Hello everybody. Due to my love of Racing and Economics, I always wonder what the cost of competing in certain race series, anywhere from the Nascar cup Series, Nascar KandN Series, to the Local and Regional Road Racing Series. I know the Nascar Cup Series is about 20 Million per year per team. If you like to give some numbers out on your team, that would cool. If you dont, that cool too since its a personal Question. Thanks.
You can make it to all the Sprint Cup races for Far, Far, less than 20 million. But you'll be at the back of the pack and have a fair amount of DNQ's. You can get to all the races for about $2-3M
Indycar you're talking about $2.5MM right now. Since so many costs are fixed due to spec parts and leases, that's pretty much the number. Penske and Ganassi spend a little more, but not a lot since they're running more cars and get more data by doing so, they don't really need to spend much more per car to run up front. Andretti I would say even runs an above average team with average or even below average expenses because of scale.
The Pro Mazda champion wins $590,000 which is apparently enough to guarantee him a season in Indy Lights. With the old car people would always float budgets of around $1M, but the word is that nobody ever really paid that, that was just them trying to get some sucker rich kid from Europe to overpay. Real budgets were apparently in the $600k-$750k range.
The USF2000 champion wins $381,000 which is apparently enough for a season of Pro Mazda.
I've heard of budgets of around $150000 for USF2000, but you can get to all the races for around $60000. The fourth place finisher this year, Anthony Martin, who ran with John Cummisky Racing, apparently did so with a team with only one employee besides the owner and driver, and would show up with a crew of just 5 on race weekends. So it's definitely possible to be competitive in that series on a 5 figure budget.
I have a friend who races Pirelli World challenge in B-Spec. You might have seen him on the cover of Sports car after driving his racecar from Texas to California and back for a race. The last I heard he was doing four races a year and was budgeting $1k a weekend over entry fees. He's just a guy with a job who wants to race in a pro series and is willing to do fewer races to do that.
Living 6 hours from my home track adds up to about $10k a year to run an IT car for a full season, after you own the car...
To build an Integra and win our class at a 24 hour chumpcar race was $11k...but we have a perfectly good racecar that needs brakes and tires and an oil change.
There was a Car and driver article about the cost to go to the Runoffs a few years back. I think it was in T2 car.
This gives you some idea of the costs of PWC:
http://www.world-challenge.com/images/misc/2013-14StateoftheSeries.pdf
http://blackflag.jalopnik.com/this-is-how-much-it-costs-to-run-a-professional-race-te-1724802119
http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a9165/what-does-it-cost-to-go-sports-car-racing-38144/
There are a lot of data points out there. Bottom line is it's a ton of money and without the sponsor package, these guys couldn't do it.
IIRC, Mercedes is spending $500M/year in F1, and it takes $100M to finish last (Manor),
Uhhh, a 24 Hours of LeMons budget is, well...let's see...
One roll of duct tape $2.99
One six pack of beer $7.99
Tub of bondo $13.99
Zip ties $2.99
JB Weld $4.99
Zip screws $3.99
Yeah, that about sums it up, give or take an extra package of zip ties. 
Klayfish wrote: Uhhh, a 24 Hours of LeMons budget is, well...let's see... One roll of duct tape $2.99 One six pack of beer $7.99 Tub of bondo $13.99 Zip ties $2.99 JB Weld $4.99 Zip screws $3.99 Yeah, that about sums it up, give or take an extra package of zip ties.
you forgot 140g of fuel for the car, fuel for the tow vehicle and I don't think you had any beef jerky on the list either.
With all of the upkeep, tires, transport, lodging, entry fees and so on - a competitive amateur club racer in a lower cost sedan type class (BMW, NASA, SCCA all have some form of spec or "near" spec type classing) running a full series will spend between $10k and $30k annually assuming a multi-season engine refresh cycle and no major crashes. This assumes the car is already in the stable.
I race mostly circle track with the odd chump race in the mix. My mini stock costs me $200 a year for club membership, $25.00 per race for a pit pass, about the same for food and drink, another $25.00 or so for fuel, and I spend around $1000.00 to $2000.00 per year on repairs and maintenance. A lot of that is tires at $125.00 each. They loose time with every race and my plan next year is to buy two per race day so another $250.00. But some of the cars are running the same tires all season and spending less on maintenance so it could be less. Totaling it up is $2000.00 to $3000.00 per season. It does help that the track is less than a mile from my house.
In reply to bearmtnmartin:
I doubt there are many cheaper options than that. Sounds like fun.
G. P. Snorklewacker wrote:Klayfish wrote: Uhhh, a 24 Hours of LeMons budget is, well...let's see... One roll of duct tape $2.99 One six pack of beer $7.99 Tub of bondo $13.99 Zip ties $2.99 JB Weld $4.99 Zip screws $3.99 Yeah, that about sums it up, give or take an extra package of zip ties.you forgot 140g of fuel for the car, fuel for the tow vehicle and I don't think you had any beef jerky on the list either.
You must be high class and race Chump. We just steal food from other pits. 
To give a serious answer, I'm part of a very large LeMons team, but one of the cars on the team is mine (the one in my avi). Keep in mind we bought it already converted to race use, so no cost to cage, etc... We've only run 2 races with it, and we're probably $6000 into it all told. Costs will be a little less going forward since that $6k includes cost of the truck and some things that should last a while, but it still ain't cheap.
I run a very small budget on my kart is right around $1k, but what I noticed, I think this is applicable to pro racing (really any racing series) is the rise in cost from year to year. Key would be projecting, for example the rule changes is consistently every year, class changes, tires, engine rules, and finally having money to spend when the competition gets better. Which could mean a new chassis, new engine package, new tools ect... What I have a hard time figuring out is how these pro teams stay afloat that are not factory efforts. Obviously a gentleman driver helps, but it almost seems as though you need to hit the lottery.
It's been a long time, but when we ran the old Speedvision Cup, I think, think, we spent something like $30k per weekend, not counting anything on the cars.
Nascar was a different animal all together. We had I believe a $1 million budget in the late '90's, but car damage was a lot more than other forms. There was always something to fix, even if you had a clean race.
No idea what current teams spend, but I would imagine it's much higher.
Running SCCA Majors, the cost per weekend is upwards of $2,500. This does not include major repairs, engine rebuilds.
In reply to bearmtnmartin:
I'm actually curious to learn more about roundy roundy racing now after hearing this. I've lived most of my life in central PA surrounded by it, but always poo-poo-ed circle track racing as the ultimate redneck activity (I've since come to realize I really am a redneck at heart) and because I like turning right too. But at that price, slidin' around in the dirt sounds pretty fun to me.
I've always wanted to try circle track racing, at least once. Most of those small dirt or asphalt tracks have an entry level 4 cyl class. I've seen some of the cars on CL for under $1k.
SCCA Club Racing a pretty reliable, well developed P2 sports racer. I'm lucky to be 1-1/2 hours from Summit Point, so the majority of the MARRS series races are close by.
MARRS single weekend:
For an away race add:
And this all assumes nothing major breaks. This year I glassed and paited the body after the first 2 rounds, maybe $300 in materials, my time is free. At UTCC a CV joint broke, like $100 from the UK w/ freight. At Pocono I grenaded a starter and holed an oil cooler. $225 for a used starter and a spare, $400 fora new starter gear and cover that should prevent it from happening again. Wrong oil cooler from UK will be $75 freight to return, correct oil cooler from Amazon was $375.
Full season was 5 sets of slicks at $922/set and a new set of wets, same price.
It's the most fun you can have, and a metric berkeley-ton of hours of work.
In reply to trigun7469:
I race a Dirt Oval kart. Our Series runs a "Pure Stock" class with a Spec Maxxis Els. It cost roughly $100 to $120 for a 30 lap Feature.
I wondered what a Trans Am 2 and an Mazda MX 5 team spends a season.
Your car is the radical?
In reply to Jaynen:
The "really old Radical I made everything on"
@motomorn, your cost breakdown is a reminder of why I ditched my D Sports Racer.
As to budget I run a pair of 3 day vintage races each year and 4 Saturday track days, for a total of 10 days on track. For 2015 my budget for the Datsun is just under $4000 (I keep every receipt) also note I amortize the cost of my two vehicle & trailer into that budget. Between 1989 and 2014 I ran used tires and pump gas. Once I broke into the top ten I started running new tires (manage to go the whole year on a set) and more highly tuned engine that requires 100 octane fuel. The extra cost of race gas and new tires raised the budget $895 for the year, this extra money got me into the top 5. The current track I run on is 60 miles from the house, when we ran at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway that is only 9 miles from home, this saved $320 in fuel. My budget in 2010-2013 was about $2500 a year. My income has gone up a big chunk in the last 8 years so I'm willing to spend more.
As for the price of a car build; way back in 1989 we spent $1800 total to build the Datsun. Today I could manage to build the same spec for $3600 for an 18th place car (25 car field), $5400 gets it to 12th, $6000 for 9th, $7600 5th (current build) and $11,000 would get me battling for the overall win.
On the Formula 500 for Autocross my budget is $150 per event; this includes running 6 events annually. This includes amortizing the cost of the car ($3500 thus far) over a 5 year period. I have only owned the car 1 year so I'll have to keep it 4 more years. The car is capable of FTD.
Tom
So I'm reading this thread, thinking "hmm, amateur racing is an expensive way to enjoy some track time."
Then I realized my own budget for club HPDE is consistently around $500/day done local and cheap, to get four 25-minute sessions per day.
It's worth it, but I never really focused on the fact that I'm spending deep-sea fishing money.
E36 M3, you guys actually add your receipts up? 
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