Race car buying, Part Two: Electric Bugaloo

My quest for a new-to-me track vehicle continues. You guys made some good points last go around, and my wife has echoed them - the main one being "start with the goal and work backwards dumbass".

I've come to the conclusion that I'm not ready to stop racing completely, so the goal is now to compete in NASA Super Touring 3 or 4 or the SCCA equivalent - good fields in my neck of the woods, reasonably fast, and can maintain/run it myself without absurd contortions. The Spec Miata dream also lives on but I struggle with fitting in such things without surgery on myself or the car.

Budget has been stretched to about 40k for vehicle, trailer and the inevitable replacing of stuff that's been hecked up by the previous owner.

I am trying to find as many candidates as I can but am struggling a bit. For trailers, it seems like everything listed in my neighbourhood is "new with crappy axles and no improvements at a doable-but-irritating price." Is there some magic source of  trailers beyond Fleabay/CL/Faceboook that I am unaware of? Do I just suck it up and buy new and fix it up myself?

Also difficult is finding a damn car. The NASA forum for NorCal appears to be  dead. CL has a lot of "Track day bro" cars but no proper racers that I have found. RacingJunk seems to have a grand total of two suitable cars listed within a thousand miles, one of which I am going to check out this weekend and the other one sold just before I called. Building a car is a possibility but I really like the idea of buying one that somebody else is taking a loss on. Any suggestions on other places to find one? Know any builders in CA that might be selling a customer car?

Any guidance and/or heckling is welcome.

If you subscribe to the magazine you may see something in the classified ads in the back of each issue.

Maybe the best bet is to go to a race and ask around the paddock. Someone is selling, thinking about selling, or knows someone who may be selling.

Bathrooms at Road America, and pretty much any track.  Also walk the paddock at any race, and read the papers taped to the trailers.

This is where I see all the fun stuff, and another vote for the back of racing publications. 

What cars are you interested in? 

I’m in SF Bay and race scca.

In reply to amg_rx7 :

I'm looking at a BMW M3 at the moment. I'm open to most anything RWD and common enough to have plentiful parts.

Check Racing Junk classifieds, plenty of BMW's on there for sale in that price range. 

So out East the NASA ST3/4 e46/36 field is really active. I'd suggest reaching out to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coordinators...there are some really fast cars you could get with your budget! Also, Bimmerforums race cars for sale forum is full of race cars, although you will have less of a sense for how fast the cars are. Gluck!

Dave M said:

So out East the NASA ST3/4 e46/36 field is really active. I'd suggest reaching out to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coordinators...there are some really fast cars you could get with your budget! Also, Bimmerforums race cars for sale forum is full of race cars, although you will have less of a sense for how fast the cars are. Gluck!

This is awesome information, thank you Dave!

You should consider the SCCA Prototypes.  Small light easy to fix and work on, easy to get in/out of, easy to tow.   

Just go to one of the races at thunderhill,  you can find them for sale.

In reply to nimblemotorsports :

This is also a good idea. We are going to hit up the next NASA and SCCA events in our region and see who's selling what.