nyc_qcar

what do you all think..

if you live in the city, with no nice attached heated double garage out the front of your apartment, and hours of traffic to get anywhere, is this a forlorn hope?

do i have to move to a house in connecticut or hudson valley in order to seriously race as a hobby?

I'll be doing my third and final skip barber course shortly. I love the track and think I have some kind of talent for it even if it'll never be more than an expensive addiction. Not interested in starting via karting or auto-x. My job, I can do from anywhere. seriously considering major lifestyle change here .. wondering about the practicality of it all.

NASA racer

unless you do a partnership with someone who maintains and keeps the car.

Doesn't have to be a fancy-schmancy garage. The psychotic builder of our house back in 1975 decided that 1.5 cars was plenty and I have nearly NO space to work on my race car...but I do have just enough.

To me, it's quite a large part of the hobby. I may only do 3 races in a year but the preparation and maintenance is recreational fun.

There are also arrive-and-drive series. The racing schools tend to have them where you simply show up, pay and race their cars. There are always options...the most important requirement is that you have enough money for what you can do.

Research is the best thing...going to different races, reading forums, web pages, talking to people. Things don't have to be easy or practical or sensible to be POSSIBLE and if they were too easy, what fun would they be?

If you have your own car, you have to keep it somewhere, work on it somewhere and be able to tow it from that place to/from the track. Those are pretty minimum requirements.

I raced for 3 years without seeing my car except at races because of a good friend who lived out of town who kept and maintained the car and I paid for the stuff...that was our deal and he got the thing to the races and I showed up and raced.

Mark Dalen

There are good arrive and drive deals for Spec Miata and SRF. Hook up with local SCCA Region, look in Sports Car Mag or check websites to find who does this in your area. Arrive and drive is especially good when you are starting out, as you can completeley focus on driving.

bioman

I'm also a city dweller, with no appropriate place to store or work on a race car. My first races were done as arrive-and-drive rentals, which worked well, and also allowed me to get to know a couple of race shop owners and closely examine their work (like cage building).

I ended up having a race shop build a spec miata for me, and they will be doing the maintenance work as well. For comparison, the rates are:
$100/month storage
$.94/mile transport plus $250/day per person crew costs plus expenses (meals&lodging)
or I can come take the car myself and they provide the trailer at no extra cost
$60/hr labor plus parts

You end up paying more than you would if you stored the car and turned wrenches yourself, but for some of us it's not an option.

Although I ended up buying, I have a friend who races a GT3 cup car in Grand Am, and he does it as a rental. His advice to me was to rent all the time and not buy.

nyc_qcar

where was your race shop? it might be a lot more on the east coast.
if you get some panel damage to your rental you have to pay everything right? if you write it off, you pay fair replacement cost?

WYSIWYG

plus NYC sickens me hehe. i work on my cars (and other AW cars) on the streets i dont have a garage but if i have an unregistered car to race (need registration to get parking sticker too) then i'd look into some storage facility - NJ have lots of these i suppose. just across the hudson (edgewater areas) should have a few but pricey. secaucus, harrison, kearny(&towns north of giants stadium) areas have some too.
i do however suggest to make your car *wink*NJstreetlegal*wink*

NASA racer

it can range from "you break it, you bought it" to having to get race car insurance (10% of the value per race...usually only a pro team would do this with a very expensive car) to an insurance deductible (racing school series).

Keep in mind that you have to repair any damage you do on your own car anyway...just be sure you have an agreed value on stuff. It takes a LOT to "write off" a car...usually just the monocoque is destroyed and most of the mechanicals survive.

It's customary to ask for a deposit of up to $5,000 to make sure you can cover the expenses if they are incurred. You can also ask if you can help do the repairs to offset the cost if (when) that eventuality happens.

Again, the key is to be able to AFFORD it...of course, the upside to your own car is if you ball it up and can't afford to fix it right away, you can always wait, but I haven't come across any unreasonable crash retainers. And as others have said...you can find arrive-and-drive deals for just about ANY class and for sure this is the best way to start...concentrate on driving and decide after you've done it a bit if you want to commit to owning a car.

bioman

$1000 damage deposit, $16,000 maximum liability for a total loss, otherwise $60/hr plus parts. In 4 separate rentals (2 races, 2 DEs) I was damage free, fortunately. For east coast, there are a few places that will rent SMs. I've gone with DWW motorsports (Groton, MA), but Flatout motorsports (Marlboro, MA) has a bunch of rentals and I think Dave Delgenio rents SMs out of his new hampshire shop (Driven Performance). Those aren't near NYC but they go to Lime Rock for events.

nyc_qcar

a) If you plaster the name of your company on the car, i wonder if it is all legit tax deductable?

b) how many race weekends per year in (say) SM series are reachable with practicality from tri-state area? is it a season? (like april to october)?

c) if you do the rental thing, do you always get the same car or does it vary a lot?

I know I can dig these answers out from spec miata faqs and so on but it you guys are very fast and helpful.

bioman

a) don't know, doesn't apply to me

b) depends on how you define practical. From the Tristate you might consider these tracks in range: Lime Rock, NHIS, Watkins Glen, Pocono, maybe Beaverun, Nelson Ledges, Summit Point, and MidOhio??? Could you slog down to VIR???

With just Lime Rock, Pocono and NHIS I think there are ~8 SCCA regional race weekends you could attend in '04

c) you get what's available. Book enough in advance and you can probably generally get the same car each time. As long as you don't total it