Pedal Car Racing is a circuit racing endurance sport where teams of up to six drivers race single-seater human powered sports cars in races of up to twenty-four hours duration.
The cars are mainly sports prototypes built by or for the teams that race them. There are no commercial suppliers of racing pedal cars in the UK as yet (although these do exist in other parts of the world). Although all cars have to comply with the international pedal car specification, this is quite an open formula so the cars are as varied as the teams who race them with many different solutions to the same problem.
Second hand cars can generally be picked up for between £100 and £400 and provide a good way into the sport. Often cars can be hired or even just borrowed for 1 or 2 races to get new teams off the ground.
Pedal car racing draws teams from many different backgrounds. Some teams have their origins in the scout and guide associations. Several teams have sprung from cycling and running clubs and these have tended to be very successful, feeding off the athletic abilities of their drivers to overcome any deficiencies in machinery. Some teams have come over to pedal cars from backgrounds in go-karting and the motor trade. There are also teams who originated as pure pedal car teams and have never pretended to be anything other than this. These teams have the advantage that they are not tied to any other organisations but the disadvantage that they cannot fall back on the support of a larger group to help them out for race day support, transport and financial assistance.
The British Pedal Car Championship was first run in 1996 to tie together all the independent races and provide a season long competition to answer the question: who are the best pedal car team in Britain? Nowadays, the championship takes place over eight rounds ranging from the sprint events at Curborough up to the 24 hours of Shenington. To win the championship, teams must compete and gain points in all eight of these different events. For the junior teams, there are separate classes for under 16's, under 14's and under 12's as well as the overall competition for which all teams qualify.
All classes race together so part of the challenge for the faster cars is dealing with the slower moving traffic. Often the competition in these junior classes is as intense as it is for the overall victory. The Championship is divided into six classes:
PC1: Maximum 4 drivers per car (6 in 24 hour races). Open class
PC2: Maximum 4 drivers per car (6 in 24 hour races) under the age of 16.
PC3: Maximum 6 drivers per car all under the age of 14.
PC4: Maximum 6 drivers per car all under the age of 12.
PC0: Maximum 1 driver per car.
PCF: All female teams
Obviously the overall winners are likely to come from the lightweight, aerodynamic prototypes in PC1 class but often the PC2 vehicles move up the order during long races as the endurance factor takes it’s toll on the more heavily stressed machinery in the open class.