Which Motorsport to Get Into?

Another thing to consider is what kind of mechanical abilities do you have?  Maintaining a rally/race car can get ridiculously expensive if you have to hire it all done.  I got into autocross because it was least likely to break stuff and required the fewest extras (Fire suits, competition certified seats/belts, HANS, etc., etc. will add up in a big hurry)  Then I switched to a Miata because it was cheapest to fix on the rare occasions when it broke.  As a bonus, I found out that Miatas are SUPER easy to work on and pretty much every maintenance job has a "how to" on Youtube.  Win/win/win.  I can do a lot of my own maintenance and save what little budget I have for entry fees, tires, suspension parts and the occasional repair I can't do.  Even as a high school student,  it sounds like your "fun/racing budget" is probably larger than mine, but trust me when I say it won't last long.  

Can't blame you for running Rallycross. Getting Sideways and working the throttle on a slick track. However, I'd take the advice of running some auto-x events before Rally-x since there's more events anyway. Also, If it rains, you still run.

HFMaxi is an actual real life rally driver, so listen to him.  I am too but I'm not as successful.

Let me tell you what I did, sort of in order, and the approximate costs for the car and events (including the tires/fuel/hotels/whatever).  I'm 10 years out of high school now, for reference.

Autocross:  You can do this with a car worth less than $2k.  Per-event costs can be under $100 all-in.  You don't need to be able to work on your car, but it helps, and it's a good place to learn basic car control and setup.  This is where I started.  Take auto shop if your school offers it.

Rallycross:  Similar costs to autocross, but on dirt.  Usually more fun, more seat time, but you pretty much need to be able to work on your car because you will occasionally break stuff.  Consider this a requirement if you want to rally later, because you need to know how to drive on loose surfaces.

Formula SAE: If you go to college, this is 100% a must do.  Somebody else's money, somebody else's shop, and you will learn to design stuff, fabricate it, and work on it.  On a big team you'll be well funded and get to spend a lot of time on one system, on a small team you'll get to design the whole car yourself if you want.  Cost is $0 but a ton of time, and you learn more than the rest of college will teach you (about cars, at least).

LeMons/Chumpcar:  The car will run you close to $5k unless you can fab the cage yourself, per event costs will be in the $1k-$2k range.  Real wheel to wheel racing isn't cheap but this is a good place to learn to fabricate and do mechanical work.  It was cheaper when I did it, I don't find it worth the money now.

RallyMoto:  If you can ride a motorcycle this is an excellent way to start rallying.  A decent bike will run you $2k-$5k depending on how nice you want it, per event costs can be kept in the $500-$1k range if you're not buying new tires every time.  Bikes are tough and rarely break.  As a RallyMoto rider, you have to do your own navigation and timecards, so you learn what a codriver does while you're at it, which is super useful for having a full understanding of what's going on when you get into a car.

Stage Rally:  Trying to do this right off the bat would be like trying to summit Everest as your first hike.  It's hard, you can get a car going for less than $10k IF you're a decent mechanic and fabricator, and per-event costs are $1500 minimum and usually closer to $2k-$3k because you WILL break stuff.  You also probably need a tow rig and trailer, it's doable without them but risky since you'll need to rent stuff or pay somebody to get your car home when it breaks.  I can't emphasize enough that you should get as much practice both driving and working on stuff as possible before you do this, or it will be a monumental waste of money.

The other thing to consider is that each of these is fun when you first start out, in order of difficulty- but if you do stage rally first, all the cheaper easier stuff will seem lame.  I definitely recommend working your way up to it.  If you want the shortest path that will get you there while still learning enough, I'd say to do all of the following: Rallycross to learn car control, woods riding to learn to ride a motorcycle, a few years of RallyMoto to learn to rally while saving money and prepping a car, then Stage Rally- and by the time you hit Stage Rally, you need a good paying job and a place to work on your car, or you'll burn out and run out of money very quickly.

Old racing adage...Race the car you have, not the car you wish you have.

You mentioned you have a.kart.  Race kart or yard kart?  If a race kart may be eligible for aurocross events in some regions.  May be good way to start out even if you need to buy a used kart. There's a reason virtually EVERY F1 driver started out in karts albeit at a younger age.

I get the feeling you dont really have a motorsports support group.  Build one.  Probably a good place to start is to volunteer  working a few events. Talk to folks. Observe.Participate on some level.

I wish I had invested 15k when I was in high school.  I would be doing a whole lot more racing now.  Amortize 15k over 35 Year’s and see what it amounts to. That is where I would be now had I done it. Not that I am not doing ok but the old adage that time makes money is so true. 

Ran the calc and at 9% for 35 years I would have had an additional $300k.

And you can still go racing now just start much more modestly. Put that 15k to work for you now so later you can be having the time of your life.  

In reply to RS8_TTW12 :

First of all, Welcome to The Forum if no one has greeted you with that yet. As you can tell everybody seems to be welcoming you even if you are a high-school guy. We old geezers really like to see young people paying attention to the sport. You'll get a lot of good advice here.

Second, please understand what I'm about to say is in no way intended to insult you or offend you. Just want to give you my input as a guy who has been involved in one form or another with Motorsports for 50 years. My father was an old time dirt track racer and sports car racer beginning back in the 50s before I was born. As such I was brought into the fold but not giving a whole lot to start with other than enthusiasm. That is I did not always have the latest and greatest vehicles to race. I started off in Europe in the sixties racing motorcycles. Back in the United States in the late 60s and early 70s I began racing motocross. From there I ended up racing flat track and short Track Motorcycles. Did some road racing on motorcycles. Autocross and rallied sports cars. Drag raced a little bit both cars and motorcycles. Road race cars 4 over 20 years. Raced mini stock and late model dirt track oval cars for a few years. Ran Legends cars on asphalt ovals. So I have a diverse background.  Not to brag...just giving you an insight.

I looked at your bio and saw that you have started two threads in here. First on what car to buy in the build section. Then this thread on Motorsports. Quite honestly I'm a little confused between the two threads. You talk about owning and building a rally America spec B Mazda 2 in the build thread. Then here you're talking about goblins and rallying and all that. So what is it? Are you building a rally car? Do you have a Mazda 2? Are you using the form just to bench race ? Because that's fine. If you do have a Mazda 2 that maybe your answer.

More thoughts in a bit.

In reply to RS8_TTW12 :

Okay.  For starters it sounds like your racing experience is pretty much limited to sim racing. An excellent training ground. But backing a rally car off the road on a simulator and hitting the reset button to start over it's pretty cheap. When you back a real car off the road and into a ditch and rip the entire suspension out from under it and it has to be loaded on a trailer with a forklift is a different thing. I have had at least 4 road race cars suffering just that fate. Instant depreciation is not fun especially when viewed from an ambulance.

To that end, unless you are a trust fund baby the expanse of going stage rally racing or road racing as a high-school student is just delusional. Fun to fantasize about but not realistic. As far as rally America keep in mind your first event is probably going to cost well over 1500 dollars in personal safety equipment, helmet, suit, hands device comma Etc. Then figure in at least $175 for your license, $450 for entry fee, travel, hotel rooms, expenses for co-driver navigator, Etc. Oh let's not forget travel getting there, food, Etc. Fuel for the race car. Oh yeah you got to build a race car. It will burn up your nice little $10,000 nest egg in a hurry. For the time being you probably need to put that out of your mind.

But wait a minute. You thought you might get a few sponsors to help you. Really? What color is the sky in your world? Don't mean to be a downer but it ain't happening for the first 5 years of racing if you're lucky.

More to come....

Sell all the cars cheap before Monday and invest the profit and $15k into speculative investing in an effort to have $1.6B to go racing in WRC. 

In reply to dean1484 :

I was going to say something like this. Didn't know how far the Rabbit Hole the OP was.

There are ways to Invest and Race with the same money he has, However it's complicated and too much to share on here.