Value of parts car and the rationolization toward the 500$

Eric, Welcome and get ready, we are always looking for someone who can compete with the Gnomes and Eye Sore racing. Having said that If you have one car for your build and an additional car for parts. The only car you can recover money from parts is the car or chassis your sitting in at the time of the race. If you were able to sell parts from different vehicles to supplement the $500.00 dollar limit I would have thousands of dollars left in my budget cause I would sell the farm to make my car faster.

Parts you take from another car to build your car are considered under the $500.00 dollar rule. (Cost of Car+Parts added to get it running-Things you sell on Ebay)
Now if you do something insane like a Getto Turbo or Chain Drive Motor, the Judges might make an exception. They like to see things break and when they don't break they like to give prizes for the same Crap! So if you get parts from a free car you will need to have proof the donor car was a free-bee. If you stole the parts off your neighbors F250 Turbo "um well" I guess their free. And if you buy a spare car for parts, only the value of the used parts that actually make it on to the car count.

Keep really good records, have all of your stories in order, try not to cheat and have a good time cause if you don't your ride home is going to be long.

P.S Bring as many spare parts as you can haul including motors if you have them.
I say this from experience.

Eric,

The rules don't put a limit on salvage sales.  The subjective part of the BS inspection could cause you some trouble.

If I buy a parts car for a build, I consider it part of the build cost and sell off parts to offset the expense.

As far as exchange rate goes I guess you can spend the equivalent $500 US but I could see some shadiness coming into play.

Builds like the Gnome and Frankenmiata are cool.  I gotta say the motorcycle powered cars are a whole different animal than adding a turbo to a car. 

Any chance you're going to incorporate the use of a Zamboni?

I've talked to Jay about this specifically.  You can sell parts off of the car you are racing to the point where you are positive.  Ie sell $500 of parts off of your $200 race car and you're ahead $300 or have $800 to work with.  Parts car sales can be added to the budget back to their original cost.  Ie sell $500 worth of parts off of your $200 parts car and you can put $200 back into the budget.  Use the extra $300 to buy something for your wife who has to put up with parts cars in the driveway.

Of course this could easily be exploited, but you gotta get past Jonny and Phil.  Also, the one thing everyone loses track of is;  Who cares if you get penalty laps, do you really think you're gonna win?

If you're building something like the Metro Gnome, Eyesore Ghettocharger, or Angry Hamster Z600, we'll be much more tolerant of the price tags on your stable of parts cars and your lies about how much you made selling parts than we'd be with, say, an ex-ITB racer and associated parts vehicles you "got for free" because "your friend's wife was sick of all that crap in the yard."

You may have a minor issue with rule 2.1:

At least if you're doing what i think you're doing, but I could be wrong.

I suspect you'd still make it in if it's safe, but I'd hate to see you do something truly wild and then not get in because it didn't start life with enough wheels.

My guess is he's probably buying a bike or a boat or something silly like that and using the engine for a car, then selling off the remainder of the bike/whatever.

I was thinking a couple motorcycles welded together.