The Order of Team Creation (Page 1 of 2)

Some people apply for the race before even buying the car, but there are downsides to this approach, mainly that you look somewhat uncommitted and that it is hard to fully install all the safety gear and get the car running reliably in 10 weeks.

It has been said that Lemons will have about 20 races next year, and ChumpCar will have about 20 races next year.  If you build your car to fit both of their rulesets, then you will have a pretty good shot of having a race you can enter near you sometime next year.

I did see that it looked like there would be a lot more races next year.  Maybe it won't be an issue.

Thanks for the responses guys.  On a similar note, did all of you split the purchase and prep of the car or did one person "own" it

Ninja post...

You need to split the prep at least.  There will be about $2500 invested in the car for the first race.  You can "own" certain items, I own the seat in our car for example, but the rest goes with the car. 

Car ownership is weird.  But be clear up front what your expectations are.  It's your car and others are buying seats, it's a communal car that gets sold after the race (and proceeds split), etc. 

On my team, I own the car but we split expenses evenly.  I "donate" more time and money into the car/racing and it stays at my house so ownership isn't an issue.  It could be/has been for other teams.

My observation has been that the most successful teams (from a team dynamics standpoint) are the ones with a strongly motivated team captain who owns the car and is capable of making the initial financial investment in the car and major safety expenses, such as the cage.  Going that route, and selling slots to 3 or more drivers per race at $500-700 (plus race fees, transportation and personal expenses) for at least 3 races, the car owner can theoretically almost break even.  $500 x 3 drivers x 3 races = $4500... enough to cover the typical build plus expendables for 3 races.

Loren pretty much hit it from an approach standpoint. Somebody has to lead it and know how to build it. Kind of funny that you are saying you don't feel right about covering the car, but then charging $700 a seat? (not that I disagree about the price, just sounds funny). Remember that if you own it, you are assuming all the risk. You could lose the whole investment in the first 5 min of the race, or get the crusher, not to mention mechanical or crash damage. Until the car is "paid off" including investment and potential resale, risk sure is a factor! For me its about $3-4k for the build of a well above average car with me owning it, doing all the work, with all brand new safety stuff including a Sparco seat (no intent to sell when done). It will take a good $1,000 to "reset" for another race assuming no major problems to cover 4 new rotors,race pads, tires, and fluid changes and any other maintenance.... Regardless, about $700 seems to be the right "arrive and drive" price to me, though I haven't rented seats as I'm on another team at the moment (but I do have a car done except cage)

Finding drivers with money and time is VERY challenging.  It's easy to get a list of people who say they will be on the team, but racing costs lots of money and time.  For your first race, budget $1000 per person for a 6 driver team.  If you come in under that, good for you.  If you think you can do it for $500 per person and then have overruns, people will get very upset and want to pull the plug.

When you tell potential driver how much it will cost, be sure to include the race license.  It doesn't seem like much, but if every driver needs it, that's $300 gone from the build budget.  Also, since our team has two members from California, we used Paypal to transfer the money.  That eats another 3% in fees.  When you figure fuel costs, future the gas prices.  For the Lamest Day, we assumed 150 gallons if we run the whole 24 hours with no major issues and keep up a good pace.  If we have another gas hike and the prices get unstable, that could add $75 to $100.  Same goes for the tow vehicles.  We will be taking a truck with the car on a trailer and a second truck with a camper a few hundred miles to the race.  While towing, they will both get lousy mileage, so travel expenses add up quickly too.

As far as ownership, I own our car, but after the car and a few other car related expenses, we split everything.  We borrowed the harness, transponder, video system and radios.  If all goes well, we will race the car over and over as well as use it for track days.  In the end, I will own a running, sorted car with a cage, but  I take the risk of it being wrecked, crushed, or otherwise destroyed.

One thing we didn't follow, is the first rule in car selection.  That is to buy a running, driving car!  Our old Datsun was abused for a long time before finally being shoved into a barn and left for dead.  We found every system on the car to be inop and we have put more hours into it that I can count.  Had we started with a ten year old car that was wrecked or had a bad trans, we could have spent the summer drinking beer or being with our families instead of working on the car non-stop and getting 5 hours of sleep per night.

Good luck!

Jeff is knee deep in the Rusty Datsun Challenge.  After you get done waging war on rusty floor pans, Swiss cheesy brakes lines and a wiper motor protected from weather by a glorified condom you still have to get a rats nest of wiring to work the car again. 

After fighting this war and overcoming all kinds of hurdles, you get to BS and Jonny says I've seen plenty of rusty cars.  I didn't exactly patch our floors.  They were completely cut out and I made new ones out of flat sheet metal.

Getting to cost and ownership.  Our car is "my" car.  We had a group effort build and I figured we would race the car till it was dead and it would also be a DE track loaner.  Since it's my car, I covered most of the build cost and have the most time in it.  Everyone did work on the car for the first race in one way or another.

After the race,  one team member needed to go for attitude problems.  One is  on hold.  Then 3 moved to a second car and two were later dumped.  So our original 6 member team has 3 people racing two cars.

So I basically run the car as an arrive and drive car at $500 for a driving spot.  Of course they might not get to drive and I have considered a written agreement with a liability waiver.

The car cost close to $5000 for the first race with out track spares.  Way more then I would have ever expected.

Our upcoming race, the car is full so I will see some return on the car if I don't put it all right back into it.

Lemons is a blast and one of the least expensive ways to race door-to-door but it still costs money.  With more potential races next year, I think it will cost more to run the desired races then some members will be willing to spend.  With our 4th race coming up, the cost for the races is approaching  build cost.  So I figure the bucket has sucked up $10,000-12,000 between building the car and racing the car.  Entry fees are an easy $1000 a race.

Like other folks have pointed out, transportation costs money and upkeep.  Paypal wants a cut too.  I expect each member to provide gas for their time but I will get the car to the track.  We split the Test & Tune and everyone has to pay for any necessary licenses.

For all the guys thinking $500 is expensive, try doing a car yourself for less.  It's a bargain even in a less competitive car. 

Racing is like boating, it's a hole you dump money into.

If you start with a solid (and probably slow) <$500 car, you can build it in 10 weeks without too much work, especially if everyone can help (and they probably can't). If you buy the car and just work on getting it running, you can sell it if you don't get in. Quickly order the cage as soon as you get in to avoid stress.  A good theme takes a lot of time, too.

If you start with a car that needs a lot of work (either because it's unusual or because you are planning motor swaps, go-fast stuff, selling parts, etc.) that takes a lot longer.

Make sure everyone on your team is both committed and unified in their goals and attitudes. You you are trying to place high and your teammate is just trying to have fun, you'll have conflict, for example.

I was surprised at the number of people who were interested but couldn't commit for one reason or another. A race that is far away adds two days of towing time, motel rooms, a lot of gas, and food.

Last year was our first year.  With a self-installed cage and very few car problems that needed fixing, it still cost us about $4000.  The biggest cost after registration was safety equipment.  You can say firesuits are a personal cost, but at the end of the day, your per-person costs are going up.

The basic stuff:
Car: $500
Registration for 4 newbs: $500 for team + $600 for drivers = $1100
Cage: $600-$800 at the cheapest
Gas to tow, gas to race: $200-$500 (depends on car)

My recommendation:
1) Have a separate bank account.  The "small things" add up very quickly, and you don't want that sucking out of your personal cash.  Once the account hits $0, then you know people need to ante up more cash.  You WILL have budget overruns, and you don't want to be paying for them yourself.
2) Take checks up front.  Otherwise, you're essentially giving several thousand dollars in interest-free loans to your friends.  I'm in that situation right now (collecting at or very shortly after the race), and as I watch the run the market has been on lately, I'm kinda wishing I'd had the $2900USD of registration costs invested rather than waiting for the checks at the race.

I have been very lucky, rather then taking money for seat time most of my team has been offering up donations and help to get things going.  I own the car, I bought it and also bought the roll cage, brakes, tires, wheels, and so forth.  But the other drivers provided a lot of the other bits,  the race seat, the camera mount, the radio system, and so forth.  Beyond that I also have people lending me the car trailer, the tow vehicle, a generator, and lots more.  All of this years efforts were done with handshakes, I didn't have to lean on people to get things done.  The team just plane jane loves to race and compete.  So when I told them that I was doing a Lemons car and it was a Camaro,  BANG  I had people and all the bits I needed.  Some people gave more build time then others, some people did more behind the scenes stuff.   I had one of the team members call me and ask me if she could take care of our lodgings because she was not able to help with the car build.  I gave her the thumbs up, and the reservations were in my mailbox yesterday!  So yes I'm paying for the basic car, and the entry fee for everyone.  In return everyone else is taking care of what I need to get the car to the race and race it.

agreed.  people seem to assume that b/c Lemons is "endurance racing on the cheap", it's inexpensive.

it isn't cheap...it's RELATIVELY cheap.