The new club categories aiming to make an impact in 2025

It is always important for club racing organisers to have one eye on the future. Innovation is essential, along with thinking a couple of steps ahead, and each year a range of new categories are unveiled to try to tempt in a new audience or keep existing drivers engaged.

Some seasons there are very few new launches, while in others the list is never-ending. And 2025 is one of those where a whole multitude of fresh concepts are set to take to the tracks.

Here Autosport examines the new national tin-top, single-seater and prototype categories set to break cover in 2025.

Swift Sport Challenge

Any time the words ‘record-breaking’ are used to describe a new series, it is pretty clear that organisers are onto a winner. And the 750 Motor Club really seems to have struck a chord with competitors – both new and old – with its Swift Sport Challenge.

Safety Devices has been involved in motorsport for decades, but it has never sold more roll cages for a single-make car in the first two months of them becoming available than it has for the 2006-10 Mk1 VVT Swifts of this new contest. That number has now reached 30 and the overwhelming interest has forced the 750MC into running standalone grids from day one, whereas it had originally intended for the Swifts to be part of Hot Hatch races to start off with.

INSIGHT: Why the 750MC’s Swift Sport Challenge will be a welcome addition to national racing in 2025

A focus on affordability and accessibility has been key to its success. A Tegiwa build kit – including the aforementioned cage – costs less than £5,000, while the club has dreamed up a range of novel incentives to help the financially-challenged club racer, including £250 in credit if the Swift is driven to and from the circuit and the fastest two qualifying times being deleted for drivers who partake in expensive Friday testing. It seems the series is living up to its name and making a swift impact on the club racing scene.

TOCA Junior

Undoubtedly one of the most high profile of the new 2025 categories is TOCA Junior, the new junior series that will support the British Touring Car Championship. TOCA boss Alan Gow wanted a new championship to fill the void left by Ginetta Junior’s departure to the British GT package and opted for Dave Beecroft’s idea to create a bespoke rear-wheel-drive racer for teenagers to learn their craft in.

With the car being developed from scratch, it was never going to be cheap – the ‘Chevron B1417’ costs £78,500+VAT to buy – and there have inevitably been a few bumps in the road. The car took to the track for the first time last September with Beecroft at the wheel and impressed with its performance and reliability out of the box while BTCC champion Tom Ingram has also given it the thumbs up.

INSIGHT: The bespoke car created for the UK’s newest junior category

But, despite a raft of established squads attending its launch event last year, TOCA Junior currently only has two teams publicly signed up to it. Given it is now early February, that is a worrying position for a new championship – especially one that is not exactly cheap – to be in.

Ultimate Racing Championship

Few new categories have created such a rumpus in the marketplace as the Ultimate Racing Championship. The new offering from Club Time Attack – known for its sprint-style and drifting competitions, but which has now moved into more traditional circuit racing with its Racing Hondas series – is designed for two-litre touring cars built since 2011. Given old British Touring Car machines have rarely found their way onto club grids, this essentially means TCR cars. And TCR creator WSC did not like that.

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It reacted furiously, warning series organisers about breaching IP laws and said cars operating outside of TCR UK on British shores would permanently lose their homologation. Cue further concern across national motorsport, at a time when some clubs were already somewhat surprised URC had been granted a Motorsport UK championship permit.

But, putting all of the arguments and counterarguments to one side, this new offering is designed to make racing modern turbocharged tin-tops more affordable. Like Racing Hondas last year, entry fees will be entirely free thanks to a partnership with Tegiwa, while competitors will benefit from racing in front of the huge crowds that CTA’s events draw. Initial enquiries were strong, and free entries will go down well, but it is too early to tell whether WSC’s threats will in any way hinder this new championship from achieving its ultimate ambitions.

Pro Sports Sprint

Older Ginetta G55s could find a new home in BRSCC’s Pro Sports Sprint category

Photo by: JEP

This new British Racing & Sports Car Club offering has been created based upon demand from its members for a category where factory-built machinery can compete in multi-make sprint races.

It is split into six different classes based upon power-to-weight ratio and a range of sportscars and tin-tops are expected to take part. It is not targeted at the very latest GT3 and GT4 machinery but instead owners of a Mosler and a mix of slightly older Ferraris and Porsches are among those to have expressed an interest in joining the grid. Pro Sports Sprint is also set to be a home for the multitude of Ginetta G55s that no longer have a dedicated series from the Yorkshire manufacturer and organisers expect a strong inaugural season.

Production Cup

The Production Cup is another new BRSCC multi-make initiative but for less exotic machinery than the Pro Sports Sprint concept. This one is based upon the Clubsport Trophy – a series that has regularly attracted massive 40-strong entries for its mixed grid mini-enduros – and has also been launched off the back of a number of enquiries from competitors for sprint races for these cars.

With an enormous pool of cars with a power-to-weight ratio of less than 235bhp/tonne to draw upon, the Production Cup is another category with the potential to be popular from the start.

DS3 Cup

The DS3s will initially feature within the Production Cup before getting a standalone grid

Photo by: JEP

Alongside the BRSCC’s catch-all new concepts, it has also developed a bespoke race car as it plans to launch the DS3 Cup. Initially this will form a class within the Production Cup but it is intended to become a standalone series next year.

The category is designed to be the next step for drivers looking to progress from the Citroen C1s, Peugeot 107s and Toyota Aygos of the CityCar Cup. The DS3 Cup encapsulates the same ethos of being a relatively low-cost, accessible series, just with a step up in performance to bridge the gap to some of the BRSCC’s other divisions that feature a greater technical challenge.

Organisers are expecting the DS3s to number into double figures at the start of the year, while – based on the number of kits that have now been sold – nearer 20 could be taking to the tracks by the end of the season, suggesting this is another series with plenty of potential.

Pre-2013 Touring Cars

The Classic Touring Car Racing Club is a very popular tin-top organiser, but has slightly surprisingly opted to extend its portfolio into more modern machines by creating a new contest for cars built between 2003 and 2012. It may seem logical to extend its breadth as the march of time now means even the newest of cars in this bracket are at least a dozen years old but, given the congested marketplace for such vehicles and the fact the CTCRC’s newer divisions are already its least bountiful, there are no guarantees it will be a success.

The new series is primarily aimed at Super 2000 and early NGTC-specification cars from the BTCC and was created following queries from drivers. A few of these cars have featured at the club’s Super Touring Power event but how many will be tempted out remains to be seen.

Equipe Sports Prototypes

Two separate prototype categories are being united by Equipe this year

Common sense is not something we always see in national motorsport but the move to combine the Zeo Proto Series and the Sports Prototype Cup for this year is a very logical one. The categories have teamed up a couple of times in the past, but have now both been acquired by Equipe Classic Racing with the idea of creating one bigger grid of prototype machinery.

Car builders Revolution and Praga have thrown their support behind the idea while new creations from Wolf are set to also be part of the mix alongside one-off specials. This represents a fresh direction for Equipe, but it is an area of the sport it has previously investigated operating a series in and organisers are confident of it being successful.

Equipe Sports Racing Cars

Equipe also has a new offering in its more traditional historics sphere for 2025 in the shape of its Sports Racing Cars division. This will feature two distinct groups of under two-litre sports-racers: both drum-braked and disc-braked pre-1960 machines as well as cars from 1960-65.

Rolling starts – to protect delicate gearboxes – will lead into 40-minute contests and already drivers of a wide range of cars have pledged to take part. There is set to be strong Lotus representation with 11s, 15s and 23Bs all registered, along with three Lola Mk1s and a trio of Cooper Monacos.

Organisers admit that it may take time for interest to truly build but feel the opportunity to be on a grid exclusively of historic sports-racers will prove popular.

Rating the new series from 2024

At this time of year, Autosport traditionally takes a look at the new categories launched the previous season and gives them a rating out of five stars.

But there was a dearth of new series last season and, as you will see below, none of them exactly proved an instant hit.

Here we take a look at how the trio of newbies performed.

Clio Cup GB – 1.5 stars

Small grids but close racing were a feature of Clio Cup GB’s inaugural season

Photo by: Gary Hawkins

A rating of 1.5 stars may seem somewhat generous for a category that never featured more than eight cars, but the Clio Cup GB’s performance was given a little boost by the quality of racing those small grids still produced.

Launching a new championship sitting at the top end of the club racing spectrum was never going to be easy in these turbulent financial times. But MotorSport Vision Trackdays’ attempt to return a Clio Cup competition to the UK for the first time in five years faced additional challenges. Uncertainty over when the new fifth-generation Clios would be delivered from France allied to a relatively late announcement of the 2024 launch of the series meant drivers were reluctant to commit. And when those delivery delays multiplied, organisers were faced with little choice but to postpone the start of the season until June.

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It did then finally get under way, but the challenge now is growing the grids. The cars clearly provide great racing and are reliable bits of kit, but they are not cheap – especially when appearing at regular MSVR club events. The old Clio Cup is still remembered fondly but the jury is out over whether this new incarnation can eventually live up to its predecessor’s popularity.

Heroes of Formula Ford 1600 Sprint Cup – 2.5 stars

There is no shortage of places to race a Formula Ford 1600 and another new home was created last year in the form of the British Automobile Racing Club-aligned Heroes of FF1600 Sprint Cup. This was the idea of Historic FF1600 ace Richard Tarling and was designed to be a mini three-round series aimed at pre-1993 machinery with various prizes on offer to drivers.

An encouraging 19 cars took part in its inaugural event at the Thruxton Historic meeting, but this fell to just 12 at the subsequent Oulton Park and Croft fixtures, meaning it is still far from clear whether this has a justifiable place in the crowded market.

A further three rounds are planned for this year, with the rebranded Thruxton Retro again being the showpiece, but with Silverstone and Donington Park now joining the schedule. With two-time Walter Hayes Trophy winner Michael Moyers among those set to take part, it is an important year in determining whether the Heroes of FF1600 Sprint Cup can gain a true foothold in the national racing scene.

Equipe F2 Atlantic – 1.5 stars

FF2000 and F3 machinery will now join the F2 and FAtlantic cars in renamed Equipe Formula Libre contest

Photo by: Gary Hawkins

Equipe Classic Racing has developed a reputation for attracting big grids of historic GTs over the past decade but stepped outside of its comfort zone last year with a move into the world of historic single-seaters by launching Equipe F2 Atlantic.

The new category did not get off to the best of starts with organisers admitting the March Brands Hatch season-opener was too early in the year and just seven cars were on the grid. Numbers remained small, growing to a maximum of 11 at Donington Park, as momentum never really built.

Equipe has taken on board what it learned during 2024 and is now renaming the category Equipe Formula Libre and opening it up to Formula Ford 2000 and classic F3 machinery to try to boost the pool of competitors. And the early signs are encouraging with nearly 30 drivers already registered.