A couple of years ago we noticed an advert in the Motorsport news looking for ideas for a new cheap motorsport event and to put ideas forward. So we put our heads together and came up with an idea where this one event could work for everyone. We then put this idea forward to Phil Davis at Pembrey circuit to see if he was willing to work with us and if we were able to have a venue to run it from. Phil agreed to have a look and have a chat with John Symes and Ian Davis.

A few months passed and we came up with a draft for the new event and Phil kindly took the paperwork to the MSA on our behalf to show what we had in mind, what sort of event and course we would like to run, along with a set of supplementary regulations where everyone could fit into this event with their cars. It took a few months for the MSA to take a good look and decide what to do with it. We then received a letter from the MSA explaining that you would like the event to be called a couple of names and one of those being the ‘Motorkhana’. And so that’s what we chose, and the MSA were also allowing us to run our first ever ‘Motorkhana’ event at Pembrey motorsport circuit.

We were hoping this event would encourage new people and youngsters into motorsport, not forgetting the existing fanatics and members of clubs who already compete in other events, or even just those who have had cars sitting in the garage that needed a little dusting off. For example you can have a totally standard Peugeot 106 1100cc competing against a group N Evo. It’s not all about what you drive; the course consists of straights turns hairpins and slaloms so the course is equal to both parties.

We were then allowed to run the ‘Motorkhana’ as an experiment. I advertised it in the club and eventually, after three club meetings and a lot of selling it to other clubs, we managed 55 entries which I thought was excellent, because at only £30 per competitor it was cheap motorsport.

On our entry forms the competitor would fill in a basic questionnaire on the vehicle type, what cc and what fuel type eg. carbs or injection. Then, when we had received entry forms, we would put the cars into groups only for that one specific event to prevent people building a car for one specific class. For example, spending thousands of pounds on a 1000cc car. We have no overall winner only class winners, quickest time of the day and the ‘yahoo’ award for the person having the most enjoyment and not out for a win, we do not present trophies, you get a 1st, 2nd or 3rd place certificate and a different size bottle of pop to match, to take the seriousness out of it so that it’s a fun day. The biggest thing that any competitor can win on the day is a smile on their face.

We hope that the ‘Motorkhana’ events continue for years to come.