Short track racing is rally times 10. If you've ever done a stage that everything works on, you're on the edge the whole stage. You finish out of breath, hands shaking and not an ounce of adrenalin left. In rally there are often too many straight aways that allow you to calm down for a brief period. Rally is fun but the adrenalin ebbs and flows. I would guess that RallyX will keep the old batteries charged pretty good.

Rubbing and bumping is actually fun. I'm sure there will be some sooner or later, won't be the end of the world. I've seen guys do massive damage smashing cones in a parking lot.

Supercharger and I'd probably run an automatic of allowed.

I'm considering converting to FWD for this....

Quote
Gravel Spray
The top cars are $400k yeah, but a 2wd car for rallycross is going to cost a hell of a lot less to build and run than a 2wd stage car

Why?

They have to be prepared to the same ruleset since they're both sanctioned by RA and use the RA rulebook? What's your thought process?

Ok I was wondering about this. It looks like you don't need road registration.

Quote
alkun
Ok I was wondering about this. It looks like you don't need road registration.

Closed course, no road miles, no insurance or license tags.

Still - not a "prep" thing, but that's an operational thing. And not a huge chunk of change when compared to the total cost of prepping a rally car.

Is anyone really bleeding over the $250 (guessing) it costs to put a tag on a car and get insurance for 6 months? 'tis but a rounding error in the grand scheme of prepping a car.

Quote
EricW
Still - not a "prep" thing, but that's an operational thing. And not a huge chunk of change when compared to the total cost of prepping a rally car.

Is anyone really bleeding over the $250 (guessing) it costs to put a tag on a car and get insurance for 6 months? 'tis but a rounding error in the grand scheme of prepping a car.

It isn't a huge expense but it is just another hurdle. No tags means no safety inspections, no smog inspections..no insurance can mean a huge savings for someone with a problem driving record. I know people who spend $250 a month for insurance.

Quote
EricW
Still - not a "prep" thing, but that's an operational thing. And not a huge chunk of change when compared to the total cost of prepping a rally car.

Is anyone really bleeding over the $250 (guessing) it costs to put a tag on a car and get insurance for 6 months? 'tis but a rounding error in the grand scheme of prepping a car.

Its actually a huge deal, for me at least. At least half the maintanance I do on my rally car is keeping those fucking turn signals working. Having to smog is a huge PITA, very tough if you want to make some cheap powar, esp. here in Ca. If there were say 3 or 4 of these races a year within 200 miles, and it'd be there for years to come, I'd make a car for it, for sure, and it would be killer! I dunno about the giant jump tho...

It would be easier to share a car with other drivers too. Only problem is you can't drive it to town to get milk.

Why do your turn signals keep failing?

I actually just don't work on my car very much.

Quote
EricW

Quote
Gravel Spray
The top cars are $400k yeah, but a 2wd car for rallycross is going to cost a hell of a lot less to build and run than a 2wd stage car

Why?

They have to be prepared to the same ruleset since they're both sanctioned by RA and use the RA rulebook? What's your thought process?

I believe you can use a standard road racing cage, which is about half the cost of a good rally cage.

One less seat

One less set of harnesses

One less Hans

No road tags

No road insurance

As I understand it, 6 tires will last you 4-5 events...on a 500hp car. A weak rally driver will use that many in a weekend, good driver 8-16 easy.

One set of brakes last many events even on a top car. Rally a fast guy will use many sets of brakes in one stage event.

Cheaper entrys

Most big team have less than half the amount of mechanics you typically see in a "pro" rally operation so you have in general fewer hotels, food, transportation.


I've seen the actual 2011 ERC budget of one of the top teams in Europe, it was close to $700k for 10 events and it had a lot of fluffy stuff in it that's unnessesary. One WRC event is more than $700k.

In talking to a range of guys in europe from grassroots types w/2wd up to Championship winners and pretty much anyway you slice it, it's cheaper. Keep in mind I'm not saying RX is better than a real rally, just cheaper overall.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2011 04:59PM by Gravel Spray.

^^ I guess I'll find out next weekend, but what are teams typically running for tires at these events? Rally tires? Tarmac? Cut tarmac tires? snow tires?

Quote
Jon Burke
^^ I guess I'll find out next weekend, but what are teams typically running for tires at these events? Rally tires? Tarmac? Cut tarmac tires? snow tires?

From what I remember reading, tire choices ran the range from street tires to road race tires to tarmac rally tires. The events in NJ were heavily (like really really) biased towards tarmac, so there's no guarantee that whatever was best there will be a good choice for Irwindale, Dirtfish, or PPIR.

Dave

http://www.avonracing.com/rallycross_page.aspx


Historically, Avon has been the top tyre.

I know Kumho makes a RX specific tire, as does Dunlop.

I've seen a lot of the cars run cut Michy or Pirelli Tarmacs too.

Quote
Gravel Spray
If I were to do rallycross I would build a car specific for it. I'd make it cheap as possible shell prep wise, no seam welding, minimum cage(but nascar door bars) and plop all the money into HP, diff, and gearing that would be suitable for a stage car swap.

Paint would be color of the week home depot 5 gallon "mix mistake" applied by $2 brush!

I was thinking the same thing. I'm probably going to bring my Civic to the Chicago Euro Rallycross event, but I was considering a new Honda shell since rallycross is a lot closer to road racing in terms of what you need with some added rally stuff.

4.9 final on OEM gears with Type R helical diff if I ever got serious into this. It wouldn't be anywhere near as involved as my EK build I did. Could easily keep the costs down. Could even just go out and buy a Honda Challenge H2-H5 car and be ready to go from the start with only adjustments for rallyx specifics.

Would need a lot less underbody protection as well. Could go with a minimal 1/8" skid plate in the front instead of 1/4". Really only need extra beef on the front for nose dives on any big jumps, but those all seem optional for 2WD.

Don't need an intercom, or dash/hvac, and all the little stuff.