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Just what is the cheapest way to go racing?

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Westfield_XI

Westfield_XI

Jedi Warrior
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I am thinking of finally learning to drive fast and getting out onto a race track. I was wondering which class and car selection would burn money at the slowest rate, while, at the same time provide the most camaraderie, competition and skills improvement?

I live in Los Angeles and am a former A&P mechanic and once owned a small shop providing chassis set up services to AMA pro racers. Back in the 90's, we worked with American Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha etc. And helped them win a few National Championships, so I know high level racing from the inside...... I want something much much lower key than that! I was even thinking of getting a shifter kart, but I don't want to compete and bench race with teenagers.

So, any suggestions?
 
Probably vintage Formula Vee. Very simple, low-cost mechanicals. Vintage racing tends to be a bit less desperate. It's good fun and racing is real, but you tend to cut people more breaks rather than doing some of the banzai stuff.

There's a nice maturity about it compared to say SpecMiata racing. Vintage is a nice mix of racing and drinking beer with your buddies afterwards.

~Here is~ a video I made a few weeks ago racing my pal Harry in his Vee.

The other nice racing is vintage production in Spridget or Spitfire. But that shouldn't surprise anyone coming from me.
grin.gif
 
VINTAGE - sure to have a good time, start in the lower/slower groups and you will find all the help you could ask for at the track from a great group of people.
 
aeronca65t said:
I did Lemons a few years ago with five buddies....all experienced wheel-to-wheel racers.

None of us wanted to go back and do it again. YMMV.
Click to expand...

I've found these types of events attrack more pranksters then racers. The fun seems wear off pretty fast when things start to break and everyone's real tired.
 
SCCA Improved Touring or Spec Miata. An IT car can start as cheaply as 3 or 4 thousand and a nice SM will run around 10. Both classes offer huge fields with lots of close battles throughout the field. An ITS TR8 is my favorite. Whatever the case, it's always better/cheaper to buy your first race car all ready built, than to try and build one yourself. A lot of the expenses you will encounter have little to do with the upkeep of the car. You will spend more than you think on safety gear, transponder, travel expenses, entry fees, memberships, graphics, truck and trailer, consumables, etc.
 
Why not rent a car for a few events,& see if that's
what you really want to do?That way,you don't have to deal
with maintaing it,& possibly loosing lots of money if you
sell it.
On the other hand,there are some great deals out there,
as the economy has forced some racers to give up racing.I'd go
with an IT car,as mentioned above.
It's also easier to go from an average handling car to
a good handling one.I went from a Ford Fiesta (Showroom Stock),
to a Lotus 61 Formula Ford,& had a blast.
After I sold the Lotus,I drove a friends (my old)Fiesta.
Man,was that depressing!I thought that I'd "lost it",as I scraped-
the door handles off of it.It turns out that my times were competetive,
just a slower,worse handling car.

- Doug
 
Yeah, what dougie said. It's fun....for about 10 minutes. And I've seen way too much alcohol consumption at these event <span style="font-style: italic">before</span> the racing ends.

tr8todd said:
....SCCA Improved Touring or Spec Miata. An IT car can start as cheaply as 3 or 4 thousand and a nice SM will run around 10.....
Click to expand...

This is a great choice too. And NASA has a <span style="font-style: italic">Performance Touring</span> class that is similar to IT (I ran an Escort GT in the NASA-PT class....had great fun and built it for well under $2000).

One nice thing these days is that the SCCA will recognize a NASA regional license (they didn't in the past). NASA has always accepted an SCCA license.

And you might want to check out a book written by my friend, Dave Gran. It's available on his website:

https://www.goaheadtakethewheel.com/
 
I would recommend going to the different types of events (Vintage,NASA,SCCA, etc.) in your area and check things out. All the above car choices can be relatively "cheap" to race. My words of advice would be to not forget the "Human" or "Social" side of the equation. Look and see who all is driving the possible choices of car types and how the events transpire. Whatever car type you end up with, there will be others there with the same thing. Are they who you want to drive with? Cars and drivers go together. Does your style of driving fit better with open wheel or closed wheel cars. Is an occasional "rub" okay with you, but not "banging" in every corner. How competitive are you? If you don't want any contact ever, then the vintage type racing with their tighter "contact" rules are likely to be more your cup of tea, pardon the pun.

Here in the Southeast, the SCCA Regional races are pretty low stress, except in SM and some IT classes. These guys tend to "rub" a bit more than others. I run HP in a Spridget and we usually have 5+ competitors, occassionally we have 12+. Everyone hangs around together and we generally have a pretty good time of it. Of course, most of us are just old guys and gals racing the cars of our youth.

I haven't gotten too many of the "Happy Gilmore checks" in my 35+ year SCCA career, so there has to be the enjoyment of the racing, the different tracks and my friends to make up the difference. Plus I just plain like building the whole car.

HTH,
Mike Miller
 
Here in the mid-Atlantic we have our own regional championship series, the MARRS. This season we've had up to 9 H prod cars, it's fun and clean racing with a lot of camaraderie. There are used spridgets out there; they are simple to work on, easy to fix, parts are available (mostly), and at least for me it's a trhowback to when I first raced, when we'd have our own race group for G and H production, filled with Midgets and Spits. Now we have VWs and Hondas too, so that's different. I've seen used Limited Prep Midgets for between 4 and 6K$ -
 
My advice: Take you signifigant other, load into LBC, take nice leisurly drive through the countyside to an eatery and dine.

Best bang for your buck in a car any day!
 
13 HP cars are registered for the South Atlantic Road Racing Championships (SIC) October 8/9 at Roebling. 2-3 Axis cars. The rest are Spridgets. Like BA says, you can get a lot of fun for a few $'s with the Spridget. Looks like a fun weekend for all.

Looked at an old HP car in IL this past weekend. Bet it could be had for less than $2K. Some re-assembly required, but it could be on the track with some good used Hoosier tires and a decent engine for less than $5K.
 
Given your background, you might also want to look into some of the MC engined classes. There is a move afoot to include 600cc bike engines in the f500 class. "Baby Grand" 5/8ths stock car replicas are accepted in the SCCA "SPU" catch-all class. Some MC engined kit cars, like the Locosts, are accepted in SPU if properly prepared. The SPU cars also translate over NASA racing, but I do not know the class. Many SCCA regions are starting to starting to also recognize a class for Legends Cars.

The FB/F1000 and CSR/DSR classes also have alot of MC powerplants, but are certainly not cheap.
 
Real low key and cheap, but maybe not real racing, track days, even in my relatively rural neck of the woods there are road courses with track days, yo can take pretty much anything out, though a fun street car would be preferable, usually not more than a few hundred bucks.

Also not racing, but our local club puts on its own autocrosses, we usually do twice arounds on a course that takes about 30 seconds or so a lap for the faaster driver/car combinations, man is it a rush, you truly concentrate and push the car to the limit in that brief time. You can explore the best line through corners, oversteer and understeer and general handling at the limit.

The ones we do are very much run what you brung affairs, although as time goes on it seems like we are getting more cars set up specifically for autocross.

We let anyone run if the join the club (insurance purposes) and we have been getting more Miata guys and such that also do SCCA, they all say ours are better, just as much driving fun, and cheaper, less crowded and more low key.

Very good comradery, probably the closest thing you can get to 5os sports car races where they drove in in their MGs and such, taped the headlights, drove the race, and drove the car home.
 
My friend races a Sprite in Vintage. He says it costs him about $1000 per race weekend. I would say that Lemon's racing is about the same for entry fees and license. The cars are much cheaper in Lemons, but you will spend $2000 grand easy by the time you get the safety stuff done and you also have to buy tires. The people at the Lemons race are very nice and it is a fun time. We have a team that will be at Infinion raceway in March. If the car lasts, we only have to buy tires for the next race.

Jerry
 
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