Topic: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

I'm considering doing the december race at Road Atlanta. We are completely new to this and looking for some advice. Anyone local who would mind giving me some tips? I'm mostly interested in figuring out what it might cost us to do the event (all in) and tips on how to save money. Not looking to win. We just want to have a good time.

2 (edited by Stan in Bham 2021-08-29 02:34 PM)

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

Car aside, we budget about $1,450 for the race fee (+$200 each if you have 5 or 6 drivers), about $500 for a set of tires (mounted and balanced) - more after a few races when really good tires will make a difference, $250-$300 in gas for the race (more if you run a Crown Vic or other large, thirsty car),  towing gas (depends on how far you have to drive), plus food and lodging.  That assumes you already have individual equipment. Generally speaking, initially plan on $3,000-3,500 per race unless you live really close to a particular track.

Since you mentioned being completely new to this, check the Lemons gear page for prices on driver's gear if you don't have helmets, suits, and such. That is the "easy button" solution, and their prices are actually pretty reasonable. 

If you don't have a car, plan to spend about $4,500-$5,000 to buy a car and get it ready; a little over half that if you can do your own cage (meaning you have a really talented welder as part of your team).  Check other threads on this forum for more info on car build costs.

Tips on saving money:

Buy a used car. We just sold one for way less than we had in it. If you are just looking for fun, another team's old (slower) car is a ball of fun to drive on a track and way cheaper than building one. Plus the headache of getting a car ready for a race is far, far less than the headache of building a "new" car and getting it ready for a race.

You can save money by dedicated trolling of eBay for closeouts and lightly used suits, helmets, shoes, gloves, etc. Stores dump their last year's versions, unwanted colors, or odd leftover lots, and a fair number of drivers race a time or two and then move on to a new hobby.  Make sure it is "SFI" or "FIA". SFI-1 requires Nomex undies, SFI-3 doesn't. We picked up a couple of closeout suits to have on hand for newbies or unpaid crew who didn't have their own.  I think the suits were about $50 each; of course they were closeouts because nobody else wanted the XL canary-yellow one-piece suits, but we didn't care. Check often and be prepared to check regularly for a while to find deals.  If you are in a hurry, check the Lemons store.

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

Four questions to help:

Does all in include personal drivers gear

Are you building a car or buying one already built another team is selling

Does your team have the skillset to install the cage, fabricate seat mounting, reapir most things on the car

Do you already have a trailer and tow vehicle

This can help us hone in on a better guestimate but lets say the answers are yes, building, no, no.  In that case, likely plan on about $5500-6500 for 4 driver team.

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

Thank you for the feedback. Responses inline below:

OnkelUdo wrote:

Does all in include personal drivers gear

Yes. Gear included. We don't have suits, helmets, head and neck restraints, etc. I've read we'll need at least 2 sets.

OnkelUdo wrote:

Are you building a car or buying one already built another team is selling

Open to either, but it's looking more likely that we'll need to build one.

OnkelUdo wrote:

Does your team have the skillset to install the cage, fabricate seat mounting, reapir most things on the car

Yes. Our family works in the auto repair business. We have access to a full shop. At least 1 team member is a professional mechanic.

OnkelUdo wrote:

Do you already have a trailer and tow vehicle

Yes. Again, from above relationships.

OnkelUdo wrote:

This can help us hone in on a better guestimate but lets say the answers are yes, building, no, no.  In that case, likely plan on about $5500-6500 for 4 driver team.

OK. I've heard 4-6, so it sounds like I'm in the ballpark.

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

FYI, the $4-6K usually does not include the personal gear. 

The minimum gear realistically is every member has their own set less the HNR (HANS) which you can easily share.  The absolute bare minimum I would run with is three sets of gear, one HNR.  Fueling requires two people minimum fully suited.  It best if the incoming driver does not dump fuel and the driver coming out of the car is often not your best choice to dump fuel (better to hold an extiguisher) as they might not be in peak physical or mental condition to do so.

Yes, it is possible to do it with just two but the advantage of not getting into someone else's skany suit is not to be underestimated.

On buying a pre-raced car.  Even a $600-1000 transport cost to get one (almost) ready to race for about $2-4K is totally worth it.  You are talking about a few hundred hours of work plus most used race cars come with spares not included in the build estimated cost.  Best cars come with a lot of knowledge willingly passed on about the tips, tricks, strengths, weaknesses, etc from the former team.

FYI, if you do not have a car yet, and are looking at ordering a prebent cage from Roll Cage Components (highly reccomended) he was pretty backed so shipping times were a couple months longer than usual.  DOM is also in shorter supply than usual in my area so do plan ahead not just for the cage install but the materials acquisition.

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

Thank you very much for the advice. We definitely have our eyes set on a pre-raced car, but so far have had a difficult time finding one. I had not considered fueling and the need for 3 sets of gear. That totally makes sense.

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

An example of an already raced car that has passed a recent tech and is likely less than builing it yourself.  Unless it comes with a lot of spares, I consider this one a little overpriced but Covid used car pricing may have snuck into Lemons cars as well.  FYI, Focus is a very competative class B car with (as I understand it) only one serious flaw which is front wheel bearing/hub life.

https://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/view … xI9EKd_heg

A few notes for a newbie just looking at this car's cage (which is totally adequate).  They mention they need more room for 6'4" guys but that is due to some poor choices for packaging here (It is listed on the facebook group "The Unofficial Facebook Group of the 24 Hours of Lemons(TM)" with pictures):

Had they put the main hoop on the rear seat step instead of the floor in front of it they would have gained more room for the driver seat including some lay back.  If you have very tall folks, even consider bowing out the harness bar behind the seat.

They did slightly bow out the door bars but it coud have been more extreme and it costs basically nothing to add two or three vertical members between the bars.

The seat appears hard mounted to the floor which is OK if the variance in driver leg length is not huge but with 0 lay back I cannot imagine it is comfortable to run for that claimed 3.5 hour stint.  With the limitations they gave themselves with the cage design 10 degrees or so lay back would slightly reduce overall leg room but would gain a lot of comfort for tall guys...see above aboout moving the main hoop back to avoid all these issues.

Not a single triangular gusset in any picture on that cage...these are the easiest thing to weld in and even little ones come with the RCR kits.  Do it.

FYI, not bagging on the car but giving you some things to look at if you buy used.

Assuming the car is no longer street legal, you could likely fly up, rent a truck and get it back to you for under a $1000 all in or find a shipper for $600-1000.  You said you own a truck and trailer, for about $500 in gas and $100 in energy drinks and beef jerky you could round trip this thing in a regular weekend to puck it up...sound like too much of a time commitment...it is about 1/10th of what you will spend building one.

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

Most important thing to takeaway from all of this:  you will all want your OWN gear.  There is nothing more disgusting than sharing sweaty, nasty, racing gear. 

Everything else mentioned is secondary smile

COM ( Chief Operating Moron ) of Burnt Rubber Soul Racing
Current fleet: 95 Ford Probe, 81 Mazda 626.  Past: 81 Imperial
Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/burntrubbersoulracing

9 (edited by bobnowoc 2021-09-08 08:27 AM)

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

If you cannot find or afford gear, for our first time out we rented from racesuitrental.com

If I remember correctly, each set of gear could be fully rented for $200 a person, with each requiring a $500 fully refundable deposit. We had rented 2 outfits for two drivers. The other two drivers owned outfits.

Everything posted in this chat so far is accurate.(my opinion)

Former Captain
1996 Crown Vic. #55
Team Racing Cosmo

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

As a guy who bought a completed car from a friend, I highly, highly recommend you go that route.  I bought mine, race prepped, for $3500.  It will cost you more than that to get it ready + the hundreds of hours to get it race ready.  I know the previous owner had over $5K into the car. 

Take the money saved and buy your safety equipment.  Take the time saved and make it more reliable.

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

Bricoop wrote:

As a guy who bought a completed car from a friend, I highly, highly recommend you go that route.  I bought mine, race prepped, for $3500.  It will cost you more than that to get it ready + the hundreds of hours to get it race ready.  I know the previous owner had over $5K into the car. 

Take the money saved and buy your safety equipment.  Take the time saved and make it more reliable.

+1 on this ^

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

As a guy who bought a completed car from a friend, I highly, highly recommend you go that route.  I bought mine, race prepped, for $3500.  It will cost you more than that to get it ready + the hundreds of hours to get it race ready.  I know the previous owner had over $5K into the car.

Take the money saved and buy your safety equipment.  Take the time saved and make it more reliable.]

+2

1991 VW Jetta #38 - cuz Whoopie Pie!

Re: Potential new team in Atlanta looking for help

Duff Beer is selling their (this weekend) Class C winning Volvo 850 for $2000.  U BUY!