Crate and/or Super Late Model
Crate and/or Super Late Model
Start up costs or operating costs? Those are different things. To run say the FUEL series (you're in North Carolina) and hope to be competitive, You'll need at least maybe a one or 2 year old XR1 or Longhorn, that's about $15,500-20,000. Motor from Battenbilt about 25 grand, good shock package for around $3500, Hoosier 1350 tires go for $175 each, Wheels are about $350 for Bead Locks, I think 200 for non bead locks a couple transmissions for $1500 a piece a spare rear end that's about $1500. Okay open trailer, $3500. Good 3/4 ton pickup, 50k. Lot of guys running E85 so that saves a little fuel costs, if not C12 costs $9.50 a gallon and you need around 25 gallons a show. There's lots of stuff I didn't put in there, like the safety equipment and the oil system and I'm assuming that the person has a shop and a comprehensive ammount of tools and equipment, if not add a bunch of zeroes to the total . This is for limited but crate or super would be similar. Just add or subtract a little bit here or there. This is a bare bones bottom dollar racing out of your garage way of going about it too. Also, hauler fuel, time to do the work or pay somebody to do it and write it off as a loss on your business. etc.
What kind of motor are you getting for 25 grand ?
I think these numbers are close but on the low side. 15-20,000 won't usually get you a two year old "good" roller its closer to 20-25 then theirs the oil system. That 25$doesn't include the oil system. So tack in another 3k on the low end. Fuel system another 2k. You can't go racing with out spare parts. Used parts vary but a rocket car cost about 1000$ per side for front suspension bumpers door bars deck bars. If you were starting from scratch and had 50k you'd be way behind quick
Thanks for the quick rundown👍 Not cheap but maybe doable for a little less than I originally thought. I think limited/crate is the way to go for most 👍
Want to run WoO or Lucas for a whole season? Start with 1 Mil.
How do you make a million dollars racing? Start with 2 million.
Save money by running the Blue ridge Outlaw Late Model series. 6 races this year, 5 different winners, 5 different engine packages (602 crate, 604 crate, spec motor, steelhead and super), 5 different chassis.
Not your top series, but a lot of fun for a lot less money.
Yeah that 15 is too low for a car that new. But it would still buy a really nice car for a guy that wants to run his local track and just fool around. Maybe run in the top 10 or even the top 5 (with a full field) for a goal.
Now I don't know if the guy asking the question has the fool idea of actually doing this. But there's way more to think about it than getting a car. We still haven't bought headers, we haven't bought pulleys, probably don't have a good radiator, gonna need a bellhousing, flywheel and starter. I don't know if the guy even has a crescent wrench but I'll assume that he don't have a spring smasher and if you ain't got one of those you might as well not have a phillips screwdriver. Why we ain't even bought fuel jugs.
Plus, my first post was for an open, bumper pull trailer and a pickup truck. Do you need a truck that new that it costs 50k? Not really but here's the other issue. Racing out of a pickup truck on an open deck trailer is awful. You wanna travel at all, what do you do, pray nobody steals all your tools while you're sleeping in a hotel room? Been there done that. A real thief will rob you anyways but locks keep the honest honest. Plus I have tools that ONLY go to the track, they don't get used in the shop and they're all Harbor Freight crap because well, what I was just saying. Also lots of times it rains make sure you cover that motor even if it ain't raining when you start driving home. Does the guy have a quickjack? Probably not. I don't have one but man do I ever want one. Jacking one of those wide SOBs up in my narrow shop is a real PITA. I feel like it's the odds and ends and stuff like that that adds up and really kills you.
I guess it all depends on what somebody wants to do if you just want to have a good enough car to not be a hazard, or if you want to win. I mean technically you could get a 2004 ________ from behind somebody's barn and put a 350 out of a van with a Speedway Motors 1500103 cam in there and say you're "racing late models" Hint, don't do that......
Hint number 2, you're better off with a 350 out of a van with a hot cam in a really good car than you are with a bad azz motor in a 2004 _________ from behind somebody's barn. Trust me on this.
"Hint number 2, you're better off with a 350 out of a van with a hot cam in a really good car than you are with a bad azz motor in a 2004 _________ from behind somebody's barn. Trust me on this."
That statement is true Rocky, and would be even more true if they would get the bodies back under control and put hard tires on the cars. The last race I ever got to run was at North GA Speedway. It was an SRRS race. I had raced the week before in Limited with a borrowed Hobby motor. Ran 3rd out of a pretty good field of cars. Decided to race with Supers the next week because they didn't have enough for a full field and they were racing on D55's on the rear. Didn't qualify very good but was running right behind, and keeping up with a couple of good cars with probably 3 times the HP that I had. Wouldn't have been possible had I tried that today.
I don't know much about being competitive but I know a lot about making a fool out of myself in an old heap, with and without a good motor... Not advised. I have a newer car in the shop now that I can't race because of well the fact that the track is closed and I'm not home at the moment. but someday...
WHat about Modifieds? What are the numbers on that?
Modifieds are not alot cheaper than a late model these days (at least to run big shows).
If a guy wants to get into late model racing the thing NOT to do is listen to somebody like me on 4m about how much it costs. I'm the worst driver in the state and until recently had the worst car in the state. Go to the track closest to you. listen to the towns when the announcer says the names. Find a guy within 15 miles of your house. Go down to the pits and introduce yourself. Help scrape some mud. shine a flashlight in the car to help him put on his belts if he don't have anybody to do that. Start spending nights working in the shop. learn EVERYTHING you can on your own. Do your own research. Know every dang thing that you can possibly know and decide then, is this a good idea or not? I think I'm saying if you want to get into it, start doing it but don't lay your life's savings on the line at first. Experience is the most expensive thing. Get it for sweat equity.
^^^^^ post of the year. I'll add, use common sense, starting out you do not have to have new. You can buy motors from some teams for half of what they paid for them. Or find a team that's getting out. Last but not least, then you have to ask yourself. Can I get the job done behind the wheel or do I just want to have fun and try it for a couple years.
Rocky is spot on and you are correct aswell. The biggest mistake i see when people get in with no prior experience and they go buy some 15 year old wissota car with the best of everything on it per the seller. "Turn key" bring it home and take it to the race track struggle for a few weeks or a whole season than get discouraged because they aren't running well. Think the suck and more or less quit. It cost to much money to operate week to week to go out and spend a bunch of money on junk. I'm not saying you can't run older stuff but their is a cut off and it varies with amongst manufacturers as to how old a car you can be competitive on average. As stated above the most important thing is getting yourself educated. And their is no other way besides experience. You could go to racewise or somthing like that but if your just starting out and you know nothing that is just gonna be information overload. Brandon shepard, Scott bloomquist or Jimmy Owens couldn't run top five in 4 car race with some of the stuff i see people who don't know anything buy. And driving a I'll handling car isn't fun at all. So that washed out the i just wanna have some fun angle. If that's the case and you literally don't car their are classes better suited for it
What I did was I was running the 4 cylinder junk car class at Potomac for a few years back in the 2000's and I used to drink a lot so I thought I was a way better mechanic than I was. I could have went hobby stock or street stock but I used to live my life about half in the bag. So I bought some clapped out old heap for really cheap and struggled for years running a or 2 show here or there usually having something break. I know plenty about late models now, not saying I'm some ace late model mechanic now or anything either but there's a WAAAAAAAY easier and cheaper way to learn than what I did. It pretty much took quitting drinking totally to figure it out too. The irony of all this is, I've been involved in racing since about 1989 mostly as a crew member, pre USN that was on asphalt. I already knew this much but the problem was I thought I knew too much. If I wasn't about the most stubborn guy on the East Coast I would have given up years ago. LOL
Can you get a good older car? Yeah, you absolutely can and you do that by going and working with somebody and helping and they say you know man we have this 2014 or 15 _________ collecting dust we could sell you and you can get it updated but we have all the notes on it and stuff for now. Or maybe even that's the car that you're working on and they upgrade, you buy a car that you already have your own notes on.
Rocky that last part is exactly right and i was gonna put it in my post but ran out of time. Most of older cars that go good came from guys who no how to make them go. These cars generally don't come turn key but are usually alot more complete than most "rollers". It all goes back to that knowledge part. When i was starting. The guy i helped was really good about pointing out certain guys around the pits and telling me you ever hear those guys taking shutup and listen lol. But i was really fortunate to get to know those guys and learn alot over the years. It's funny their were about five of them. And they pretty much all got their start in the same shop working out helping Bobby Allen
Yeah, that's good stuff. I absorbed a lot more on the motor side. I don't know if Tony Brabbs and Al Horton and those guys knew that I was listening to every single word I ever heard them say, but I was. Read hundreds of books, took classes, stay on top of what heads are the latest, I have different cam profiles I prefer for different situations. About to build my own flowbench... Built a pile of 350s. etc, etc, etc. I should have been a drag racer. LOL. I guess that my roots on blacktop show through. I mean I know guys that could have taken my old car and made it fast with a welder and enough time. But if you're going to spend all that money anyways, why NOT just get a newer car? I think I've paid my dues enough now to finally learn how to make a race car handle on more than the straightaways. It seems like when you tell somebody that you built your own motor they really look at you different, well if it runs good anyways. Even if the rest of the car around it looks like you dragged it out of the local salvage yard.
I know a lot won't believe me but you can learn a lot about if you have some skill on the wheel by spending a grand and trying iRacing first too. Yea, it's not real but it is real enough to know if you can hack it. You can run and really fast know who could drive a real car and who couldn't if their life depended on it. I ran a race on there last night and a couple guys couldn't drive their way out of a wet paper bag if they had to.
you can tell tire slip from the sound of the engine. Its not gonna teach you a ton but it definitely helps with strategy during a race
IRacing is fun, good for hand-eye stuff but not like driving a dirt late model (view is fairly close). I tried to go around a couple of tracks that I have raced at and struggled when in real life I ran very well....I do think it has its place but do not judge your ability by a racing game...Some are good at one, some the other, some that can't do either, and a few who are good at both.
Back on beating the dead horse, $2500 will get you a seat, firesuit and helmet, almost. TBH, even if you decide to race UCAR, buy that level of safety equipment. You're more likely to need it too, especially the fire suit. I was in a race at Potomac where a guy got life flighted out of the place after playing WoO sprintcar in a Neon. JKing might have been there that night too. That was scary Chit.
You don't need $2500 for an iRacing setup. I built my pc for $600, it's a pure gaming PC that handles all I can throw at it and supports triple monitors. A Logitech G29 wheel is $350-500 depending on the day on Amazon and you're up and running. Yes, you can spend a ton more just like the rest of this post, but it doesn't help you on the track/sim.
I also agree that it doesn't go all the way, but if you did it a bit and plain suck at it then I would venture to bet you probably will suck in a real car too.
I'm not saying they're are no parallels but I've done both and i see no real similarities other than hand/feet eye coordination. I know people get adrenaline rushed from i racing but it's not real and nothing like being in a real car. I would not recommend anyone who is thinking of driving a dirt car to go iracing first. I'm not trying to be negative here but have you ever driven a dirt latemodel Motomatt ?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j-QHzEUt168 I was using Iracing numbers based on this YouTube video.
No, only wrenched on them. I agree that it isn't the same, you don't have a lot of the touch/feel/space etc. of it. I was just saying that I think it's useful to see if you can even handle the eye/hand/foot coordination of it all to begin with. If you can't figure that out where there is no chance of hurting you or someone else you have no chance in hell of doing it with cars around you in real life.
Even if you went all in with iRacing at $2,500, that will last you a minimum of 5 years and probably up to 10 years before you need to upgrade hardware again. Whereas that $2,500 won't get you far with day to day expenses of a real car and replacing parts.
I haven't driven a late model, but I have raced modifieds and I think iRacing is mostly beneficial with the hand/foot/eye coordination and learning to learn how to drive. I think doing sim racing for ten years shortened my learning curve when I jumped into a real car.
Racing is cheap, winning is expensive. If your just looking to have some fun on the weekend or tell people that you drive a race car you can find an early 2000's GRT (make sure it has the original style spindles and not some later models ones, they don't work trust me) for real cheap, put whatever engine you have or can afford in it and go make laps. If you find yourself still having fun after several weeks then you will probably still be enjoying it as you upgrade to better stuff. Those are the type of people we need in this sport right now. The ones that show up every week to a regular night event, not a special show, pay the money for that nights entertainment have some fun load up and do it all over again the next week.
I agree racing can be cheaper. 602 is the key>>>>>>>>>>>>
10 cars entered into a Late Model event. My mind then goes to 602, you can"t lose. Even if u lose u win....onn Money...........And then u had fun.......which is the reason for the season...............a c mon........man
The winner of the race could lose more than a guy running 5th............ what is fun to u... Many questions to be answered.