From British GT to pre-war specials: National racing preview 2022

Among the single seaters, one-model categories now tend to dominate the career rungs of the ladder, with GB3, GB4 and Formula 4 all offering subtly different career steps for those seeking to be the next Lewis Hamilton with six-figure budgets.

Away from the professional and semi-professional categories, there are many, many relatively affordable places to enjoy weekend sport for the fun racers. In all, the UK has more than 200 active championships and series.

Those for Mazda MX-5s and Caterham Sevens in particular are hugely popular, with typically more than 100 cars at each event, as one-make racing dominates the lower end of the market.

New for 2022 is the Praga Cup for the Czech-built sports prototypes, running alongside the British Endurance Trophy. The season began with a dozen examples of the 360bhp 2.0-litre Renault turbo-engined cars at Silverstone and more are promised.

Meanwhile, recent sports prototypes are one of the growth areas in the prolific historic racing arena, and the Masters Endurance Legends series, which brings sports-prototypes and GT cars as little as five years old under the historic umbrella, is set for strong support, starting at Donington Park over Easter.

Two of the real club racing success stories of the past decade are the Classic Sports Car Club and the 750 Motor Club, two race promoters that have worked hard and listened to their customers to develop race series that have become enormously popular. By offering good value track time and big grids, these two organisations have taken a lead in the running and promotion of national and club racing.

The two grandees of the genre, the British Automobile Racing Club (BARC) and the British Racing and Sports Car Club (BRSCC), have had to dig deep to try to match the newer kids on the block, and the latter has created new race series to meet demand.

The City Car Cup for mildly modified 1.0-litre shopping trollies and the Citroën C1 Endurance Series offer some of the cheapest ways into racing, just like the Ford Ka Endurance series from Motorsport Vision Racing. These endurance races for near-standard cars have brought hordes of newcomers into the sport, almost in the style of fun karting and at pretty modest cost. For the first time ever, the UK has three 24-hour races on the calendar.

Elsewhere in the historic arena, the expanding Motor Racing Legends package and the Historic Sports Car Club continue to run well-supported races and championships for a wonderful array of period cars, ranging from pre-war sports cars right through to single-seaters of the 1980s. Then, of course, the VSCC has its own eclectic mix of racers for a fabulous collection of pre-war machinery.

So the stage is set for a very good 2022, despite all the challenges that the sport faces. National and club racing has changed enormously over the last two decades, but it remains incredibly popular and is still affordable, particularly at the lower levels.