The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → True cost of Lemons?
I know Lemons is supposed to be cheap, but honestly, racing is not cheap by nature, even if everyone is driving around in POS's. I'm considering wasting a considerable amount of money and time, and I dont want to be 4 months into a build (human sloth here) with a couple empty bank accounts, stuck with something that is literally worthless
So what would you guys say is a good range for build costs?
$4,000
that's an answer i can live with, given my original guess was twice that.
http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=4348
Check this thread out. And there are other Lemons cars for sale also.
If you build your own, $4000 sounds about right for the first race. After that it gets cheaper because you don't need another cage or all that other safety equipment.
4-5k Schumacher Taxi Service has built 5 cars now and they all fall into that area.
First race $4000 then all the safety is paid for and the races after that $1200-??? less unless you blow motor or crash .
Yup figure to buy, build, enter and run your first race $4k - $5k. Our first race was just under $4500 for the whole event. Subsequent races will probably be less than half of that. (entry, gas, food, perhaps tires and some spare stuff). These figures seem to be what most will say. People have done it for less and others have paid more when they had to pay for more of the labor to build one. So if you budget $4500 you should be ok.
4k to start sounds about right. It all depends how much sweat equity you are willing to put in, and how much know how your team has. If you know how to build a cage, you can save some cash. I wouls say 150o-2000 after a race is about normal
These guys are all underselling the cost. It will cost you all of your free time, plus free time that you didn't know that you had. It will cost you a lot of sleep. It will verge on costing you your soul, and if you're not careful, your marriage too. As has been noted many times on this forum (and as stolen and re-paraphrased from Peter Egan), Lemons makes heroin addiction seem like a vague wish for something salty.
And even at all that, it still seems a bargain.
$4000 that would be better off burned? where do i sign up?
ive managed to get 2 people (other then myself) to commit to spend $1000 on this project. only if I can manage to fool another of my friends. I also got a buddy who is a professional welder (used to weld barges or something) who im pretty sure can make the cage.
Im honestly pumped
$4k is in the normal range.....I would say most 1st time teams end up in the $3-5k range depending on tires & fuel costs..... Slightly cheaper after that....
These guys are all underselling the cost. It will cost you all of your free time, plus free time that you didn't know that you had. It will cost you a lot of sleep. It will verge on costing you your soul, and if you're not careful, your marriage too. As has been noted many times on this forum (and as stolen and re-paraphrased from Peter Egan), Lemons makes heroin addiction seem like a vague wish for something salty.
And even at all that, it still seems a bargain.
Pat knows what he's talking about. If you are lucky, you will still have a wife and a job by the time you start your first race. Don't expect to catch up on sleep for at least a week after you return from the track.
Mulry wrote:These guys are all underselling the cost. It will cost you all of your free time, plus free time that you didn't know that you had. It will cost you a lot of sleep. It will verge on costing you your soul, and if you're not careful, your marriage too. As has been noted many times on this forum (and as stolen and re-paraphrased from Peter Egan), Lemons makes heroin addiction seem like a vague wish for something salty.
And even at all that, it still seems a bargain.
Pat knows what he's talking about. If you are lucky, you will still have a wife and a job by the time you start your first race. Don't expect to catch up on sleep for at least a week after you return from the track.
Oh, and no matter how much time and sleep you give up in the months before the race, the last week will be a bitch. I've gone over to Andy's to work on the car for hours and then gone in to work an eight hour night shift. And done it again the next day.
Oh, and will Lemons cost you your wife? Only if you don't convert her to your cause. 
But in terms of cash? The team outlay will between $4-5k. Your personal outlay? That depends on your team. Folks still owe the husband money from many races ago. We don't care. We raced, it was awesome, fun was had. Someday we'll get paid back. Hopefully, the payment will come in beer... hmmmmmm beer!
Don't forget your racing gear if you don't already have it. Depending on what you need and/or what level of safety you want, that's another $500-$1500 each.
You guys are spending way too much!
Running car $450, build your own cage materials $350, seat + harness + fire extin + kill switch $200, basic maint on car $50, set of tires $300. Use a cardboard sign board, borrow a fire suit, buy a helmet, make some costumes, pay your race fees and go racing! <$1500 for build.
Then to race it will cost $275/ person race fees, sleep on the ground next to your car, eat cold pizza and pop tarts all weekend, share gas $ for race car and tow vehicle, have the best time ever.
I'm getting the nice safety gear, but it's likely my teammates will buy one $425 set and a couple extra sets of long johns and share the suit and helmet. That makes their safety gear about $200 each.
We got a running car dirt cheap, but we've had to spend a lot on safety gear. The brake rotors were over 1/4" under spec, so we spent about $600 on brake rotors and pads.
$4000 looks about right for car prep, safety gear, and entry fees unless you get really lucky and find a cherry car, or share gear, or get sponsors for your safety gear.
I know Lemons is supposed to be cheap, but honestly, racing is not cheap by nature, even if everyone is driving around in POS's. I'm considering wasting a considerable amount of money and time, and I dont want to be 4 months into a build (human sloth here) with a couple empty bank accounts, stuck with something that is literally worthless
Why not? That's pretty much the story of everyone else here :-).
Ok truthfully the more work you can do yourself (cage building for example) the less it will cost. Also picking a car that is worthless no matter how nice it is (ie: anything French, a Merkur, Sterling, Fiat, Lada, etc) makes the finances easier because replacement parts are cheap and the car is bound to be in better shape.
BTW no matter which car you pick figure it's going to take longer to prepare than you expect. Also don't just assume that because it runs and drives that everything is ok, do a thorough end-to-end evaluation of the car and make sure you know how to repair it if (when) it breaks.
We will likely spend about $2500 on our car once complete but that doesn't include spare parts, entry fee, gas for the event, beer, etc. Are we guaranteed to get into the race? Hell no! But we are having a blast building the car up and will likely take it to some track days. While it may not look like a nice car, it has everything most race organizations require. Full 6 pt. cage, on board fire extinguisher, master cutoff switch, racing seat with harness. Do you have any tracks close to you? Have some fun with the car regardless of whether you get accepted.
These guys are all underselling the cost. It will cost you all of your free time, plus free time that you didn't know that you had. It will cost you a lot of sleep. It will verge on costing you your soul, and if you're not careful, your marriage too. As has been noted many times on this forum (and as stolen and re-paraphrased from Peter Egan), Lemons makes heroin addiction seem like a vague wish for something salty.
And even at all that, it still seems a bargain.
That's a bit dramatic. I've done 6 events in 3 different cars and two teams so far. It really depends on what you and your crew bring to the table in skills and parts. Just to prove it to my old team, I built my Lexus to a nice standard well within the real $500 budget for the "official items (but not including safety, brake pads and tires etc.) in about 8 full days of effort (spread out over a couple months) by myself, and enjoyed every minute. I've studied the real costs extensively and have built a little model in excel where I just dump in the event variables and vehicle "reset" costs and it dumps out the cost number for the build and for each race. Its between 4-5k to build a good car (but could be done around 3k if you get used safety stuff) and about 800/driver including everything but food and hotel per race. I like doing the build and especially suspension tuning. I just need some arrive and drivers to share the cost so I can get the cage in... 
Well, it's a bit dramatic, but not by much. I'm pretty much a solo effort as far as build/repair/maintain the car at this point. And it's pretty clear at this point that I'm not much of a wrench, although I do enjoy it and am hopefully getting better (the snapped off rear main seal bolts might testify differently. Helicoil to the rescue!). Everybody else is out of town. So what my crew brings to the table is pretty much fly in on Thursday, hope everything is working, have fun, work on the car when it breaks over the race weekend, then leave.
Or to put it another way: I was thrilled this afternoon when my 6-year old's soccer coach called off practice. Not because I have anything against her soccer practice, but because it gives me like a 3 hour jump on getting things done tonight.
seat + harness + fire extin + kill switch $200
Dude, I am glad that I am not driving your car. That seems awfully skimpy on critical safety equipment. Our seat alone exceeds that budget and we're only running a freaking Kirkey seat, not even the Sparco's that some teams have installed.
Doctawife and Mulry have great points on what the real cost is to do one race.
I sat down and broke down the total for the five races our car has run.
I did this by adding all race fees,(average five drivers) fuel, tires, car parts and transportation too and from the track. In five races the cost breakdown was approximately $3200.00 per race.
Given the fact that the closest race was 550 miles away (Reno) and the furthest was 780 miles away (Sears) and our truck gets 10mph, we consider ourselves pretty lucky.
I personally would spend $3200.00 by myself if I could afford it, you're just not going to get the Lemons experience anywhere else for less. Doctawife and Mulry are lucky and so am I, we all have spouses that give us mental, moral and financial support. A lot of teams don't have that luxury.
Doctawife and Mulry are lucky and so am I, we all have spouses that give us mental, moral and financial support. A lot of teams don't have that luxury.
Amen!
Our initial build was about $5000 for the car which included a spare set of tires and brake pads. The spares were probably $800+ and we did not use them.
Some guys recommend using the $50 plastic POS drag buckets. They are crap! I've got a pair. I may put them in a car for DEs until I can find a deal on a pair of better seats. Realistically, the plastic buckets are not a very good seat for comfort and probably safety. The harnesses pulled us down in a seat a bit more than they should have.
We replaced the buckets with a pair of used Kirkey Pro Drags. The Kirkeys plus cam lock upgrades were like $600 for both seats. I got a deal on the cam locks too or it would have been closer to $800.
Yes, we have a passenger seat. It costs money but it's a good thing to have. The car can be used with an instructor or in DEs.
We don't run crap brakes or tires.
We have radios now and a cool shirt set-up.
All these things cost money but you will have a safer and more enjoyable event.
Any future cars we built, need to have NASA/SCCA spec cages. Like someone else pointed out, we have the safety gear most organizations require.
So a good cage may allow you to run your LeMon in NASA.
When your $2500 car dies a few hours into the event. Think of how much farther you may have gone had you cut less corners.
A quick rebuttal on the cost. You guys are spending more because you want to, not because you have to.
Yes we are using a cheep, uncomfortable plastic seat, but we built the bracket by welding up scrap plate steel and using new grade 8 bolts. We found a NISMO 5 point cam lock harness with new certification for $80 on ebay. The fire extinguisher is mounted with a new metal bracket mounted using scrap body steel and the passenger seat hardware. The kill switch is a nice $40 weatherproof 4 pole switch again mounted using a scrap steel welded bracket.
As far as finishing; the car has run four races on stock original front brake rotors (drums in back) and OE style Bosh pads. Never had brake fade. We use cheep 320 treadwear tires. The car has finished all four races it started. 27th once and 3 top ten.
I feel sorry for anyone who builds and maintains a car by themselves. This sport is way more fun as a team event.
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