Lof8 wrote:Appleseed wrote: If it floats, berks, or flys, it's always cheaper to rent, than buy.Good advice. But since a DE car does none of those, your advice is to buy?
IME HDPE/PDX cars do tend to berkeley your wallet, so the above does apply.
Lof8 wrote:Appleseed wrote: If it floats, berks, or flys, it's always cheaper to rent, than buy.Good advice. But since a DE car does none of those, your advice is to buy?
IME HDPE/PDX cars do tend to berkeley your wallet, so the above does apply.
Forget about the car for a second. How close is the nearest track? How many of these are you going to do a year?
If it's a few hours to the track and you are only doing 2-3 a year then renting would make sense. Make sure you include everything including insurance and registration In your budget.
If your doing 6 or more events get a cheap little low horsepower car. You mentioned getting better and gutless wonders are the way to learn.
I've driven both ends of the spectrum and low powered cars are the way to go. At any given track day you'll see 4 or 5 of us in 100 RWHP cars 4 wheel drifting everywhere and going faster than people driving cars with 3-4 times the power. The other down side of the bigger faster cars is that they have more tire and as a novice you're not likely to truly get one consistently on the limit.
While we are on the subject of tires; do not do not do not slap R compound tires on the car for at least 7-8 events. Race rubber will cover up hack driving, if you're rough with the car on hard tires you'll know immediately.
Finally on the car; it's easy to fall into the road less travelled trap but the reality is you wandering in the desert, having to be rescued, ending up with a big bill that you can't pay and then landing in debtors prison. People are running Miatas with good reason. I've driven or raced everything from fast single seaters to Ferraris to 700hp Vipers and the most fun car to drive ever is a Miata. If I weren't vintage racing the Datsun it's the car I'd be running a Miata (my son has one which he will soon be using for track days). Once you've done a a coupe dozen events you can play with something different.
My .02 as always.
Tom
This seem like a good way to get into a dedicated track car.
If you want to drive super cars then running with someone like DriveExotic or Xtreme Xperience is the way to go. When you think about the cost of the equipment you could run all day long, a couple of times a year with one of those groups and not even come up to the cost of a down payment on one of the cars.
If you really want to improve your driving skills and get significant track time then a driving school that provides the car would be an excellent next step.
After that I think you need to decide what exactly your goals are and what it is you most enjoy about HPDE. Arrive and drive a few times a year is going to be cheaper than owning pretty much anything but if you want to be able to hit the track on any given weekend then you're probably going to be happier if you own something. If you're going to own something there's a very good reason why Miata is often the answer. They're extremely entertaining to drive, anvil tough and pretty easy on tires (which are probably the most expensive HPDE budget item).
anyone use xtreme xperience ? cars go/bad??
I can't answer for you nor can anyone else. We all have our biases and habits.
Let me see if I can help you decide.
Do you get tired of things in a relatively short period of time? Then rental is a decision I suspect you'll prefer.
If you tend to get comfortable with something and like the familiarity of the same thing? Ownership is going to be your answer.
One last consideration. If you or someone else damages something does it make you feel gut shot? Then Vintage racing is where you should focus. The basic rule is do no damage. That's what everyone who races with you feels. You'll spend nothing making it faster, updating it. Just learning how to extract what is there. Your expenses won't involve repair, just normal wear. I won some extremely big famous races on a tiny budget. Vintage racing I'd run a season or two on a set of tires without much if any degrading in lap times.
You can pick your group of fast cars or slower cars, production based, sports racing cars or open wheel race cars. With entry levels in any group below $10,000.
Pick the right car and appreciation is a real possibility. Yes vintage is welcome at HPDE
As an instructor, buy something that is slower but fun to drive. You'll be a better driver. My best students, without fail, have driven Miatas. My worst students always have high HP cars (Corvettes, Mustangs).
slow cars are a different experience around the track than a fast car (or so I'm told. I have a slow car only) -- so maybe try out a normal car sometime and make sure that's fun, too. May or may not be enjoyable for you? Stock mustang != F430
In reply to P3PPY :
Slow but a field of them. So you have many to race with.
Here's where a Miata is called for. You have others to compare yourself against.
in my day I started out with a MGTD and those T series were the Miata of the day. Cheap and plentiful where skill more than anything else determined your success
In reply to frenchyd :
I'm saying that before he gets into a mustang, e36, Miata, or whatever for TNiA (his suggestion- which is not W2W) then see how it feels, because right now he's enjoying the feeling of a fast car around a track by himself, but it may be underwhelming to do it in a slower car? Dunno, just throwing that out there.
I would say that the experience of the board, including many people who say "it's fun to drive a slow car fast", would say that he will be just fine pushing the limits of any speed of car, but it's a variable I didn't think had come up yet.
I understand your point. But he said he wanted to improve his skill.
That's like playing chess by yourself.
BTW, this thread is 6 years old. :)
Well then I certainly hope he's found his answer by now!
Klayfish said:Only because it's my drug of choice, I'll throw in crapcan racing. See if you can buy a ride in a crapcan race. You'll spend something like $500-$1000 for the weekend, but you'll get hours of track time, assuming the car isn't broken. You could easily get 70-100 laps over the course of the weekend for your money, and it's all the wheel to wheel action you can handle.
If you don't want to do that, then yeah, I'd either look into a cheap track specific car...they show up on CL from time to time, or rentals like others suggested.
We did 800+ miles at VIR North in Champ Car. It was the single best dollar per lap value ive ever experienced.
Car was $5000ish give or take and it could have easily been cheaper had i not screwed up a few parts orders as detailed in our build log.
We were so addicted to Champ Car that we signed up for two more events this year - 12 Hour in March at VIR South and the 8+7 Enduro's at VIR North(second time!).
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