PROTOTYPE RACING FOR PEANUTS

Mainstream motorsport has always been beyond the majority’s means. Not that financial reality ever dimmed competitors’ aspirations. Thankfully, opportunities for the less wealthy still exist across the amateur racing world, in the spirit of the 750 Motor Club in the 1950s, and Major Arthur Mallock’s basic but brilliant home-brewed U2s, fielded in Formula Junior to F2 and a mainstay of the Clubmans Formula from 1965. In these spheres, engineering ingenuity and passion transcended voracious appetites for cash, because they had to. That’s apposite to South African club racing today, as evidenced by Nash Motorsport’s budget brainchild, marketed complete for approximately £15,000 including VAT.

Cheap obsolete production cars open track gates and attract a following. But they tend to be functional rather than sexy, compromised beyond their comfort zones on the road. That’s where Johannesburg-based race engineer Matt Nash’s eponymous sports-prototype bowled confidently