How much does it cost to rallycross?

So I am 18 years old and think rallying is one of the best sports in the world. I have a Volvo 240 that I'm trying to build into a rallycross car but I'm wondering how much it really cost per year to rallycross? I have the car already but it could use about $400 in maintenance. So how much does it cost to maintain, race, and any other costs per year to SCCA rallycross?

I know it all will very with everyone but I'm looking for a estimate because I'm on the bubble whether to build my car into a modified rear wheel drive rally cross car or sell it. Another option would be get a new car maybe fwd (neon, jetta, focus, golf) but I just love getting the back end out. Just give some opinions and thoughts. Thanks guys!

Without an annual membership, events around these parts be $35 ($25 w/ membership). You don't have to modify your car to rallycross if it can take a speed bump without disintegrating. Your maintenance items will include tires, begging a tire shop to remount your de-beaded tires, weird dirt-brake issues, and potentially blowing a shock or three. Working shocks are apparently optional.

Rallying and rallycross aren't the same, but rallycross is the most legal fun you can have learning to drive dirt. If you're comfortable wrenching on your car and don't mind if you flip it (if so, add a windshield and a radiator to the bill), you're set.

That greatly depends on how serious you are. A Subaru or Neon driven sanely (be kind when shifting, no full power at high steering lock which breaks CV joints) is pretty much an anvil - keep air in the tires and keep oil and coolant in the engine and they just work.

The RX-7 of awesomeness is... not that much of an anvil. It's exactly a little more fun than the difficulties in keeping it mobile and competitive, which is why I keep feeding the beast. I try not to add it up because then I start rationalizing buying an Evo as a way to save money. (I think I've already done that thread...)

But then AWD isn't as fun to drive. And if I put together an Evo that was as fun to drive in the visceral-feeling sense, it'd be something that would still be constantly eating transmissions and diffs and stuff, only it would also be killing turbos and exhaust valves and other stuff because antilag.

From what I've gleaned, a bone stock miata is a damn good rallycross option.
As well as being the answer to most anything.

In reply to jhockey4:

It's been a while, but in the couple of rally crosses that I entered, all I did was put gas in my daily driver, air up the tires, and pay the entry fee. Somehow I ended up beating all of the street cars (close to 80) and half of the rally cars in my first event. I got a bit lucky in that the conditions just happened to suite my car and more aggressive driving about perfectly, despite lack of preperation. At the next event, different conditions and a huge helping of overconfidence put me somewhere around mid pack.

Don't worry about the car too much. Just have fun. Get some expirience, compete in some events with what you have, then decide what you want to do about the car.

Here is what I would do if I were you:

1. Get a set of snow tires of Craigslist. Put 40 psig in them.
2. Get a set of KYB Gas-A-Just for the rear and KYB(?) inserts for the front.
3. Get or even better borrow a helmet.
4. Pay your entry fee.
5. Go run the damn thing in stock rwd (SR).

Did you have fun?
Yes - then over time, get some Bilstein's, get some rally tires, throw a turbo on it (+T) and have more fun.
No - sell it

I am good at scrounging things, so I have run on rally tires but never paid for them.

I used to pay about $50 to enter, $75 in Gas (I am in Canada and its a 3 1/2 hour drive to the venue), and anything I broke I could normally get fixed at the college where I work. I could run a whole season on $500-$750. My helmet cost me $150 but I bought an SA rated one. M class helmets are much cheaper.

If you are doing Detroit area events you don't have to worry about beating up the car and you can run all season tires or snows. $40-50 per event and whatever gas and food expenses you have.

The irony: Both times I took my Volvo to a Detroit rallycross, it broke. First time it broke a strut (it was rusty) and the second time it broke a brake hose (possibly a side effect of the strut breaking three months earlier)

I encounter more and harsher bumps on my drive to work than I have ever encountered at ALL Detroit rallycrosses I've ever entered combined. Running on horse tracks and circle tracks grants them that luxury. Because of the limitations thereof, the sources also tend to be sinuous and not very fast, so power is a bit pointless too. And the ground conditions favor autocross tires more than rally tires, so that is another thing you don't need to worry about.

OTOH I encounter more and harsher bumps on my drive to work than I encounter at a National Trail rallycross... I take sick delight in not slowing down for anything when I have some doofus in an SUV tailgating me. They stop tailgating after the first K-WHAM

Yeah, depending on what car you pick and how you drive, it can be very cheap. I haven't had any kind of broken part in 4 seasons on my car. Only car expenses for me are parts to make it faster and tires (but our gravel venue kills tires fast....a softer surface won't cost as much in tires).

Also, your volvo can be fairly competitive if you drive it well. We had a stock-class 240 bump up to PR this weekend and though he finished 4th (behind an e36 and two e30s - though the class-leading Miata was out with a breakdown), but his raw times were very close to the real PR cars with rally tires. He just had a lot of cone penalties.

A 240 can hold up to the beating. Just run it how it is, and upgrade as you can afford to and as you learn how to drive it. Best go-fast mod is the cheapest: driver improvement.

irish44j wrote: Yeah, depending on what car you pick and how you drive, it can be very cheap. I haven't had any kind of broken part in 4 seasons on my car.

So I shouldn't feel nervous about coming down to see what you guys do down there, then?

I didn't realize that you had it so... low-maintenance.

Thanks for replying so basically what I gathered is just try rallycross and if its not for me then sell the car. I guarantee I will fall in love with it. So what is the deal with helmets? Do I have to buy one or can I borrow one at the event?

Also how strong does the clutch need to be? I need to get a new one soon just don't have time right now. Last thing I want to have happen is show up at my first event and end up blowing out my clutch.

I just autocross, I haven't been able to rallycross yet. I fairly sure that they will have loaner helmets for new drivers, at least if they're a well prepared organization. Since you're so young, I would suggest you wait a year before trying to build the car up. You don't want to buy performance parts for it, and end up being a person that likes to switch up cars every few years to try something new. Plus, you will need to do more events to improve your driving skills before buying go-fast parts. If you want to sell the car because of $400 in needed maintenance, that's a relatively small amount of money to fix it, especially for it's age.

The clutch needs to be strong enough to operate properly. Standard clutch parts are good enough to be raced on and driven hard without automatically breaking apart. If it's slipping, replace it first. Breakdowns at race events suck (I'm an expert at that ), especially if you make a long trip to get there.

Oh, and since you're so young, I would recommend doing 2 rallycross events, even if you don't like it. Being able to control a drift is a good driving skill to have young, even if you don't/aren't able to use it on a daily basis. It can help you be a safer driver, which is invaluable.

If you can get it from neutral to first, and then from first into second, and all the glory that is your 2nd gear makes it to the wheely bits and not the clutch bits, you're good. You really shouldn't be shifting too much or too hard unless you're legitimately a fast driver. There's no reason to drop the clutch at the start and you should focus more on lines and weight transfer at your first event; work out the shifting later!

Mr_Clutch42 wrote: Oh, and since you're so young, I would recommend doing 2 rallycross events, even if you don't like it. Being able to control a drift is a good driving skill to have young, even if you don't/aren't able to use it on a daily basis. It can help you be a safer driver, which is invaluable.

I had serious trouble at the first autocross this year because my last two events were on ice or dirt respectively. I managed to top 1/3 the field drifting and tank-slapping my way around the course because I forgot how to drive normal.

Driving an auto cross is normal ?

• Entry fee - $40
• Fuel - $80
• Coffee and Gatorade/Powerade: $20 (WTF Gatorade 28oz bottles???)
• Noshables: $20

So, er, there was my expenditures for today's rallycross.

AND IT WAS TOTALLY WICKED

I don't think I broke anything. Previous event was more or less the above plus $400 to put the car back together.

(this post was edited to add the link after the video finished uploading0

It's on my list, but my 2 local SCCA regions don't host any events.

My day was:

$40 entry
$30 or so in gas
Foods and stuff
Several hours of mildly stressful towing with a Volvo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuAR-hqRjmI

In reply to Knurled: Gatorade makes 28 oz bottles to make more $$. It's the way of the world. They also changed the shape of those so people would notice less if they don't look at the label.

Knurled wrote:

irish44j wrote: Yeah, depending on what car you pick and how you drive, it can be very cheap. I haven't had any kind of broken part in 4 seasons on my car.

So I shouldn't feel nervous about coming down to see what you guys do down there, then? I didn't realize that you had it so... low-maintenance.

I'm not saying nobody breaks things, but in 2 seasons at that venue I can only think of 1 or 2 cars that left on a flatbed (a 944 that blew up its radiator, but not because of the venue, and Nick's e28 who broke a c-clip on a bilstein that was installed badly and couldn't get another one locally of course). All in all, it's not rough on cars, especially since the surface is slidey. We almost never see debeads. Most car casualties are because they were "just bought" by people who didn't know they already had problems, and stuff like that.

I mean, it's still rallycross but we do our best to make courses that aren't blatantly going to damage cars (except late-model subaru front clips, that is).

Honestly, you'd probably do great at our venue. We have wide-open courses that cars with good power can really take advantage of and lightness doesn't really buy you much, since they're not terribly "tehnical". Ironically, I am much better on grass and tighter/more technical courses like you guys run in Ohio (which I rarely get to run on), so I am always jealous watching your and Evan's vids......

Tighter and technical? You must be looking at some other peoples' videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD9w_sS_Bv4 Nice fast and flowing. Not SUPER fast (I personally was seeing maaaaybe 55mph in the "ohberklift" parts) but certainly no technical.

Unless you're looking at the Roos' Farm or the old Smoke & Mirrors videos... now there you get some tight technical stuff.