So what's going on with the RA negotiations?

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mekilljoydammit
what am I looking to budget per weekend, 5k?

we are usually well under half that depending on how you add things up. Also, how many miles do you get at a track for a weekend? How does the cost per mile compare?

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-KTurner
Stomp down on the exhilarator and hold on to the wheel.

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KTurner

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mekilljoydammit
what am I looking to budget per weekend, 5k?

we are usually well under half that depending on how you add things up. Also, how many miles do you get at a track for a weekend? How does the cost per mile compare?

Not as many as a normal rally! I'd argue that a rally mile is a hell of a lot more exciting than a track mile.

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KTurner

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mekilljoydammit
what am I looking to budget per weekend, 5k?

we are usually well under half that depending on how you add things up. Also, how many miles do you get at a track for a weekend? How does the cost per mile compare?

Well, now watch what happens when you ask an injurneer to speculate as to (s)miles per dollar.

For what I was looking to build (rotary Miata in STU SCCA roadrace class if anyone cares; no this would not be what I would build for a dual purpose car) going by June Sprints times at Road America, between practice qualifying and race it works out to about 120 miles per day. Mostly we're at Blackhawk Farms, which is shorter, but maybe still about as many miles per day. They're both about an hour and a half away. Dad and I run with Midwestern Council, which isn't SCCA so entry fees are a lot lower - don't know offhand but I think on the order of $2-300 per entry. If the thing was really reliable, there's actually two different classes I could convince them to let me run per day; some weekends (albeit rarely) there's two race days in a row, or a track day on one day and a race day on the next. So if we're really really optimistic, some weekends there's potentially 4-500 track miles to be had; more often 100ish. Non-consumables cost is probably $500ish for one class on one day... not the true cost averaged over a season though, obviously.

Of course, before anyone else calls me on it, only a third of those miles would be at balls out wheel to wheel pace. Not going to get into an argument over which is more fun because that's hard to measure, but it does seem that it's a lot easier for rally 'consumables' costs to spike due to things like trees. One big advantage not tallied in raw costs is that roadracing seems like it has a lot less of a time commitment - we can drive down saturday night or sunday morning and be home by sunday night.

I note for the record that the realization of me missing a lot of rally events closeish-by in figuring out how many I could go to has me rethinking plans; a dual purpose car wouldn't be much less fun on track than the Miata. In the reality based world though, Ihave to finish a roadrace build and get my wife's back fixed first, but let's see.

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czwalga

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KTurner

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mekilljoydammit
what am I looking to budget per weekend, 5k?

we are usually well under half that depending on how you add things up. Also, how many miles do you get at a track for a weekend? How does the cost per mile compare?

Not as many as a normal rally! I'd argue that a rally mile is a hell of a lot more exciting than a track mile.

I'd agree x100 but go head and argue it.. Start a thread
Why is slindin' around on gravel with trees whippin' by a few feets away universally regarded as so much more fun than driving around some smooth 80' wide track with 7-8 turns again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and (pretty long thread title, huh?) again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again?

And that's just 70 times the word "again" which maybe is about how many laps you do on a weekend

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

At Road America it would work to about 30 laps; one class, one day. On the other hand, rally there's not other people in other cars trying to get through the same exact bit of track at the same time, so there's that; different sortsa things. Personally I want to do both, which is maybe optimistic of me but we'll see.

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mekilljoydammit
At Road America it would work to about 30 laps; one class, one day. On the other hand, rally there's not other people in other cars trying to get through the same exact bit of track at the same time, so there's that; different sortsa things. Personally I want to do both, which is maybe optimistic of me but we'll see.

"You cannot serve to masters"..._{some guy}

Well with some cars maybe you can....wanna guess which ones I think can do a "pretty good job" of doing both?

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

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john vanlandingham
Well with some cars maybe you can....wanna guess which ones I think can do a "pretty good job" of doing both?

Evo...just pull the restrictor and replace with retirement fund.

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john vanlandingham

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mekilljoydammit
At Road America it would work to about 30 laps; one class, one day. On the other hand, rally there's not other people in other cars trying to get through the same exact bit of track at the same time, so there's that; different sortsa things. Personally I want to do both, which is maybe optimistic of me but we'll see.

"You cannot serve to masters"..._{some guy}

Well with some cars maybe you can....wanna guess which ones I think can do a "pretty good job" of doing both?

OR...you can go my method and use a truck...it'll do rally, desert, hill climb, short course...gives me lots of options for playing in the dirt/sand...

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www.nismostuff.blogspot.com

Two masters sure... in a perfect world I'd have different cars for each. And people to build and maintain them for me. And a helicopter to get to events. But in this one, hey, one car to try to do both.

Which ones you'd recommend as doing both... I'm going to guess "Xratty"? Which I'd be tempted by if one dropped into my lap and I had a pile of spares. But, and I've looked, there's not any in the local boneyards.

I'm actually looking at the 2nd gen Mazdog RX-7... the squared off 86-91 ones. I'm a rotary perv and know how to make the motors live pretty well, have a bunch of spares sitting around, the suspension's pretty much the same as the Xratty so I can steal a lot of the same ideas, reasonably decent brakes with pads available in good compounds even if I don't bother to upgrade, I have a Supra lump sitting around, and I can actually have a good okayish close ratio box (Miata) into the thing for cheaper than I can get a 2.95 T5 into it, and with better 2-5th ratios. Front struts bolt on with ears, so that's easy, ebayable engine that I can run unopened and make enough horsepower with a table flat torque curve (or, well, rebuild) and ffs, I know where to get actual close ratio or dog boxes for the sucker if somehow it gets to a point where I'm not continuously reshelling. Wheelbase is a bit shorter than the Xratty but oh well.

I've hesitated making a thread or calling folks though; wife repair comes before car preparation in any life/financial planning, and making a thread talking about research on this or spending time yakking on the phone with people who have paying customers to help seems kinda silly. Maybe I should though, so as to not just thread hijack. Whatever!

If I was building a dual purpose car, I would put a E30 at the top of my list. Spec E30 looks like a great way to go track racing on the cheap, and with the limited prep rules in spec E30, you could probably afford to have both rally and track suspension set ups.

The problem wit the XR and say a volvo 240 is there is not a dedicated class for them.

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phlat65
If I was building a dual purpose car, I would put a E30 at the top of my list. Spec E30 looks like a great way to go track racing on the cheap, and with the limited prep rules in spec E30, you could probably afford to have both rally and track suspension set ups.

The problem wit the XR and say a volvo 240 is there is not a dedicated class for them.

Spec E36 would be a smarter move as at least around here (Denver) there are more e36 than e30 in the pick'n'pull. In addition, cleanish 325 e36 appear to be cheaper than an e30. The only potential issue with spec series is they may put limits on the cage which aren't ideal for a rally cage. I say may because I haven't looked into it very closely.

Dave

Be sure to compare the road racing and rally racing roll cage specs. I briefly looked into a building a dual-purpose race car several years ago and came to the conclusion that I'd end up with a rally car that could also be a heavy road racing car. The beefier rally cage had a lot to do with it. Not to mention that you'd need two different suspensions.

But, hey, if you're not hell bent on running up front in a road race, maybe it'd be ok for you?

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MikeColangelo
Be sure to compare the road racing and rally racing roll cage specs. I briefly looked into a building a dual-purpose race car several years ago and came to the conclusion that I'd end up with a rally car that could also be a heavy road racing car. The beefier rally cage had a lot to do with it. Not to mention that you'd need two different suspensions.

But, hey, if you're not hell bent on running up front in a road race, maybe it'd be ok for you?

This is a problem. Road race rollcage rules are pretty restrictive. As in you're only allowed 8 points of attachment to the bodyshell in most classes, including spec E30 or Pro3. I'm not even sure you could make a cage that was legal for both rally and Improved Touring based road race classes. I'd have to look at the rules more closely again.

Here's a couple of Pro3 BMW's I did. Total of 8 points of attachment to the shell. That's all you're allowed. And the NASCAR style doorbars would never fly in rally but that's what's preferred in racing.

Then of course, here's the Hintz brother's E36 M3 rally car. Something like 25-30 points of attachment to the bodyshell.

If you tried to do it you would have a lot of prep between events converting the cat from rally to race and you would still have a very heavy race car that would not be competitive. In rallying a good driver can make up for a lower spec car and still finish well. In racing the competitiveness of the car is a bigger part of the equation.

Thus why I was looking at what I was looking at; IT and the Spec classes do have cage restrictions, which is... I'm not even going to go into how dumb I think that is, but they do it as an alleged way to prevent people stiffening the chassis. They also have all sorts of limits on things like, oh, driveline and suspension, so it would be an asinine amount of conversion from one to the other, and neither would likely be that competitive. STU, the roadrace class I was looking at building for, is a lot more of a catch-all class though; rally cages would be perfectly legal even if some of the tubes were oversized, and it allows major suspension and driveline work, engine swaps, etc. I think with some planning I could have a car that's convertible between rally and roadrace by pulling the co-driver stuff, spares, skidplates, and swapping wheels, struts and rear coilovers.

Now, if I were a full, top-flight SCCA-championship-contending driver, the fact that it would likely end up a bit overweight might be more of an issue... but I'm not. At the club level where I run I'm pretty sure (I've done my research) it could be reasonably competitive if the driver's up to it... and honestly, it'll be faster than an IT car, which are catch-all'd into STU at the national championships and run midpack still.

Compromises, but hey.

This got sort of off topic. Maybe I should just make a new thread about this sort of thing while I'm at work.

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mekilljoydammit
This got sort of off topic. Maybe I should just make a new thread about this sort of thing while I'm at work.

As a Mega Moderator I thus banish you to the sin bin.
Just kidding. How often do regular conversations stay on topic. In my opinion, there is no such thing as off topic and threads should be allowed to go where they want to go.

Wasn't Billy Mann building his Honda to do dual duty? Wonder if he ever got any track time in before rolling it.

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Grant Hughes