New Team in the Chicago Area Looking to buy/rent a Car

Hello,

Welcome.  Where in the Chicagoland area are you located?  There are a number of established Lemons teams in the area.  Let us know where your at and we can find a team close to you. 

As far as renting vs buying a car.  Both are far better options for a new team than building a car from the ground up.  If it were me, I would prefer buying a car rather than renting.  I think rental agreements are harder to come by.  There are lots of logistics that go along with renting that make a rental situation challenging. 

At a minimum, have a seasoned Lemons person accompany you to see whatever car you are considering buying.  This will help ensure you start with something that will at least get you on track.  I'm in Addison, IL and if you find something local, I'd certainly be willing to take a look.

Arrive and drive is probably a better option than renting a car but is functionally the same.  There are multi-car teams that are newbie friendly and would accept 4 arrive and drives. There's a specific team in mind that would be well setup to do this. They are based about 50min from the Chicago suburbs.  One of the team owners frequents the forum often, I'm sure he will introduce himself.  If he doesn't I'll reach out and make sure he sees your post.

I suspect Jeff, the first to respond, was refering to me with Bad Decisions Racing.  We have 3 currently active cars and a new one debuting at Autobahn (most likely) so we could potentially be in the best position to "Rent" a race vehicle...in this case it would likely be the Dustbuster minivan...often described as "surprisingly capable" and it is very newbie friendly.  Not sure what you believe rental looks like and not sure we want to rent it but it could be an option.

To be clear what I mean by "not sure what you believe rental looks like", the only time we have rented out a vehicle it was to another team that blew up early.  They swapped their seat and belts over and went back out there in our Saturn.  I suspect you are looking at something more like the rental includes at the very least fueling items and tech support.  So figure out what rental looks like to you specifically around what it includes.

We do constantly consider selling the van but since we have like 1500#'s in spares without counting wheels, it starts to get complicated.  Add to that it is so far from stock at this point so trying to bed a new team in on the changes would be challenging.

Appreciate all the quick responses from the community. I'll try to answer the outstanding questions in order:
- the team has members in the city and SW burbs
- As for what we are looking for from a car, we would definitely put a premium on a well-sorted reliable ride. If that comes in the form of an 80s Oldsmobile or a manual Toyota Tercel...so be it.
- We expect that a car that fits or needs will cost at least $4k. Willing to pay more for the right car.
- We also understand a nicer well-sorted car will probably be a Class B or A car.

We do have the required personal safety equipment, and tools for changing brake pads, rotors, tires, etc (typical track day goodies).

I will reach out to those with possible vehicles directly.

Thanks again

Umm, I am not at all like you and fail in completely different ways.  Our only similarity is we have both had Owen destroy a car.

FYI, we are actually not usually arrive and drives as I have a core team BUT we can campaign two cars at once without it being huge undertaking  if Autobahn or Gingerman which is when we tend to fill the second car with 60% newbies.