Ok so I know that the rules say the car has to cost $500 but for some reason looking at most of the cars I have a hard time believing they cost $500. What is the real budget on one of these? I am about to get a free 283 V8 and I know where an old '50s Chevy is buried in the woods. So I was thinking the 283 plus the '50s body plus something new for the chassis equals winning. 2013 I am going to do a trifica of crap car.
There are a lot of things that are excluded from the budget. Lemons makes the the rules really clear and they're a short read.
Cage, wheels, tires, brakes, radios, are things I can think of off the top of my head that don't count against your budget. Also, I think that if you keep racing the same car, you'll have a value assigned to it at the end of a race so that you can fix it between races without being over budget.
There are people with way more knowledge than me that will chime in.
Sounds like winning to me, Add Seat to that list. Basically if it is safety plus suspension, wheels, tires, and brakes then it doesn't count.
I would suggest you read the rule sets. Typically Theme and Safety equipment are excluded (this includes tires, brakes, maintenance items.) In ChumpCar you're allowed to refresh the drivetrain as they don't want a bunch of leaks on the ground and they want people to be able to race.
ChumpCar requires that you bring eBay and Craigslist ads from the area and any receipts you might have. Also, the cars are inspected for safety and whether they meet the $500 limit. ChumpCar will expect documentation and good answers to the questions they ask. Lemons treats this as a joke where you can bribe the judges to get around any penalties (plus they'll penalize you just to mess with you, there's a reason they call it the B.S. Inspection) The limit is basically suspension and external engine parts, show up with anything other than worn out stock parts or hacked in take-offs from another vehicle and expect to have laps added.
The general rule of thumb to go off of is this:
"If I take the safety equipment, wheels and tires off the car and set it in my front yard, how much would I get for it?" If the answer is more than $500, then you should expect to be penalized unless you have iron clad documentation.
Also keep in mind that ChumpCar sometimes lets SCCA, NASA, etc. road race cars run with them as exception class cars. They aren't scored as they are just running for fun (Some endurance racers use ChumpCar to practice for things like the 25 hours of Thunderhill, etc)
Some of the racers do cheat (shocking I know), while others can't help but to make the car look nice even if they haven't cheated, simply because they can't stand to build a E36 M3 car. Bottom line, its about who can go the fastest for duration of the race and can prove they have a $500 car.
Chump uses AIV(average internet value) which is essentially the average of 10 ads printed off the internet from all regions of the U.S. Anything over $500 and you are penalized laps. Safety items are not in the budget. I believe brakes can be upgraded to twice the cost of oem. Items such as coilovers have an automatic value of $250.
Don't hold me to any of this, but the rules are on their forum and there is plenty of discussion on the interpretation.
Cheap car with safety gear realistically is going to cost you $3K+. The car we use was $300 plus another $100 or so for valves, bearings, rings and timing belt, so we only have $400+- in the car. Wheels were free, Curmudgeon and I built the cage for the cost of the tubing $350 or so off the top of my head. The race seat is out of the Abomination as well as the fire extinguisher. Tires are new, 6 the first year, and at least two for every event since. We do it as cheap as possible. It still costs pretty good money to run. The advantage is we split it between 6 drivers. Makes it fairly easy to swallow.
It is the cheapest form of W2W racing you can do. If you get a chance, do it. It's worth every penny.
A pro-built cage will run you around $1800 to 2000+ and is worth it considering the variety of "crap" that runs at those events.
Otherwise, focus not only on having a quick and reliable car, but also a good team. Try to practice driver changes, make sure everyone has a role and knows what it is and ensure there is a single person that is the team boss during the race (for longer races you'll need at least 2 to share the load and allow for resting).
Never run ChumpCar so I can't speak for their rules, way of running things etc. but I can say LeMons is a helluva lot of fun. Like Toyman says, it's hard to get any cheaper when racing W2W and it's been so much fun we are going back for #5 in March (we hope).
LeMons has it right about hunting a car: your best bet is a econobox hooptie which was used to daily drive kids to school and you bought it the day after school let out. You can certainly build something else as wacky as you want but it may not be your best bet for something that will finish 16 hours of flogging. If you go that route, allow yourself a year for beating on it at autocrosses, etc so you can find its weak spots before you get to the big show. It's disheartening to bust your nards, pay all that money and then have the car puke an hour in on the first day. And yes I saw just that happen. In fact, the first morning of or first LeMons while going to fill the car with gas we discovered that our T Bird had no 3rd gear, it would slip like hell and the engine would rev out of sight. We had to manually shift the autotragic between 1st and 2nd for two straight days, not to mention the V6 started playing cylinder roulette. Toyman and I try to forget the second year that we spent all our time working on the 351W we had swapped in. That swap had zero run time on it when we showed up.
Do NOT scrimp on the cage. If you know someone with a bender and expereence willing to work for beer, you are in good shape. Otherwise, figure ~$2k. Bolt in cages are acceptable but by the time you add the no-shi+ door bars and some serious floor pan bracing you will find yourself wishing you had scratch built it.
Brakes etc will depend on what you buy. Some cars have off the shelf pads available, some you are not so lucky. Our T Bird fell in that category. We manned up and bought some Porterfield R4E pads for the Civic, after two LeMons they still have life remaining which made them well worth the $160.00.
Well by the time I get round to build this, I will have probably helped build at least to cages/ roll bars.
What is the theme stuff all about?
Lemons, Go to their site and look at the galleries to see what's been done.
93EXCivic wrote: What is the theme stuff all about?
If what you mean is "Why is this theme stuff necessary?" then you might want to race Chump Car.
You don't need a theme to race or win at lemons. We don't have one.
The main difference between the two series is that Chumpcar is more about racing (small bumps, 2 wheels off, no problem). period.
LeMons is about semi-serious racing (NO CONTACT AND NO GOING OFF OR SPINNING!!!) AND having a party.
Let me sum up my experience: 5 races, 4 dnfs for blown engines and more money spent all around than if I had just club raced.
It may look like the cheapest W2W racing, but it isn't really cheaper than club racing, if you aren't there to win.
I did get a chance to try my hand at w2w racing and race with my buddies, some of whom just aren't going to club race.
Lemons is a great place to learn to manage traffic quickly.
Its cheaper when you consider how much time on the track you potentially get when compared to club racing.
The fact that your car broke down isn't likely an issue with the series, but with car prep or the car itself.
Lemons is a party where a race breaks out.
Chump is a race where a party breaks out.
Some of that is legit. Some is spectacularly pessimistic.
DILYSI Dave wrote: Some of that is legit. Some is spectacularly pessimistic.
Yeah - our total gas cost has hovered in the $500 range. We typically spend between $400-$700 per driver on a five person team for everything, more for the first race with a new car, like $800. The last race they won IOE and only paid net $2xx to race each.
DILYSI Dave wrote: Some of that is legit. Some is spectacularly pessimistic.
Agreed. Our Civic cost about $2500 for the first year, including tires and brakes (one set each), and theming and shirts. We did the cage ourselves, though, but also did a lot of budget exempt work to make the car as safe as possible (balljoints, wheel bearings, etc).
Other expenses we had were food and booze for the whole group, fuel for the tow vehicle and RV, and then fuel for the car. Our car burns about 4 GPH, so running a typical 17 or so hours of racing is 68 gallons, so $272 @ $4/gallon. We usually run the testing day beforehand so that is another $200 or so plus another tank or two of gas.
Every race after that is much less. Our second race last year, we did some minor re-theming, added more lightness, and did an oil change. The costs again were the entry fees, food, fuel, tow fuel.
This year we are doing some significant work to the Civic (adding a junkyard turbo setup and a 22 gallon fuel cell, plus we need new wheels as we broke a spoke on one last year), and we need to get new seats due to a rule change. We have two seats in the car as we use it for a lot of instruction for the newer drivers, but the cost won't be anywhere near what it was the first time.
mguar wrote:DILYSI Dave wrote: Some of that is legit. Some is spectacularly pessimistic.It's actually correct..
Dude. I'm on one of the winningest crap can teams in the country. I'm telling you from experience that you are wrong.
DILYSI Dave wrote:mguar wrote:Dude. I'm on one of the winningest crap can teams in the country. I'm telling you from experience that you are wrong.DILYSI Dave wrote: Some of that is legit. Some is spectacularly pessimistic.It's actually correct..
Our team has won more trophies than any other, even though we've never won an actual race. I agree, you are wrong.
tuna55 wrote:DILYSI Dave wrote:Our team has won more trophies than any other, even though we've never won an actual race. I agree, you are wrong.mguar wrote:Dude. I'm on one of the winningest crap can teams in the country. I'm telling you from experience that you are wrong.DILYSI Dave wrote: Some of that is legit. Some is spectacularly pessimistic.It's actually correct..
Damn, the only thing we ever won is "Most likely to leave in an ambulance." Still, I have to agree with these guys.
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