I went to a motorkhana to investigate Sydney's most affordable motorsport

Yeah, look. We know everything is expensive if you live in one of Australia’s capital cities.

It makes Motorsport events often seem like a glaringly massive expense, especially when you have to buy safety equipment and fork out around $300 per person, per day for a track day. Then, if you take your road car, there are the ongoing costs of tyres and dealing with the amount of damage that can pile-up with such a high-stress event.

What’s different about motorkhana?

My mate was raving about these events, so I went to find out.

Our weapon was a $900 Mitsubishi FTO of 1995 vintage. He was keen on the idea of having a relatively torquey V6 (even if it’s just a 2.0-litre).

Trailers are handy, but can add to your costs significantly.

The trailer is going to be by far your biggest expense and the only option if you choose to compete in an unregistered vehicle. You’ll need something braked and big enough for a car which will set you back over $1000 plus $300 for rego.

Of course, one look at the CarsGuide listings will show you that there’s any number of Lancers, Mirages, Falcons or Commodores with rego left on them that would be perfectly suitable for the task (trust me, you’ll have fun in any of those choices).

While you’ll save money by just paying a few hundred a year on car rego, if your car is terminally damaged somehow you won’t be able to get it home without a trailer… Worth considering.

The 2.0-litre V6 hammered until it didn't... Remember you might need to spend some time or money (or both) working on your car.

Requirement-wise for entry, you’ll need next to nothing. Motorkhana doesn’t even require a helmet or harness. 

What you will need to compete:

 - A CAMS license. Sign up online, you’ll need at least a 'L2NS' license, although we had ‘L2S’ licenses (that also let you compete at track days) at a total cost of $136.

 - A car. Registered is what my mate likes to call ‘easy mode’ for scrutineering. The only real requirement here is that the battery and driver are properly secured. Pay from $500 to $1000 all up.

 - A car club membership. You’ll need this before you can even apply for a CAMS license. These may vary but ours cost $50 for a year.

 - Entry fee. Join the Facebook pages for car clubs in your area that host these events. Events generally set you back around $50 and sign-ups are online.

So, the total upfront cost if it was your first event? A max of $1300, sans trailer or rego costs. You can almost cut this in half if you're willing to share a car.

Motorkhanas have you driving in patterns around dirt fields. It looks easy on paper, but once the dust is in the air and the flags become barely visible it’s a damn challenging event.

Does it boil down to doughnuts in a field? Yes. But they're timed, technical donuts.

It feels fast behind the wheel, but the skill is all in manoeuvring your car as tightly as possible around the flags. Knock one over and you’ll be penalised to the tune of five or more seconds. Needless to say, the handbrake gets a workout.

Small manoeuvrable vehicles score the best times. Think Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Mirage, even Mazda 121s put impressive times on the board. Our V6 FTO struggled thanks to it’s lack of AWD or a tight wheelbase.

Unlike some track days, the atmosphere is hardly competitive and encourages you to have fun. If you’re not going for crash-hot times, sliding about in a cheap RWD might be more your thing.

Needless to say, a huge part of the challenge is trying to spot the next set of flags through the dirt.

You’ll also quickly discover this is where all those awesome cars that no longer quite cut it on the road go to die. Expect to spot Escorts, Geminis and Datsuns galore.

During the day we had alternator problems, then managed to blow a coolant hose, making sure our car would overheat if driven again. Nothing a few dollars and worthless man-hours won’t fix…

The fuzzy dice were included with the purchase... A 100% working alternator was not...

If you want to move on up, the next step is khanacross (more like a mini-rally event), but that’s another story.

Edit: A previous version of this story said you required a fire extinguisher to be secured in your car ($42), however this is only for khanacross events.

Have you done motorsport on a budget before? Tell us what kind of event it was in the comments.