The Longest Day is Back! 24 hours at Nelson

[RSTPerformance]

Kirk-

Just for curiosity... not sure if you are willing to share online or offline but what are the estimated expenses (budgeted) for a top notch effort like yours? I am thinking that an ITB Golf III is more expensive than a miata, but less than some oddballs like our cars, so I am wondering what a "normal" car might cost.

Raymond

[Knestis]

... what are the estimated expenses (budgeted) for a top notch effort like yours? I am thinking that an ITB Golf III is more expensive than a miata, but less than some oddballs like our cars, so I am wondering what a "normal" car might cost.
[/b]

You really have to go through and add up what you expect it will be for your particular situation. Travel for example: We rent a cube van to lug all of our junk and for VIR, it was about $170 including fuel. It was approximately six times that for the trip to Summit. Entry fees are different, race lengths dictate fuel needs (we used about 100 gallons for the 13 and the test day), and we all do food differently...

To my way of thinking, what we might do differently than some folks is replace failure-point pieces proactively - hubs, bearings, CV joints, stub axles, etc. - rather than waiting until the bust. That costs, of course.

You also have to budget for amortization of the costs associated with building the car, over some reasonable lifetime (aka "using up the car"). Struts aren't a consummable (like tires or fuel) and don't get replaced as a matter of course, but they do have a lifespan. I actually have a per-hour estimate of what rebuilds, etc. cost and have in fact updated that math since we built a "real" IT engine to replace the stock one we ran for two years.

Short answer is that there is no short answer.

K