* If you want to race cheaply, I second the recommendation about joining another team with a track record of having a car that runs most of the time.
* If you want to own your own car cheaply, buy one from a team which is moving onto a different platform.
If you want to build your own car but have never done it before and don't have anyone on your team who is a professional mechanic, I would recommend spending a little more for a) a car that runs b) a professional cage installation by someone who has done cages for Lemons before.
Both of these options will go a long way towards making sure you can start your first race AND have a chance of finishing it.
It seems like every race I go to there's one new team that has to spend most of Sat (and sometimes even most of Sunday) trying to get their cage to pass safety inspection and/or repairing a car that broke on the starting grid. Why pay $1350 for the pleasure of working on your project car al fesco?
Until I got greedy and messed with our engine, our car ran flag to flag for our first two races w/ only a little drama when someone ran into our car. When I started touching my engine is when it took three embarrassing races before I had the car running right (this is what happens when you learn how to rebuild an engine using the internet and youtube and very little real-world advice). That's $3750 in entry fees ($4,050 now) plus garage rentals and another $600 in UHAUL trailer rentals with only a handful of laps to show for those years.
the only reason I'm probably still doing this was because we were able to make a slow car last for the entire race and I got hooked.
-g
Myopic Motorsport's #888 Ceci n'est pas une Citron Thunderbird ("This is not a lemon" but a 1995 tbird w/ 93 V8 swap + shopping cart rear wing + engine mounted frito maker)
2017 Sears Pointless Organizer’s Choice
Frito Making Tbird from 2018 Sears Pointless Engine Heat BBQ -
http://goo.gl/csaet4