Quote Originally Posted by JeffYoung View Post
What's funny is I think everyone in this thread advocating buying v. building (and they are right by the way, from a purely rational perspective) ..... built their own car. ...
To clarify, what worries me is when someone builds a car for the wrong reason - typically because they can't afford to buy one that's already done. "I already have it" is one of the 7 warning signs of making that mistake.

I built my car from scratch knowing full well that it was going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $20K to get it right, and that I wouldn't be going into debt to do it - and that was back when Cameron and everyone else who helped were working for fun and pizza!

I would just hate to see you (John) make the same error that has caused a LOT of others to spend $$ and end up bummed out and not racing. Yeah, it's none of my business but the point of a community like this is to help out when we can. If you've got the $$ in the bank to start, and have enough discretionary dough to get it done by whatever date you expect to be on the track, then rock on. The acid test is, "Can I afford to buy - right now - a car as good as the one I want to end up with?" If the answer is "no" then one can NOT afford to build the same car, 'cause it's going to cost 2x as much!

If you've caught the credit-card, "build it over time as I can afford it" bug, you run the risk of joining the 250,000+ SCCA members who have come and gone since I got my member number. I'd wager that bad $$ decisions are the #1 reason that the road racers among those quit.

We'd rather have you stick around.

K