~ Fellow fiends:
~
~ Okay, yet even another question:
~
~ For those of you who take your lbc racing: I am teetering on the edge of
~ wanting to get into some club racing and wonder about expenses. Maybe this
~ is too much to ask in this e-mail medium but I am wondering of I can get
~ some estimates on a season's costs. What I am curious about is not the
~ costs for the initial restoration/preparation of the car but the seasonal
~ expenses of racing it. Assume that I am talking about either a
~ sprite/midget or a TVR 1800 (so both have BMC engines and gear boxes). One
~ can spend as much as one has on the restoration and preparation, I suppose.
~ What does running it cost? If this is too vague a question, if there are
~ just too many variables, then might I just inquire to the racers on the net
~ what *their* annual expenses are? Roger? Anyone else?
~
~ Will "Not one penny for tribute" Zehring
Hoo.
Racing costs... First, of course, I'm going to assume you're only talking
about money. That's your first mistake. Racing costs more -- it costs
all the things you give up by spending the money on the car, to begin
with. It costs pieces of your life, your job, your friends, your family.
It costs *time* -- huge, irreplaceable chunks of the one resource that's
truly unrenewable. It costs sleep, people, stomach lining, self-respect,
and blood.
In terms of the amount of energy expended, the degree to which you have
to become an expert, and the commitment in time and blood, racing is to
owning an LBC what owning an LBC is to riding the subway.
As for the money, no matter what anyone here tells you, it costs 2.5
times more than they will say it does. All racers lie about money,
some to a large degree and some to a small degree, but those who lie to
a small degree are probably forgetting something that came out of a
different checkbook or went on a credit card that they weren't counting
or something. The truth is that even people who brag about how much
they spend racing are likely to omit the cost for filling up the tow
vehicle (or for that matter, to forget to count the tow vehicle's cost
for non-race use). The simple truth is that no matter how much you
allocate, no matter how much you plan, no matter how much you set
aside and budget and carefully prepare -- no matter how much you may
think it costs, racing costs more. And it always costs more and more.
In nice round numbers? Six to ten thousand dollars to show up and be
dead last and get laughed at, if you're stupid enough to try to build
your own race car. Maybe less if you buy a completed car in the first
place, and it's in a cheap class like ITC or ITB.
It may just happen to be worth all that to you, and there's really only one
way to find out. Actually, there are a couple of ways; probably the least
trouble and expense is to take an open-track session such as those listed
in the back pages of Autoweek. My recommendation would be to take a driving
school such as the Jim Russell school in Laguna Seca. First, Laguna Seca
is a beautiful and challenging track, one that rewards the ability to
keep your foot down and hold your breath (as opposed to, say, Sears Point,
which is a more technically interesting track with its own ohmyGOD sections,
but not as universally so as Laguna Seca). Laguna Seca will initiate you
to the kind of balance between brilliance and absolute bone-dead idiocy
that racing requires -- you have to be smarter than Stephen Hawking on
a good day to set up passes, make instant decisions, and conduct in-race
strategy, yet at the same time you have to be about as smart as your
average brown trout just to be out there in the first place. It'll also
teach you, at a fundamental level, the true meaning (and the true wording;
lots of people get it wrong) of the oft-misquoted racing maxim: "Speed
costs money; how fast can you afford to go?"
So let's say you budget $5000, meaning you'll actually spend a little
over $10K by the time the year is out. What will you spend it on? Here
are a few items that make up the basic racer's outlay on a yearly basis:
The Car. Let's say you join the SCCA ($60/yr) and start reading the
classifieds in SportsCar, their national magazine. You find a cheap,
reliable ITC car like a Datsun 510 (I know it's not British; for something
British, double the initial cost and the cost of upkeep). It's got a
trailer -- do you have a tow vehicle? Add $1000 and up for something
to haul the race car if not. You can find a decent ITC 510 for around
$3000 or thereabouts (do you know my True Cost theory of car ownership?)
The Prep. Getting the car into condition to run -- not to be competitive,
just to pass tech and get around the course without things falling off
or catching fire or otherwise causing you to come in on the hook -- will
cost, oh, let's be generous and say only $2000 because you don't have to
buy any tools. (Do you have a comprehensive tool kit, with things like
an engine puller, all the right sockets, an air compressor -- you will
either need an air compressor or a friend/team mate who has one -- and
all the special goodies you'll need for doing at least minimal bodywork
when you and a fellow racer learn the fundamental law of non-simultaneous
space occupation? If not, add $1500 and up.) You will at very least
probably need to go over the car from stem to stern, if for no other
reason than to familiarize yourself with it. You will also want to
replace all the things that are second-rate, broken, about to break, or
otherwise endangering your life and the lives of the other people on
track with you. This includes but is not limited to rod ends (rose joints
for OFATP), brake pads and possibly rotors, wheel bearings, bushings if
the car is so equipped, brake fluid, coolant, hoses, belts, gaskets,
oil and filter(s), oil lines, wiring connections, steering linkages,
various nuts, bolts and fasteners, and possibly body panels that may
be too damaged to pass technical inspection. You may also need to
replace various engine, driveline, or suspension components, depending
on the condition of the car when you bought it, but that's part of the
True Cost theory (stated simply: every car has a True Cost which is
equal to the price of its most expensive instantiation, plus 10%. Every
dollar you save on the purchase price translates to three dollars in
the actual cost of the vehicle, by the time you get it right.)
The Gear. Order the General Competition Regulations (GCR, $15 or so)
and the competition rules for your specific class of vehicle (about $10,
more if you plan to compete in different categories of racing). This
will tell you what you have to buy, but it will include a driver's suit
($150 and up), a helmet ($150 and up), shoes ($75/up), gloves ($50),
a Nomex balaclava if you have facial hair besides eyebrows ($12 or so,
a real bargain, and usable at Hallowe'en to be The Mummy), arm restraints
if you have an open car ($27), new harness if the existing one is more
than two years old ($90 and up), new fire system ($150 and up), and of
course any new stickers, decals, and signage that your organization
requires (maybe no more than $10-$15). Oh, right, and fuel jugs ($25),
see below.
The Weekend. The SCCA (the largest organization for club racing in
the country, and the model for the figures I've given) gets $175 for
a race weekend in my region (San Francisco). Now, some of that money
went into a special fund to buy our new race track, Thunder Hill, and
other regions might pay less. Now figure on $50 or more for gas for
the tow vehicle (which gets probably 6 mpg with the trailer on it),
if you have a longish tow; race gas costs $4 a gallon, and yes, you
want to use it. I will mail you pieces of my piston if you don't
believe me. Most people buy 5-gallon plastic fuel jugs, as they're
non-conductive and shatterproof, which take $20 or so to fill up.
Figure one, maybe two per weekend, depending on your car's fuel
consumption, track length, and practice period duration.
In addition, expenses can include food for you and the crew (there's
a sort of unwritten law that the driver buys meals for the crew). And
yes, you will need at least one and preferably three people to help
you, preferably at least one of whom has been through this before
either as crew or as driver and who therefore knows the track's
procedure, knows where to go for all the various things you'll need
to get done, knows the pre-race drill, and who can talk you through
the bellyfull of pelicans you'll get in the last three minutes before
the race starts. Most of your crew are probably racing enthusiasts
themselves, and are usually content to eat "spaghetti" (noodles boiled
on a Coleman stove at the track and topped with ketchup and grated
cheese) or that rare French delicacy, pain au beurre d'arrachide avec
confiseures (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches). You'll still have
to fork out between $10 and $40, depending on the number and appetites
of your crew. It's a nice touch to have a cooler full of beer, but
please note the VERY stringent limits on alcohol -- NEVER open a
beer before the last checkered flag of the day.
Oh, you want to sleep somewhere? The cheapest is in the tow vehicle,
and you will eventually wake up, as I did once, to the sound of what
seems like ten thousand marbles being dumped on the roof as the skies
open up with a torrential rainstorm. Sleeping in the tow vehicle is
best if you've got a station wagon, camper, van or truck with a shell,
but I know people who claim to be able to sleep across the back seat
of a largeish sedan. If the race the next day is important, you should
spend the money (assuming you have any left) on a motel room near the
track; if you have a team, or at least a friend who's racing the same
weekend, you can sometimes share expenses that way. That cost varies
too much to quote, but can run from zero to $250 a night (if, say,
you are racing your vintage Aston Martin at the Monterey Historics
and you stay at a posh resort in Carmel).
Between-race Expenses. Even if you have a vintage car (and are
therefore less wired into the continual cycle of improvements
required in the competitive classes), you will need to do some
maintenance operations between races: oil and filter change, coolant,
tune-up components, gas and air filters, etc. You will also have
various accelerated wear items, such as the clutch, the brakes,
suspension components, valve jobs, and of course tires. And that
of course excludes unplanned replacements, either from breakage
(see "pieces of piston," above) or from contact on course. Figure
at least $50 during the weeks before each race weekend, though of
course that figure can go terrifically high in the event of engine
failure or a shunt.
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