Editing Elises in Competition (section)

==One-make series==



===Autobytel Elise Championship===

Back in 2000, Lotus created their own race series, which was taken on by the TOCA organisation, which runs the British Touring Car Championship. 

Running as part of their bill and in some ways taking the place of the now-defunct Renault Spider series, a specially-built Motorsport Elise, with a tuned engine, fibreglass roof, fastback, aerodynamic appendages and central driving position, would be prepared by Lotus Sport at a cost to the driver of around £60,000 a season.  K-series engines were tuned by Minister and developed 200bhp via a Quaife 5-speed straight-cut 'box.

The series ran for two seasons, with 21 cars entered for the opening round and as well as the TOCA rounds, raced at Spa-Francorchamps, Nurburgring and Magny-Cours:

'''2000 Season - Champion: Adam Wilcox'''

Drivers included Spencer Marsh, Mark Fullalove, Paula Cook, Ian Ashley, Hyla Breese, Martin Donnelly and Nick Adams

'''2001 Season - Champion: Mark Fullalove'''

Drivers included Hyla Breese, Spencer Marsh, Ian Ashley, Chris Harris, Nigel Smith, Jerry Mahoney and Julian Rouse

However, the cost of competing, combined with the brief economic downturn at the turn of the century, meant that there were not enough entries to justify continuing the series.  A loss posted by Group Lotus didn’t help matters either and the company pulled out of motorsport.  By this time, the car had evolved into the Series One Exige.

===Lotus On Track Elise Trophy===


With the growth of trackdays and the Production BMW series growing out of SELOC, many drivers were keen to race their cars but nervous about making that first step in an unknown series with unknown drivers and no idea how well their car would fare.  Thus the Elise Trophy was born in 2006.