Obviously that's over simplifying things a little, but broadly speaking it's a statement which holds water. Cars which are custom built for racing more often than not are built to what is known as "single seater" specification in that a chassis incorporating a safety cell for the driver with the engine behind him, four wheels and any aerodynamic aids are pretty much all there is to the machine, making them very light and very fast. The top of the pile in this category of racing is Formula One, the pinnacle of single-seat car design with several auto manufacturers involved to be at the cutting edge of technology. As the economic situation bites, this is being held back somewhat as of the start of the 2009 season. Other top line single seater racing is to be found in the Indy Racing League in the States which runs on oval and road course tracks, A1GP - the "World Cup Of Motorsport" in which teams entered under country banners run to a one-make specification with Ferrari engines and GP2 which is the final training ground for F1 hopefuls, also a one-make format.

The world of single seat racing below these levels is vast with various formulas all offering step-ups in the level of power and aerodynamic efficiency as the drivers involved attempt to make it to the top.

In the second category we are looking at, roadcar derived "tintops", there are three particularly popular classes. Sportscar racing for the most part involves the high end of the roadcar market with luxury and supercar manufacturers such as Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and Aston Martin as they produce race versions of their products. This form of racing is most popular in Europe and Asia where most of the manufacturers of such cars are based. Stockcars are an almost entirely North American phenomenon being cars which are based on road going family saloons but are really very serious racecars with tuned V8 engines and very complex setup options and aerodynamics, especially on the new NASCAR "Car Of Tomorrow" platform, though there is an extensive ladder system all the way down to weekly racing at local short-track ovals. Touring Car racing is basically the format North American stockcar racing takes around the rest of the world, once again the cars being based on road going saloons, though in stark contrast to the stockcars, the racing takes place almost entirely on road-courses.

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