A friend of mine just showed me this when I asked about race car somewhere between a kart and say a Formula Mazda. It’s called the Hyper Pro Racer and was built by Dean and Jon Crooke based on their 60 years combined experience in motorsports. They’re based in Australia which is why we haven’t seen one of these at a track day. I don’t know very much about them but here’s the rundown from their website.
For roughy $7k US, you get a rolling a chassis made from Chromoly(4130). The whole setup including suspension wishbones, trailing arms, tie rods, steering column, pedal box, etc is de-spattered and ready to paint or powder coat or Hyper PRO Racer can arrange to have this done for you at extra cost. You need to buy things like the engine, tires, electronics, and build it. The complete list of parts in the rolling chassis can be found here.
There’s a lot more to the car than just the rolling chassis. This diagram lists the components of a complete Hyper Pro Racer.
The Hyper Pro runs a Yamaha 450cc WR multi valve 4-stroke race engine. The engine is designed to rev to 12,500rpm but puts out it’s real power under 10,000rpm, the extra revs being an over-rev buffer required by motocross riders. The PRO Racer is limited to 10,250rpm to extend engine life. The engine is standard Yamaha deal with the exception of a slipper clutch.
The whole goal was to keep running costs as low as possible and the biggest cost for any racing driver is tires. The PRO Racer keeps this cost to a minimum by using 6” tyres like you would find on a shifter kart. The engine runs on standard pump gas for the race car (20 litres will suffice for a regular race meeting), chain lube and entry fees.
Under normal use the engine should do 2 race seasons between top end re-builds and 4 race seasons between full re-builds. Depending on whether you give us the car or just the engine, a top end re-build cost between $500 and $700 and a full re-build costs between $1000 and $1500 (US dollars).
The other nice thing is that the whole setup will fit on a little 4′ by 6′ foot trailer or the back of a pick up truck!
There’s a whole race series in Australia for things but they are probably amazing for practice and I bet they work pretty well at hill climbs too.
We won’t recognize these tracks but it does give you an idea for the relative speed of the Hyper Pro. A few seconds off a Porsche Cup Car sounds pretty fun!
It’s basically a cross between a superkart and a formula car. You can built it yourself. Fit it with a different, faster engine if you want. All I know is that it looks like fun. I wish more companies in the US would build cool chassis like this for track days. Take a look at the video below. They look like fun. You can read more about them here on the Hyper Pro website.
