LeMons / Chump - true cost edition

I've been team captain for all 6 of our races.

The 'no show for work days' was a problem for us because our team members were scattered all over the state. That meant when we got everyone together we had to have a schedule of stuff to do for each day and stick to it. That was worst on the initial build, afterwards it was fairly minimal stuff. There were two members who couldn't make all the days, they chipped in in other ways while at the track etc.

When people say they want to join up, make sure this is understood: they cannot get their money back unless they sell their seat to someone else. That someone must be acceptable to the rest of the team.

The build $ needs to be spread out; it's easier for team members to squeeze $75 at a time out of their budgets than a sudden $1k whack.

Each team member is responsible for their own safety gear. It's certainly possible to share gear, but everyone needs to be aware of what's happening and plan driver stints accordingly. With the refueling rules in place at LeMons, having people in their gear on time is very important and that makes gear sharing scheduling a planning priority.

In reply to Curmudgeon:

Quit your whining, the car was at my house this year.

And I thought it was 7 races. 2 in the Thunder Turd, 5 in the Civic. Maybe it just seems like forever.

I'd probably just buy a completed car off the chumpcar/lemons forums tho. Like this awesome MR2

http://forum.chumpcar.com/index.php?/topic/5809-1985-wonderbread-toyota-mr2-chump-car-ready-certified-minneapolis/

our team captain is the car owner. he paid for the initial builds, AFAIK. cages, seats, etc.

all registration and consumable expenses are pooled, any prize money helps offset the consumables, and the balance is divided equally among the drivers. the crash policy, which didn't exist until a few days after i hit the wall at MIS, says "if it's a racing incident between cars, the owner fixes it. if it's an unforced error, the driver fixes it."

consumables = tires, brakes, gas, wheel bearings, fluids (including oil changes, i think).

at MIS, with one car in the money, driving both days cost me $756 in consumables plus another $600-ish in crash damage repair.

it helps that we are all hands-on gearheads, with good jobs, and really enjoy working together. we're spread out all over the country, but a couple of us are local to the car owner and we help out with maintenance / repair when we are able. prior to the MIS race, all but one of the out-of-towners flew into town to put on a massive effort to get the second car finished. i wouldn't expect this kind of commitment from strangers.

Toyman01 wrote: If you already have a car that is sorted and personal safety gear, you can probably do a race for about $500 each. If you have to build a car...$$$$ When we built the Civic, it wasn't too bad. We bought a 86 Civic SI for $300. Changed the water pump, timing belt, 6 valves, the rings and about half the bearings. Curmudgeon and I build the cage in a day for the cost of the tube. 8 wheels were free, though we did have to buy 8 tires. One of the team members came up with an Integra brake swap for $100 and we added a set of Porterfield pads that were $120. The seat and belts come out of the Abomination for the weekend. All total, we probably had $1500 in the car, maybe $1700. That car has been to 5 races and never finished below 15th out of a field of 100+. With a light weight car, the front pads and rotors and calipers will last two races, the rears are still the ones that came from the junkyard. We could probably get three events out of the brakes, but I don't want to do a brake job at the track. The tires will run at least two events. I think the ones on the rear have been on there for three. We don't buy race anything except front pads. We burn regular gas and use Rotella oil at $12 a gallon and change it Saturday night. My total cost to get the car to the track this year was about $800. That price included some improvements to the car. (Fuel surge tank, ECU and injectors, header) If we bumped the number of drivers up, from 4 to 6, we could have done it for about $530 each. If we didn't do any work to the car other than consumables (gas, oil, tires), we could probably get it down in to the $300-400 range. These numbers don't include sleeps and eats. I don't consider that to be part of getting the car on track. DON'T spend money on speed. DO spend money on reliability. We did a T-Bird one year, swapped in a 351 and a 3 speed. It was the fastest thing on the track...for about 150 laps. The rest of the time we were cussing it in the pits or waiting for it to be dragged back to the pits so we could cuss it some more. That was the year we bought the Honda. I'd say do it. It's a lot of fun. If you don't want to build a car, do an arrive and drive. There are several car owners that do them. Most of them I have seen are in the $700-$1000 range.

Btw, if you guys ever wanna sell the civic, lmk. I hate that Wayne had to dump the crx. He sold it for $400 with the cage and all the goodies. It's cut up and hanging on a wall in tampa. Breaks my heart.

The real kick in the nuts is when you start the race and 3 hours later the car has a major mechanical failure. That happened to us 7 hours into our first Lemons race. Since it was our first race we found a motor and at 3am the car ran again. Ran the whole next day but we all got to race.

Just finished Chump at TWS this weekend, the car was sitting on the grid idling and dies. An hour and a half later it's on the track 40 laps down. Finished 31st . Sunday one hour into the race the transmission jams in gear and won't shift. Got home earlier than planned. That's racing.

Make sure everybody knows that they may not get to drive because of mechanicals, car contact, driver error, etc.

I failed in getting a team together. Even when I ran the numbers where I put all the money in the car and charged seat time I couldnt work it out. I told the guys to plan for a budget of 1000 to get on the track. That would cover the basic safety gear, fuel to track and for car, fees etc. the cost for every race after the first one would be cheaper, but thats the minimum to get on grid. Sure you can save some bucks on gear by buying used but a grand is the budget I prepped them for. I only talked to people I know and I only know a buncha broke bums so the dream didnt take off. But I would rather people bail before takeoff than wait until I ask for entry fees.

Also I learned "car guy" does not mean "into racing guy".

poopshovel wrote: Btw, if you guys ever wanna sell the civic, lmk. I hate that Wayne had to dump the crx. He sold it for $400 with the cage and all the goodies. It's cut up and hanging on a wall in tampa. Breaks my heart.

Yeah, but it looks really good up there...

later, matt

Toyman01 wrote: In reply to Curmudgeon: Quit your whining, the car was at my house this year. And I thought it was 7 races. 2 in the Thunder Turd, 5 in the Civic. Maybe it just seems like forever.

But I LIKE whining. You are right, it is seven so far.

Seeing the cost of Lemons and Chump Car, how doesn't it make more sense to buy a used ITA car or something like that a do SCCA/ NASA road racing?

93EXCivic wrote: Seeing the cost of Lemons and Chump Car, how doesn't it make more sense to buy a used ITA car or something like that a do SCCA/ NASA road racing?

Depends.

I really enjoy wrenching on a mostly hopeless car with my best buds and sharing driving duties while still getting seat time measured in hours. Sharing towing/crewing/cooking/wrenching time as well. Then the big party in the middle. Sitting around a campfire passing the Beam with your friends while at a race track is pretty special. If I were to start on my own car instead, I would solely be responsible to garage it, tow it, fix it, and while I was racing, it would just be me. Fun, sure, but not in the same way. Plus, my family situation ensures that that situation will never happen.

In reply to tuna55:

I think it depends... One of the things that draws me to F500 is not the car itself (which is admittedly a bit annoying), but having hung out at Pocono during a race weekend it's the commaradie among the drivers. They mostly pit together and if somebody has a problem they all pitch in to help get him back on the track.

All right, thanks, everybody! I expected most of this but maybe not at the scale it seems to be. Gonna have to think about it. I really appreciate the honest input.

93EXCivic wrote: Seeing the cost of Lemons and Chump Car, how doesn't it make more sense to buy a used ITA car or something like that a do SCCA/ NASA road racing?

That's certainly possible, in fact a team I know used a retired FWD circle track car. The problems: 1) a real roach car will be almost a must, if it's too nice the judges will say 'hmmmm..'. 2) If the cage is not to LeMons spec (and an old enough IT car might not pass) removing and rebuilding a cage can be harder and more expensive than starting from scratch.

I don't think he means buy a race car and run lemons he means buy a race car and just run SCCA/NASA touring stuff whatever the car is built for