ChumpCar/LeMon Budgeting, How and Hell are you guys getting it DONE!?!

Hey guys, Racing is a passion I am trying to get back into (raced some sporrtbikes). Married with kids, blah...blah...blah... I don't have a lot of disposable income, but I want in! I am stunned to see some of the cars racing in Chump/LeMons I am wondering how and the hell guys(& girls) are getting these UNDER the $500 cap? Yes I know about safety equipment not counting. But I look on craigslist and the papers for cheap cars and am finding NOTHING compared to what I see racing in Chump/Lemon?

Cars I find out of reach, but see racing Chump/LeMons: Miata's, BMW's, Porsches, etc.

I'd love some advice on what I'm missing and how do I get this going. I'm not a mechanical MacGyver or magician, but am willing to learn. Yes I've been reading about the Lincoln on this site. But I need to hear it from others not working at a racing mag... I want to do this LEGITIMATELY and that is what I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. Are most competitors, legit?

I want this and APPRECIATE the help!

Cameron (in MN. where cars don't come cheap)

Safety isn't part of the cap.

ChumpCar $500 car + $7500 in cage, suspension, seat, harnesses, wheels, tires, etc is more like it. A little money for some, a little more elbow grease for others.

doorman wrote: Yes I know about safety equipment not counting.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Safety isn't part of the cap.

ChumpCar/Lemons works because it is a TEAM effort. You can build a competitive car, split between 4 people (including ALL of the safety equipment) for $2k each. If you do it cheaply enough, that $2k each might even get you to your first event.

Don't cheat. If you buy a car for Lemons, it pretty much has to be a crime of opportunity. Don't go looking for clean E30's or anything like that. Go to Craigslist and search anything under $400. S10? Perfect. Old Cutlass? Fine. Protoge? Neat.

Our team has prepped two. The first, a 66 Amazon, was $250, non running, no title. The second, 75 LTD had rusty everything, including roof, and was free.

Brakes for both cars were calieprs from some Mustang (we upgraded recently for the LTD to S197 brakes thanks to AngryCorvair), the set was $150, and even that is 'free' on the budget. The tires are free, and we spent next to nothing on them anyway. Get a car, throw a cage in it, gut the interior and get it running reliably.

Enter the race.

Have fun.

Don't worry about setting the field on fire, enough people do that literally and make a mess. Some people try to do that figuratively and end up pissed off at someone or something and they are not having any fun either. Just have fun.

Maybe throw some bushings on whatever you find, replace vacuum lines, crap like that. We added camber via some plates we drilled holes in. I think we cut springs a few races in. For the LTD, one guy drilled the shocks and added thicker fluid and welded a plug back on. How awesome is that?

HiTempguy wrote: If you do it cheaply enough, that $2k each might even get you to your first event.

Holy crap dude, we've never been north of %800 each for a five person team for Lemons. That includes the very first race when we bought a car, a cage and safety gear (everything - we had nothing) - this includes gas and food and everything.

There are deals out there to be found (abandoned in the back of impound lots, for example) but you're right, $500 contenders are few and very far between. The two prevailing schools of thought seem to be: find a true $500 car (Chevy Citation, anyone?) and make the best of it, or find a wrecked heap of a sports car and try to make it drivable.

$450 Pontiac Fiero - http://atlanta.craigslist.org/eat/cto/2809835709.html
The catch? The clutch is bad and its been parked for five years. In other words, a perfect Chumpcar.

Where do you live, doorman? We'll find you stuff!

Get a light weight car. We race a 78 malibu and an rx7. The rx7 is half the price to run.

Our malibu was 500 with a cage. We figured it as a 100 car with a 400 cage.

It's also amazing how quickly a car becomes really cheap when it's broken. Don't look for clean, nice, drivable cars, look for project cars perhaps even without title.

Also remember that at least Lemons and maybe Chumpcar (I am not familiar with Chump's rules so you'll need to verify that yourself) let you sell parts to offset the purchase price, to a point. A $1000 Miata can quickly become a $500 Miata that way. Every Spec Miata racer and his Miata daily driving cousin needs Miata parts. A luxury car, always a favorite at Lemons, has a really healthy used part market too. I've sold $400 in parts off of my Lexus LS400 that I'm still using daily!! I figured out that you could easily sell $1300 in parts off a '95 LS400 without effecting its usability as a Lemon. Probably lots more. And the judges love seeing older luxury sedans on track, and they're nice and fast when they're stripped of all the weight.

Some teams do just flat out fudge their purchase price. You can do that but it's not as fun or in the spirit of things.

Also if you have a bizarre enough car they won't care what you paid for it. Ie, Marc with the radial engined MR2, they told him any radial engined car is budget exempt.

tuna55 wrote: Holy crap dude, we've never been north of %800 each for a five person team for Lemons. That includes the very first race when we bought a car, a cage and safety gear (everything - we had nothing) - this includes gas and food and everything.

Am I really going to have to post the unamused face again?

First, a 4 person team. Boom, you just increased your costs by $400 per person (based on $1600 per person on a total team outlay of $8k with 5 people).

Second, I am in Canuckland. Cage prices here (even for a basic road race cage) are mucho dollars more than in the USofA.

Third, I said for a WINNING car. Anyone can prep a car for $4k, but it ain't one I'd want to be in. I mean, tires alone to WIN are going to cost you $1k of that budget. Brake pads are going to be $250-$500 for a 24 hour enduro. We were doing two 7 hour enduros each day. I just took out $1500 of your budget without batting an eye, and you talk about entry fee (another $500 or so) plus safety equipment (shoes, helmet, gloves, suit, nomex = minimum $500 per teammate). In fact, even though you are based in the USofA, I honestly don't believe you could do it for $4k including an event. I just literally spent your budget without buying a car or cage.

Sorry, my experience is also with ChumpCar. I really, REALLY dislike Lemons.

HiTempguy wrote:

tuna55 wrote: Holy crap dude, we've never been north of %800 each for a five person team for Lemons. That includes the very first race when we bought a car, a cage and safety gear (everything - we had nothing) - this includes gas and food and everything.

Am I really going to have to post the unamused face again? First, a 4 person team. Boom, you just increased your costs by $400 per person (based on $1600 per person on a total team outlay of $8k with 5 people). Second, I am in Canuckland. Cage prices here (even for a basic road race cage) are mucho dollars more than in the USofA. Third, I said for a WINNING car. Anyone can prep a car for $4k, but it ain't one I'd want to be in. I mean, tires alone to WIN are going to cost you $1k of that budget. Brake pads are going to be $250-$500 for a 24 hour enduro. We were doing two 7 hour enduros each day. I just took out $1500 of your budget without batting an eye, and you talk about entry fee (another $500 or so) plus safety equipment (shoes, helmet, gloves, suit, nomex = minimum $500 per teammate). In fact, even though you are based in the USofA, I honestly don't believe you could do it for $4k including an event. I just literally spent your budget without buying a car or cage. Sorry, my experience is also with ChumpCar. I really, REALLY dislike Lemons.

Well we did it, I promise. We also won. We race Lemons. We've won twice, actually. What's that you say? Laps? Who cars, we won index of effluency twice. That's the real race. Those other guys are nuts. We had a lot more fun, I promise you. Our Hawk brake pads were $150 for the pair and they've lasted three races on the Amazon before we wrecked it. They ahd three races left on them. I bought used suits at around $75-$150 per suit. Two helmets were $200 apiece. Shoes and crap were like $25-$50 apiece used. Heck, for some silly 'we're on fire' award we got a free set of gloves. Our tires were around $100 apiece and we used 4 each race, most of the time more than one race.

The whole idea of Lemons is to take the money out - stop trying to add it back in. If you don't like Lemons, it's your problem. It's, in my opinion, the defacto way to get on a real track for real wheel to wheel racing and have a blast doing it for hours at a time with a bunch of friends.

OP, I feel your pain. Was in the same boat as you. 3 young kids, blah, blah. Hadn't raced in years, dying to get back in.

If you want to do your own team, as others have said, having several others in with you is a help. Search CL, you'll see stuff pop up. I've seen several cars that were designed to run on local dirt short tracks. They've got a cage and all, and sell for around $500, maybe less. Finding a car with no title = cheap.

Other thing you can do is try to find a local team already established that's looking for help. Just this year I joined up with a local team that had run the past several years. Having a blast and will be running my first event in April. Still isn't "cheap", at around $800 + any safety equipment you need. But that's they way the cost is.

My experience much more closely resembles Tunas than hitempguy.

Find a car, make it safe, run it, fix what breaks, and you will have a fairly cheap good time.

$1000 for tires per race? Seriously? We run Star Specs and get at least 2 races out of them, so that is about $250/race at most, and that includes running them in testing day.

Hitempguy, why are you so butthurt over lemons? Did Jay or Phil pee in your cornflakes or step on your puppy!

I forgot to add, my kids are 3, 2 and 8 months. My team members are the only reason this thing is getting done. They are really good guys. Ever find someone where you can work on one end of the car and they can work on the other? That's your new teamate. With lemons, anyway, you'll be working on the car - a lot. A good mechanic can sometimes improve your lap times more than a great driver would.

Don't do the "$400 car without a cage even though I paid $800" stuff - the judges hate that.

My opinion if you have a team or you really like fabricating Lemons or Chumpcar seem hard to beat but if those don't describe you, I would suggest getting a used SCCA or NASA race car. I have seen Improved Touring cars for go fairly cheap and by the time you build a Lemons or Chumpcar, one of these won't be that much if any more. Not hating on those series just suggesting an alternative.

93EXCivic wrote: My opinion if you have a team or you really like fabricating Lemons or Chumpcar seem hard to beat but if those don't describe you, I would suggest getting a used SCCA or NASA race car. I have seen Improved Touring cars for go fairly cheap and by the time you build a Lemons or Chumpcar, one of these won't be that much if any more. Not hating on those series just suggesting an alternative.

Interesting thought. For both cars, we fabricated the brackets to hold the very non stock calipers, cut springs, modified shocks, welded brackets to mount double swaybars. We even put the cage in the first one ourselves. This includes the "easy" stuff, getting the motor in shape, fuel/brake lines, wiring the kill switches etc.

$400 '88 Camaro, no engine. http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/cto/2864080085.html

$350 Diesel Rabbit, ran when parked (10 years ago) http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/wsh/cto/2858044313.html

$300 Geo Metro, needs some transmission work, as it doesn't have reverse. Reverse? berkeley Reverse! It's a race car! http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/cto/2852663950.html

$400 Civic Wagon, needs a new radiator and some fender-bender damage repaired. http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/cto/2850713024.html

$400 '95 Buick Skylark- http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/dak/cto/2831930781.html

$400 '90 Corolla Wagon, needs transmission. http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/cto/2778755916.html

$400 Suzuki Sidekick- http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/dak/cto/2807468614.html

$400 '99 Escort- http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/dak/cto/2780350326.html

$300 S10- http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ram/cto/2799914633.html

$375 '86 Chevette- http://stcloud.craigslist.org/cto/2849604455.html

Here's 10 listings under $400. Get moving!

For Lemons, I'd rock the Sidekick. For Chump - probably the escort. Can't go wrong with that list, really.

Changed my mind:

$250 Hornet http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ram/cto/2812691128.html

Oh I see. I refuse to make this a Lemons versus ChumpCar discussion.

Nonetheless, your attitudes perfectly reflect the difference between the two series. Which isn't a bad thing. It really depends on if the OP wants to have a "good time" or wants to "race".

I have no doubt the cars can be built in a good budget (I've heard that it's an honest $2000 on top of a $500 car for wheels, tires, brakes, cage, seat, belts, & repairs but that it will be good for a season unless you wreck/go boom), my issue is with the safety gear. (Not that I don't think used is good, it's fine).

It's just there's so much contact at all of these races (and rolls, and fires, and flips, etc) that I would want the best safety available. That means SA2010 helmets, HANS devices, safety nets in the car, GOOD cage, fire system, etc, etc). Having never w-2-w raced (outside of a dragstrip), I own none of these. That means even sans car (so joining an established team) I would need to spend an honest $1000 in personal safety gear to play.

That's 4 full years of autocross for me.

(Doesn't mean I don't want to do it though!!!)

Javelin wrote: It's just there's so much contact at all of these races (and rolls, and fires, and flips, etc) that I would want the best safety available. That means SA2010 helmets, HANS devices, safety nets in the car, GOOD cage, fire system, etc, etc). Having never w-2-w raced (outside of a dragstrip), I own none of these. That means even sans car (so joining an established team) I would need to spend an honest $1000 in personal safety gear to play.

I totally apologize for post-whoring this thread. Here are some point to consider:

We laughed as we installed the fire extinguisher. If we were on fire (and we have been), we're getting out. We're not using the thing unless we're trapped. No windows or back window at all makes that hard to do. I suppose it's possible to get in a bad enough wreck at lemons to be trapped or knocked out, but it hasn't happened yet, ever.

The HANS thing occurred to me, and that's expensive.

Safety nets are cheap.

The good, professionally built cage in the LTD was $1100 with the seat.

If you have a tubing bender a cage is just the cost of DOM, roughly $5 a foot around here. You could have a really good cage for $300 plus a hefty dose of blood and sweat.

As for safety equipment, I think everybody should get that stuff anyway. If you ever want to try more serious racing you'll need it. Things like a Hans can be shared among the team to also defray costs. Helmets too but those get yucky inside while endurance racing.

I have know experience with either series, which is more "good Time" which is more "racing".

If I was trying to do this I'd look for cars with title issues, rebuilt, salvage, no title whatsoever really craters the value. copart.com has lots of cars with title issues that can be had for cheap.