[Shotimes] OT: Ebay discount coupons

[Mark Nunnally]

If you are building an all out track car (solo1 timed event, or
NASA/SCCA/EMRA etc competition), things get real even (ie $$ invested)
when it comes to cage/fabrication work, safety gear, track wheels/tires,
brakes, datalogging, communication, etc.  Any car you build is gonna cost
at least X amount of $$.  The advantage of the SHO is cheap buy in price
for a building block (chassis).  They are nearly free!

Serious track work (modified 911's, vipers, Z06, etc) takes BIG bucks
if you run door to door, probably more $$ than anybody on this list
has or would be willing to spend!  Chris Ingle (local who runs a Z06
in SCCA T1) was telling me some figures for a budget like that', it's
huge.  Big big money.  A used Z06 is $25k-$32k depending on what you
get, and you'd spend $45k prep'd to run T1 mid pack or up front.  And
that's just the car.

Also depends on what class you plan to do serious track work in, there
are some "serious" all out spec miata's my 92 (street car) will blow
the doors off of on a track like road atlanta.  To go run 2:teens at
watkins glen or low 1:40's at road atlanta is gonna take at least a
SHO with 300 hp and sub 2800 lb, which can be pretty fun, to go any
faster would take a bunch more $$, even if you went to another car.

There are a lot of guys with a passion to race (spec miata, these new
import classes - honda, etc) that don't have big buck funding.  So if
you want to race, just gotta find what you can afford and go have fun.

It's hard to find that "sweet spot" of all out speed vs money.  Buy a
better base car to build from, but spend more $$ up front.  Buy a
cheap car like the SHO, and have lots of $$ to play with for upgrades,
but eventually hit design/engineering limitations.  Spend too much up
front, and don't have much for other upgrades that are required and
end up going slower than a crappy car with a bunch of work.

I'd say for the SHO that curve would start to tail off around $12-14k.
You could build a decent race car (NASA touring car series for
example) for that, but to go faster would require tons more bucks
(base car engineering limits).  Time to find another car.  But this is
all in the context of just trying to be a mid pack or better car in a
given series.