Question about rising costs

Just a curious question about rising costs in the sport of DLM racing. I know this is a touchy subject that we all talk about being a danger to the future of our sport. Your're basically flirting with $100K these days just to have one new competitive car and race engine (Supers). This isn't even taking into consideration the costs of fuel, tires, hauler, spare parts, and other equipment. My question is how much exactly have costs risen from say the 90s? Was a little too young at that time to have any idea of how much a top of the line chassis or engine went for. All I cared about was getting to the track and hanging out and seeing some great racing. Thanks for any info.

not a touchy subject, just the nature of the beast. money had an advantage back then, but i think technology has given the well funded teams more of an advantage more so now than back then. i have a small advantage now because i can build my own engines and a lot of the components that go with it , but i cant build a set of shocks that will compete with the ones some teams are spending upwards of 10 grand or more for plus there ability to test and the equipment they use to test with.

I know u are asking about the 90s but back in 06 I got a brand new car with all the top notch stuff for the time and shocks. I'll I need to do was put my power plant and drive line in and was Just over 20kthe motor that went it in was brand new by a good engine builder it was just shy off 25k

Ive heard some crazy stories from back in the 70's that a race team around here spent 5m on a race team for some years of competition ... Not sure how many years it took to spend all that money but I remember one part of the story was driving down south after the Daytona 500 & buying the car Aj Foyt won the race in .... I think they even bought his back up car ... So yea racing has been known to be alittle expensive ...

what does the damage is the perceived "need" of these costs.

A complete car and engine in the mid 90s would've been ~50K.

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Originally Posted by Clamped

A complete car and engine in the mid 90s would've been ~50K.

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Pretty close. A car "identical" to Bloomers BWRC , in 1996, cost $52k out the door!

It's no more expensive today than back then....still takes every penny you can scrape together.

Are you kidding me ? Today's rigs that pull and haul today's race cars cost more than a top of the line equipped SLM from back in the 90's . The totor homes are 200k, dependent on equipment. Trailers , stackers, are pushing 100K again dependent on options 2 axle, 3 axle. Again, sure you can keep pricing lower if your team can do some of the work. Guys didn't have the spares that they carry today. You had 1 car, some had 2 motors, xtra tranny and a quick change stuffed in The trailer box. Tires where up over the front of the cars with some being 6 rows back. I would say the guys running WoO and Lucas right now have a min. of 250k getting race to race. What the problem is in today's deal is simple the purses are the same since the 90's

With inflation 52 grand 20 years ago vs 90 grand now isnt a huge jump in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by dirtcrazy4u

Are you kidding me ? Today's rigs that pull and haul today's race cars cost more than a top of the line equipped SLM from back in the 90's . The totor homes are 200k, dependent on equipment. Trailers , stackers, are pushing 100K again dependent on options 2 axle, 3 axle. Again, sure you can keep pricing lower if your team can do some of the work. Guys didn't have the spares that they carry today. You had 1 car, some had 2 motors, xtra tranny and a quick change stuffed in The trailer box. Tires where up over the front of the cars with some being 6 rows back. I would say the guys running WoO and Lucas right now have a min. of 250k getting race to race. What the problem is in today's deal is simple the purses are the same since the 90's

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you dont have to have that big fancy rig to win a race, thats all nice if you can afford it and might be necessary if you have sponsors and are traveling following a series , how ever, if you are like us and stay local , trying to compete is getting harder and harder because of the exploding technology and the cost of it. when you have 2 or 3 at your local track that can afford this new stuff, it makes it hard, if almost impossible for the less funded to be competitive. like i said earlier , were fortunate we can build a lot of our stuff, but some of this new tech has to be bought. I feel this is the main reason for car counts declining , especially on the local level and its not just supers, its all the classes.

fastford is right, and I know from experience that your love for the sport and adrenaline rush can only last so long when you are continuing to work for arse off, spend every penny you can free up, and still get beat like a yard dog every weekend, especially when you feel like you are pretty decent driver, you are just getting outspent and it is very hard for great talent to outrun fair talent with money most times. At some point you either have to realize that it is just going to be that way and you are either OK with that, or you need to get out. Spending all of your money, getting beat bad, working your tail off, then beating yourself up all week about how bad you run can't sustain forever.

If you back up to the early 80s, a roller was 6 or 7 thousand, and an engine was less than 10 thousand. Some of the better NDRA guys would pay for their whole car in a weekend. Traveling cost with fuel at less than a dollar a gallon, and open trailers with a cube van to races that were more regional, and those guys were making money. Freddy Smith said that he won over 300,000 in 1983 alone. Very few guys now win over 300 thousand in a year. The purses have not went up very much. The pit passes, car, traveling, tires, engines, fuel, and all other costs have probably tripled. Technology has driven the cost up more than anything.

local young kid, no experience driving a late model, except for a trip to a driving school for a few days, showed up with a crate late model set up by the best with the best stuff money could by, whipped the sh!t out of less funded older drivers that there is no doubt was better , experienced drivers. now this is a roomer, but considering the source i believe it, but supposedly his dad was controlling his shocks remotely from the stands. If true, recon what that set up cost? he did have a penski sticker on his car.

I understand and I see good guys that just don't have the resources to keep up with the guys that just write out checks. I say if you love the sport move down a class. Some, like me, went sprint car racing. We had 2 new Nance cars we purchased from a WoO regular. Yea, long time ago. 80's. We spent well over 100K in the hole operation. We too could not keep up $$$ wise. After chasing are tails we decided to sell, unfortunately for less than 0.50 on a $. I was told to move down. A 360 is cheaper so everyone thinks. WRONG. We get are front end run over going into 1 and there wasn't crap left. Every drive line pc from radiator back to the winters was either broke or bent beyond repair. Recouping, we went micro racing for the next 4 yrs and we're competitive every time we pulled into a track. We had a blast, racing was again fun. FUN, if you lose sight of that, either get out or get in a class were you can have fun again. To this day my hips still no the pain of that one big one.

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Originally Posted by stewart fan

With inflation 52 grand 20 years ago vs 90 grand now isnt a huge jump in my opinion.

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True but the purses never rose with inflation

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Originally Posted by manwplan

True but the purses never rose with inflation

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Not only the purses, but wages have not kept up with inflation. The hidden tax. If you look back to the 60s and raised minimum wage with inflation, Minimum wage would be around $17. A lot of the middle class has lost the buying power to race.

One of the smartest things ive ever seen you post........excellent.

Aside from UCars or enduro type classes, whats really affordable right now for anyone to get into? Just from drivers ive spoke with or classes i see at my local tracks there aren't many options. Our street stock and 4 cyl classes are all but gone, hobby stocks look like the old semi late class. Obviously it takes $ to race at any level but our local die hards are disappearing quick.

As long as you have all these big money guys pumping money into the sport things are not going to change but if that money starts to fade then it will change.