One of the best ways to Race On The Cheap is sharing expenses with your buddies. If you don’t have any friends in this sport when you start, you will have some shortly. For the most part, racers are a pretty great group of folks, especially in the vintage race clubs. Lots of comraderie in the pits, and always a helping hand. A lot of beginners, and veterans alike, will split the cost of as much as possible with a fellow racer. You can share a garage or shop to store and work on your cars, share a two car trailer to cut down on transportation expenses, share tools and pit equipment. If you race the same type of car as your buddy, you can share the expense of your spare parts collection. You can split hotel rooms on the road (Cuffy doesn’t snore too bad), or sleep in a friend’s motorhome at the track (thanks Phil and Bryan). Potlucking and barbequeing at the track after a day of racing is cheaper than going out to eat, and the bench racing is always free. If you are doing longer races that require pitstops, you can swap pitcrew duties with your racing buddies on different weekends.
I have saved countless dollars (at least in the long run) learning how do things myself: rebuilding engines, mounting tires, fabricating parts, but I had to learn these skills somewhere. Some I taught myself by trial and error, or reading a manual or website, but most of these skills were past along to me by another sportsman. I don’t take-for-granted how much of other people’s time I have used up doing this, and I hope to be able to pass along as much during my years in this sport. Karma is a VERY strong force in this sport! I am positive that being a good guy in the pits and a clean passer on the track keeps the evil ARMCO barrier deities at bay.
Racing is expensive, no two ways about it. But there are ways to keep it manageable. A racing mentor of mine once past along two tips he received from his first racing instructor: “Don’t race on a credit card” and “Always be prepared to walk away from the weekend with nothing”. I always try to keep those pearls of wisdom in mind.
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