Don't neglect the incidentals - all of the crap that gets lost (or you can hide) in a long receipt from Lowes or Home Despot: Bins, buckets, cords, lights, fans, tools, tarp stakes, hold-down straps, chairs, coolers, cleaners, gloves, fuel cans, bits of hardware, wiring connectors, umbrellas, etc., etc., etc.
It's VERY easy to carry $50 of crap to the register in a visit. Do that 3 times a week and you've increased your racing expenditures by $1800 for the year.
The same goes for brake cleaner, latex gloves, rags and other shop consummables.
It's also pretty impressive how quickly the installation of a $30 part can become a $60 project. That's what I spent installing my master cut-off switch, after I got done buying thick wire, connectors, HD strink wrap, hardware, sealant, and insulating goo for the terminals. That isn't counting the new step bit (another $30 or so) to replace the one that I couldn't find when I needed it.
I have personal issues about the whole budget thing because, as was alluded to above, I think we understate them pretty drastically - for a variety of reasons. This makes it all the easier for a newbie club racer to get in over his/her head, as they are misled by those of us who have been doing it for a while.
I used to race with a guy who built one of the very first IT cars in the US - it was actually a GRM project car, if I remember correctly. He used to take it to car shows and tell people that they could duplicate it for something like $3000. When it went up for sale later, oddly, it was suddenly almost twice that.
The "replacement price" of my Golf is right around $18,000 - not including the value of my or Cameron's labor. People are going to look at that and think, "That's WAY too much! I could buy a competitive ITS car for that!" but they'd be ignoring the fact that this total includes all new brake calipers, CV joints, tie rods, ball joints, hubs (three pairs by now), uprights, bearings, engine mounts, water pump, gaskets, belts, hoses (they are insanely expensive on this car!), and a bunch of other piddly stuff.
Racing a car while waiting for old OE parts to break is what we call "false economy." I've had [two] mechanical failure in 1.5 seasons - when I couldn't start a run at a Rallycross because a nut fell off of the shift linkage. We finish enduros because we replace parts before they fail. Why would you spend entry fee money otherwise? [EDIT - needed to include the bearing problem at Summit.]
It also includes starting with a car that wasn't a basket case (no bodywork or paint to do), a comprehensive cage (~$2000), a really good seat (~$1000), and top-notch safety equipment.
All of this - including accurate accounting of the first year's real expenses - translates into a per-track-hour cost that approach $300. This includes depreciation of the car to zero over three years (a very sensible assumption, looking across the game) but not including hotels or entry fees.
I also didn't include sunk costs specific to the fact that I bought Showroom Stock-specific parts (like new OE struts) but that is balanced by the fact that I didn't include revenues generated by the sale of bits that came OFF of the car when I IT'd it.
You do NOT want to enter into this game fiscally uninformed. Honestly - SCCA racing has busted up marriages (I could point to two, that I actually watched fall apart) and put lots of people badly into debt.
K
[This message has been edited by Knestis (edited June 29, 2005).]
