Feeding a Racing Hobby on Ten Dollars per Day

I want to do an update on the engine swap weekend, but I also need to keep the budget up to date. To recap, so far I've spent only LeMons-related money on racing this year so far, so all the expenditures are divided by 4, the number of drivers we'll have for the May race we're prepping for. Costs have been $400 for the engine, $13 for a Car Wash Hot Tank, $568 for parts.

We decided to return some of the parts we didn't use during the last weekend (a water pump that didn't fit and oh-by-the-way the one on the 460 now seems "good enough" and a fancy brake setup we decided to nix) so I'll be adding that back into my budget. I did just make another parts buy, a mechanical fuel pump, a steering coupler, and some other sundry bits. $115.02 after shipping.

We're now through 31 days of January, 28 in February, and 5 days into March, which gives $640 in the budget to spend. I did also shell out $152.64 in diesel for the last work weekend (the team member storing the car is in Raleigh, and I'm in Westminster, MD) so it's probably fair to count that against the budget, too. This would have been higher, as my truck has really been drinking the dead dinosaur recently, but I replaced the (as it turns out, faulty) thermostat and highway fuel economy jumped from the ~12 I had been getting before to an average of 17 on this last trip. And that was not, um, driving "slowly". ;-)

So _approximately I'm at ($400+$13+$568+$115.02)/4, minus the parts we'll return, approximately ($115+$35)/4 plus the $152.64 in diesel...which comes out to $389.15 spent so far.

Whew. I'm still in the black.

Put aside 10$ each day for 10 years.. Then buy a race car for much less than $36,500.00 (I didn't include leap years)..

Use the extra $$$ For whatever the car needs,and entry fees..

No need to thank me for my insightful post!!

That means I don't get to race for 10 years. I could be dead or quadriplegic by then.

Psuedo-budget update: as I mentioned in another post, and despite much heckling here on the potential budget-bustingness of the deal, I pulled the trigger on the 3 rusty Volvos in Delaware:

$750 for 3, or, well, 2-1/2 cars. Yeah. The 544 was pretty sketchy.

But, I got it home, put some rubber on it, and it sort-of rolls around the yard. After I freed the rear brakes.

The unibody is completely gone on it, so it's a parts car, but there's lots of good 544- only stuff on it that should be able to help other peoples' 544s.

As for the 122's, well, they're nasty in that Northern Rusty sort of way that I'd put out of my mind when I moved to SC. But now that I'm back within spittin' distance of the Mason-Dixon line, cars like this are a reality again. The fellow I bought them from said he got them from a couple who found them in the collapsed barn of a farm they recently bought. How come I never find farms for sale with Volvos in collapsed barns?

Anyway, back to the budget side of things...I had a 1952 Nash Statesman in my fleet of stuff, and decided it just wasn't working out between the two of us. I'd bought her, she was soooo cool...got the doors to open and shut, freed the engine, cleaned it up, and then it started to sit. So I found it a home, and in the process got back exactly the $750 I'd just paid for the Volvos.

ok Mike. Get the 544 apart a bit, but take lots of pictures. Build a complete frame of the appropriate size, and then build a structure to hold that body on it exactly as it sits now, rust, half-fallen-off pieces, ratchet strap and all. Then build a monster engine and go run deep into the 9s with it looking exactly like that.

This can be aside from your budget, I'll allow it.

In reply to tuna55:

If that car ran into the 9's, half of the body would blow off. ;-)

I had kindof the same thoughts, scarily. Shove a Big Block Something into it and weld up a tube frame underneath. Heck, I have a tubing bender....

volvoclearinghouse wrote: In reply to tuna55: If that car ran into the 9's, half of the body would blow off. ;-) I had kindof the same thoughts, scarily. Shove a Big Block Something into it and weld up a tube frame underneath. Heck, I have a tubing bender....

You would have to build quite to structure to hold the body parts all on the custom frame, but you should be able to handle that.

Sure, no problem!

Trying to keep a handle on what $$ I've spent is harder than I expected. I tend to lose/ throw away/ not get receipts. Really bad about that. From my last post I've spent 389.15 before the 3 volvo buying spree...putting the 750 from the sold Nash towards the 750 for the 3 Volvos nets me at zero, but I did use 78.47 in diesel to go get 2 of them...and paid a friend $120 to grab the third.

That puts me at 567.62 spent thus far in 2014, between LeMons stuff and Volvo stuff (which hopefully will result in some rally races being run later this year). 85 days into the year right now = 850 in the budget, minus 567.62 still leaves me 282 and some change in the black!

Good thing I sold that Nash. Anyone need any 122 parts? ;-)

i've you're up for a ride with a trailer to the lower eastern shore of VA sometime next month to bring back another 240 the $$ i pay would go back towards the fund right? ;)

In reply to captdownshift:

Given the alarming rate at which my F350 seems to drink refined dinosaur sauce, I find it difficult to see how I'd make out on the plus side of that deal. ;-)

haha