$$COST$$ to get to the next level in SCCA!

[StephenB]

I stumbled across this video while surfing around and thought others may appreciate it. Its an inside look at the SCCA World Challenge produced by Grassroots Motorsports. When looking at the rule book the rules in touring are close to ITR builds (With a few expensive upgrades!) I was still shocked to see that 60K was the target build for a touring car, no mention of a weekends expenses. GTS was 100K and the GT class had a target of 200K for the initial build!

I know tristen lurks here and I think he just finished on the podium in the touring class in the last few weeks, so maybe we can get his take on this!

I found it interesting and figured I would share it :)
Stephen


http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/video/grassroots-motorsports-world-challenge-inside-look-ep-1/

[Cobrar05]

i think those costs for a GTS race car are high, but i also think they dont want to be seen blowing sunshine either.

The Boss 302r Mustang GTS car is brand new and comes in pretty much race ready at $79k. Many GTS class Mustangs are Mustang Challenge FR500S cars with an engine and wing upgrade. Those cars can be bought and upgraded to class specs for in the $40s. Grand Am GS class Mustang FR500C cars are also legal for this class. I have one. These cars can be bought race ready in the $40k range as well.

The entry fees are about $2500 per race. A little less per race on double race weekends. Tires are $2500 for 4 and a new set is required for each race. Of course this is professional racing and some of that entry fee does come back to you.

Beyond that its not much more expensive than a typical national sprint race event. They do have appearance requirements that will cost a few bucks. Your "team" must be dresses in proper race team shirts with all the required sponsor logos on them and you have to buy a flag for your standing start spot.

You can probably run one of these race events for $10k all inclusive with most of that being tires and entry fee.

[mf285284]

Different series but I think Kia plays that game differently.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/11q2/kia_forte_koup_race_car-feature

$2 mil a car for an entry level series? How can anyone else compete with that?

[JLawton]

For TC, $2,200 for entry fee for a single and $3,600 for a double. The smaller TC tires go for $400 each and last a few weekends.

You also have to buy a Racekeeper system. $2,400?

ECUs can get expensive as well as shocks. Other than that TC is "fairly" stock, relatively speaking.

[Knestis]

I find it interesting that Jeff has his Saturn for sale AND knows about TC event costs. Hmm...

K

[lateapex911]

Different series but I think Kia plays that game differently.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/11q2/kia_forte_koup_race_car-feature

$2 mil a car for an entry level series? How can anyone else compete with that?

I found it interesting that they were pretty vague on certain engine mods, yet specific regarding others in that article. No mention of intake or exhaust changes, only comment about the head was the compression change (and that could have been done with no head work, actually), and an off hand comment about the cam. yet they are getting over 100hp/liter out of it.

yea, shock packages can be in the 10K range for that team, as a starting point, I'd imagine.

The suspension description was also rather vague. I suspect big changes there, while keeping "stock like" components.

[StephenB]

I found it interesting that they were pretty vague on certain engine mods, yet specific regarding others in that article. No mention of intake or exhaust changes, only comment about the head was the compression change (and that could have been done with no head work, actually), and an off hand comment about the cam. yet they are getting over 100hp/liter out of it.

yea, shock packages can be in the 10K range for that team, as a starting point, I'd imagine.

The suspension description was also rather vague. I suspect big changes there, while keeping "stock like" components.

Shocks are spec Koni (2800 series) or AST (5200series) in grand-am ST. They also require dry breaks since you have to stop for fuel, a transponder thing that is $1500 bucks. Oh did I mention the FIA entrant AND driver license for $600 each, or the annual car registrations fee for $500 bucks. Lastly the other BIG cost is those darn tires at 2K a set! The good thing about grand-am is that you can split the cost with someone else :) But you need a crew to change tires and fill the gas up.

I knkow I left some stuff out but these were the expensive things that popped out at me. For the complete General Car rules visit: http://204.12.108.2/assets/2011ContiRulesonline.pdf They also have a few car specific allowances to keep parity in the class.

I WAS (Past tense) looking into doing one of these races for fun and budgeting a weekend for about 10K but I honestly don't think I could do that with all the fees and such for myself and an entire crew.

Oh-well it should make a good ITR car :)
Stephen

[JLawton]

I find it interesting that Jeff has his Saturn for sale AND knows about TC event costs. Hmm...

K

Yeah, ignorance is bliss........... :blink: As we always say, it's not the car that's the big expense...........

The interesting thing that I noticed is the TC cars have similar (or are the same cars) performance as T3 cars and should fit in the performance envelope of ITR when they age out.

Hmmmmmmmmm. now if I could only find a new Scion tc shell for free..........



.

[spawpoet]

Shocks are spec Koni (2800 series) or AST (5200series) in grand-am ST. They also require dry breaks since you have to stop for fuel, a transponder thing that is $1500 bucks. Oh did I mention the FIA entrant AND driver license for $600 each, or the annual car registrations fee for $500 bucks. Lastly the other BIG cost is those darn tires at 2K a set! The good thing about grand-am is that you can split the cost with someone else :) But you need a crew to change tires and fill the gas up.

I knkow I left some stuff out but these were the expensive things that popped out at me. For the complete General Car rules visit: http://204.12.108.2/assets/2011ContiRulesonline.pdf They also have a few car specific allowances to keep parity in the class.

I WAS (Past tense) looking into doing one of these races for fun and budgeting a weekend for about 10K but I honestly don't think I could do that with all the fees and such for myself and an entire crew.

Oh-well it should make a good ITR car :)
Stephen


How much does it cost for a ride in somebody else's RX-8 for a Grand-Am weekend? Of course that doesn't have the appeal of being you car out there.

[DoubleXL240Z]

Grand Am has many (read: MANY) other costs involved. You will have a right and left side driver net, as well as a window net. You will buy your fueling rig from their source, as well as their transponder system. Matching crew uniforms, as well as fire suits etc.
Remember Grand Am is owned by some family named France, in the Central Florida area. I guess they own some other racing stuff too!!:shrug:

[gran racing]

Chris, prices vary by the ride of course but for a ST ride, averages tend to be between $7,500 - $12,000 for a decent ride. At the same time, it wasn't difficult to find teams that charge $15,000 plus. Then that's just for the ride and does not include several other costs including entry fee, and then where you can empy your wallet - cost for damage done to the car. That's handled differently depending upon the teams. Some are known for not making money on the rental but instead make it on crash damage.

(I've been working on a series of articles about the realities of pro racing. Gulick and I even got to sit down with Duncan Dayton whose the owner of the AMLS Highcroft Racing team. That was cool!)

Here's a link (http://204.12.108.2/assets/2011%20Grand-Am%20Fees.pdf)to the 2011 Grand-Am Fees

[StephenB]

Here's a link (http://204.12.108.2/assets/2011%20Grand-Am%20Fees.pdf)to the 2011 Grand-Am Fees

Yup... that's the one the made me sad... The fees aren't that bad if your doing the series considering the cost of everything else. BUT if I wanted to jump in and do one event that was local it's just to much to justify for a weekend of fun to my daughter who will eventually want to go to college :)

As far as renting a ride... Risk is just to high for me! Dave is spot on for rental fees (for 1 driver, not 2 which is required by grand-am) BUT again you need to ADD on to that price about 30K or so for car damage. If you can't afford that then you really can't afford to rent it.

Stephen

[tom91ita]

Yeah, ignorance is bliss........... :blink: As we always say, it's not the car that's the big expense...........

The interesting thing that I noticed is the TC cars have similar (or are the same cars) performance as T3 cars and should fit in the performance envelope of ITR when they age out.

Hmmmmmmmmm. now if I could only find a new Scion tc shell for free..........



.

Jeff,

when you were recently driving past all the big rigs at the track entrance, were you actually shopping?

[JLawton]

Jeff,

when you were recently driving past all the big rigs at the track entrance, were you actually shopping?


One of those things would be my budget for three years of WC racing!! LOL

I swear, the reason they have the entry fees so high is to keep riff raff like us out!! God forbid we scare sponsors and small children!

[chewy8000]

The Basics - It's extremely expensive in TC and even more frustrating than the price tag is the constant rule changes that give all manufacturers an "opportunity". I agree that it's very hard to keep all these cars equal and it needs to be done but it keeps you sinking money in the car to change things constantly. It is indeed $3600 a double and the tires are around $1700 a set. You need two sets for a double so you can see how it adds up. Crew, travel, food, etc... We have teamed up with TDI cup driver Devin Cates who had already purchased another GTI to lower our logistics costs and work together on track. Two cars out there is always better than one.

For independents like us it's almost a necessity to do well or we can't continue. This isn’t an ideal situation for me as a driver having that pressure rest on my shoulders. But hey I'll do it right down to towing to California with a dolly and hitch on the xterra if I need to.

Stop your bitching - There are no (go to the tower) discussions either in World Challenge, everyone is out for blood and racing for craploads of money so there is lots of "sorry I didn't see you" and "oh my brakes didn't work so I punted your ass on the last lap". So damage level is very high once again adding to the price tag.

Development - We have consistently dropped about $3-4k on the car in between races on development and testing. This is an absolute must against some of these big dogs like K-pax and Compass 360. Don't think for a second the car will ever be the best it can be or you might as well be happy with mid-pack for the season. We were hesitant at first but everyone is getting faster and faster as the season continues. Cameron at RennGruppe has shown us the light and we would have struggled on numerous occasions if we hadn't done this.

The Rental - is expensive but the deal there is that 75% of the teams put full loss insurance on the car and they roll that into the price of the rental. With all the carnage I have seen with these standing starts I would never rent one of these cars. On average 2-3 cars get totaled every time and if it's not that bad their still pretty torn up.

I've only experienced St. Pete and Miller so that’s my two cents for what it's worth. Hope that helps answer a few questions and feel free to ask anything. We head for Mosport next Wed. and then two months off before Mid-Ohio.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i32/chewy8000/IMG_1458.jpg

[Conover]

I've found World Challenge to be a very enjoyable venture, It's a real car guys kind of racing. By that I mean that hardware is definitely appreciated, Hard-work, diligence, and a willingness to plead your case go a long way. To be out front and on the top you need someone focused on your effort full time. It would be extremely hard to try and keep up and be competitive if you treated it like club racing, leaving the to-do list for the night before you load will not work. You need someone who can make phone calls for you probably about 5 hours a week or maybe more, depending on your supply chain and political ambitions.

All of those things are things that I really enjoy doing. Developing the car, getting a deep understanding of the ruleset that you play by, and that by which your competitors must play, and finding ways to make the car faster every week. You see in WC each car has a VTS sheet, that determines how your horsepower will be measured and what variables will be used to determine if you are in compliance. All of these things are things that you can research online at the World-challenge.com website. So, basically what I'm saying is that there isn't one set of rules, there is basically a set of rules for each spec-line. One general set of rules prevails over the VTS sheets, but there are some big differences between the various cars.

All this is a roundabout way of saying one thing. Grand-am cars are fairly limited in terms of their rule-set which keeps the cost of the cars to lower level, theoretically, all it means is that your measuring grams instead of pounds. Then, what makes Continental so expensive(more expensive in general than TC in WC)is that you have pit-stops ontop of all of that. In World Challenge you hope that you do not ever see the car in the pits during the race, it's sprint racing. In Grand-am Conti your spending big bucks to beat the other guy on pit lane, which is fun of course, but expensive. You have a little budget to spend on the car if your not doing pit-stops.

So yeah, $60K is a good baseline for TC, you can buy one for $45 maybe, maybe even $23, but if you buy one for $45 your going to be spending at least $15 on it if you want to run out front, and if you buy one for $23 well, don't unless your cool with spending $12K to drive out to Utah and ride around mid-pack or worse.

I'm about to do my first Grand-Am weekend with a conti-car, I'll be assigned to Car #161, so I'll let you know what I think about that, I'm sure it'll be fun.:026:

[gran racing]

Enjoy Jeffrey. LOL

Tristian, I'm sure you're learning a TON crammed in to just a couple of races. The opportunity you have is awesome, so take advantage of it. Hell, I'm totally jealous.

[StephenB]

The opportunity you have is awesome, so take advantage of it. Hell, I'm totally jealous.

+1

I do enjoy watching you run as well! I actually read a thread that mentioned you on the RX8 forums... your name is getting out and noticed, keep up the great work, and keep it fun!

Stephen

[JLawton]

Yup, very cool insight from both of you. And yes, we are all jealous!!! :023:

[ITEGT]

Great to see some perspective from the inside looking out! Very nice. Jealous for sure, but I have a huge amount of respect for you guys that can juggle everything to make a WC race weekend happen. :023:

[chewy8000]

Thanks guys I'm doing my best to make the IT crowd proud. I've been blowin up club racing in all the interviews to let people know where we came from and how hard we have worked to get here. Camerons been doing an incredible job for us developing the car and like he said playing the politics game which I don't have time for. Steph and I still pay our own hotel and airfare to help costs. I'm certainly no hero after a red eye home to be at my desk by 9am finishing TPS reports... Hahahaha

[benspeed]

Man - just hearing about TC or GA just makes me hungry to give a few races a shot...

No chance for an old Porsche to run in there, eh?

[Conover]

I thought of another reason to go world challenge over continental challenge, no miatas!! :)