full year worth of track events (hpde) ???

I did a few events a few years back and loved it but do to certain circumstances could no longer continue it but now being in a better place i would really like to get back into it.

Before I dive in and purchase myself a nice low budget honda im curious to see if this is economically feasible for me. So has anyone ever kept a spread sheet of costs for say a season of track events going outside the realm of just entry fee costs but into fuel, parts, maintenance, hotels, beer etc??

thanks guy

 

How many events is a "full year?" Every other weekend? Also depends where you live, as in Cali the tracks are available year-round. If the NY in your location is accurate, figure late April - early November. At one event per month (reasonable), that makes 7 events. Roughly $350/event these days, that totals $2450 in entry fees alone.

Before going farther, is that already out of the budget?

 

yeah i should have gotten into a bit more detail..7 events is right in-line with what I was thinking and $2450 is good so far..

 

Do you have a place to stay or are you going to be in a hotel? Are you driving the car to/from the track or do you have a tow vehicle? Are you planning to run street tires, or will you run R-comps? What about brakes and other consumables? It really depends on the car you drive, how hard you are on consumables, and other factors.

$2450 just covers entry fees as noted. The actual cost would be much higher, but it all depends on the already mentioned factors.

 

These are the type of things im looking to see if someone documented..

 

Sure, there's tons of documentation, but it all depends on the variables. Help us out here a little.

 

Does this one rank up there with the "how high is up" rule?

tires, brakes, fluids, hotel, food, drinks, fuel too and from the track.
spare parts...

Are you bringing anyone with you? Count that along with your costs.
Emergency trips to wallmart for tape, rachet straps, or some beef jerky.

It can vary.... so you cant really put an actual cost number per event.
Generally for me its about a 1k weekend and thats with a crew of 4.

 

also driving to whatever track(distance). food and stay(length). etc.

for one weekend in that stuff you could spend easily 200 dollars. *thinking of my trip to expo*

gas-100ish
hotel- ~60 for 2nights with a huge discount.
food-probably get away with 30ish.
etc- ~50 in random energy drinks and food on the drive up and back.

 

More standard pricing would be:

~$60-70/night for hotels
~$20-30/day for food and drinks
~$30/day in gas for track use (not counting gas consumption getting to and from track)
Tires are totally dependent on car, so are brakes.

Minus consumables, figure $240/weekend for one person in necessary costs. You could plan better and make that cheaper (or plan worse and make it more expensive). That adds $1680 to the overall budget, bringing it up to $4130. At least one set of tires and brakes would add a minimum of maybe $900 ($400 brake rotors and pads, $500 set of tires)? So the new total is $5030, assuming nothing breaks.

 

I think maybe i confused everyone with what i was asking...I was just looking to see if someone ever kept record of their track expenses for a season as like someone keeps receipts of auto repairs done on their car...Im completely aware this will vary from car to car/person to person/day to day but would give someone a good starting point for budgeting something like this.

 

How is any of the above posted information not a direct answer to your question?

Yes, people keep receipts. See above.

 

there is two answers right there. 1k a weekend time 7 equals 7k. depending on your parts it will go up. i put tires and brake pads/fluid on my sedan last year which ended up being around 600. this year the hatch well i dont want to know what ive spent.

it.s good you are planning a budget but i think you are looking way to deep into it because random costs will jump up out of nowhere. like a quote ive heard before. if you have to ask the price than it.s too expensive.

 

Overall its a varying thing. You can get a general number but to count it down to the penny I dont think most people are doing just that.
We are club racers for the most part and not a professional team where every penny is counted.
We do what we have to to get through the weekend.
Sometimes you spend more sometimes less.

Like i said its one of those "how high is up" things.

BTW 60-70 a night is great and i dont mind staying in a cheaper hotel.
Its the wife who if given a choice will spend the money on more nicer accomodations.
In the long run I am gonna have to invest in a 30 ft or longer 5th wheel toy hauler.
The initial cost is high but when you look at the cost of food,and overnight accomodations.
A 5th wheel makes sense.
Im not looking forward to the cost but in the long run its gonna pay off with being able to sleep at the track and cook there too. Plus if you seen some of the trailers the so cal guys have... Like mansions on wheels.

 

Because its all subjective and from memory, no one has to yet to say the spent X amount of dollars during 2009 and if you would like I can forward you my spreadsheet...

thats all im asking..if no one has it thats cool

 

kiwi or renan might be your best resources on that one. and like stated before they are club racers and you are hpdeing so their budget is going to be higher.

 

and yes it is all subjective so someone.s spreadsheet isnt going to be exact or close to your outlook.

last year i spent about 600 in parts. 60 in an alignment. 350 for the event. 15 to camp. like 30 at walmart. and about 100 in gas to and from. 3 hr trip. probably around 40 is bs gas station money.

total 1195.

 

It doesn't really matter, does it? I would expect someone else's expenses down to the penny really isn't going to help you get any closer than +/-20% from what you'll spend. Not to mention the fluctuations in fuel costs, hotel costs, entry fees, etc from region to region.

I wish I could get my costs that low. The hotel costs sounds about right, if I'm splitting with a friend. If my wife comes, it's a bit higher. Also, it seems like I always go out to a nice restaurant with track friends on Saturday night, so the food cost is quite a bit higher. I also go through about 20 gallons of gas at a minimum on a track weekend.

Another thing to consider, like everyone has been saying, is how hard your car is on tires and brakes. I can probably get away with a set of pads for 7 weekends (MAYBE), but no way would I get 7 weekends out of a set of tires. Also rotors and fluids are consumables as well. IIRC, I figured $1k a weekend is about right between car/tow vehicle consumables, entry fee, food, and hotel.

If you add a trailer and tow vehicle into the mix...

 

In 2009, on average, with the assumption that I already own the race car, tow vehicle, and trailer and nothing broke (i.e. only routine maintenance), and I do all work myself (alignment, oil changes, brakes, etc.), and I camp at the track (free!):

I spent $600-700 for a single day event
and $900-1100 on a full weekend event

However, if s&*$ brakes, it gets expensive. So far in 2010 (1 event) I have averaged over $3000 (I blew up my tranny, parts are expensive....)

 

Really? For me it's the reverse. I've been getting 1200 track miles to an NT01, and more like 2000 to an RA-1, but only about 500 track miles to a set of front HP+ pads.

I keep track of how many miles I get to those parts, and I know roughly how much they cost, so...

Gas $3.00/gallon for 9 track miles = 33 cents per track mile
Front brake pads about $100 per set for 500 track miles = 20 cents per track mile
Rear brake pads about $50 per set for 1500 track miles = 3 cents per track mile
Front brake rotors about $100 per set for 800 track miles = 13 cents per track mile
NT01 tires $520 per set for 1200 track miles = 43 cents per track mile
RA-1 tires $520 per set for 2000 track miles = 26 cents per track mile

So my cost just for gas, tires, rotors and pads is 95-112 cents per track mile. I probably average about 250 track miles per event, so that's $238-280 per event for gas, tires, rotors, and pads. And that doesn't include any labor if I pay someone else to mount/balance the tires or do any of the other work.

There are a lot of expenditures that don't vary by track mile. I'll flush the brakes once per season, and then there's all the routine scheduled maintenance, and unscheduled repairs. How do you divide them up by track miles? It's virtually impossible.

There are hotel costs, which depend on how many nights I'm away. Food costs, although I eat food at home, too. Gas and tolls for getting from home to the track, and for local mileage between the track and the hotel. You can figure all that stuff out, but it's going to vary depending on the track.

Basically you can figure out a lot of the costs for specific events, but allocating "overhead" expenditures like the general maintenance of the car and unexpected repairs is a bit of a crapshoot.

Bottom line, if you total all the costs up, you're probably going to think about not doing the events and how much money you can save.

 

i use USED R comps (free), almost exclusively, and have my own tire mounting equipment (which pays for itself by me using it for other people)

when i instruct or staff the event, it doesnt cost me anything/much

its took years to get there, and CRAPLOADS of work.....

used to cost a TON.

 

I personally would not use HP+ pads on the track. They're not made to take that kind of heat. I bet if you changed to a pad made to handle a higher level of heat would last longer.

I use Hoosier R6 tires, which likely wear more rapidly than most other tires. I could probably get 1000 miles out of a set of Hoosiers, but that's only 3 weekends or so for me.

The last set of pads I used were Cobalt XR2s.

I'm hoping to make a race in June where I'll be using R6s again (larger size) and Hawk DTC70 and DTC05 pads.

 

Depends on how expensive tires and brakes are for your car. I did 8 HPDE's in the summer of 08 and went through 3 sets of 275/40/18 tires, and 3 sets of brake pads. Smaller tires are almost always cheaper, so it may end up saving money to invest in a cheap set of smaller wheels than whatever you currently have.

You can also try sleeping in the car or camping to save money on hotels but it's still gonna drain your bank account. 8 HPDE's and 4 autocrosses in one summer ended up costing me about $5k, and make sure you budget for mechanical failures and damage from any possible off-track excursions. Unless you're running in HPDE4 and driving like an *** you don't run the risk of car-to-car collisions, but getting HPDE insurance might be a good idea.

 

Do any tracks around you do one day open track type events? The track closest to me does "fast fridays" that cost $99 for a day, and they also have half days (afternoon). Something to look into to possibly do in between full on weekend HPDE type events.

 

Only big problem with open track days (for noobs) is that they can develop bad habits without the assistance of an instructor. For an experienced driver, open days are fantastic.

 

True. But I prefer to use the same pads on the street as on the track, without major street downsides like squealing, and I'm willing to trade off pad lifespan and braking power in exchange.

There are always tradeoffs to consider. For example, I'm sure there are lots of folks who use track-only type pads, but use street tires (Star Spec, RE-11, etc). This is why you have to figure out your own costs, not use someone else's.

tru dat.

I didn't mention registration fees above. I am an instructor at most of my events; there's no fee for instructors on Saturday-Sunday, but many of them offer lapping to instructors on Friday, usually for a payment in the $75-150 range. One more reason that you need to figure out your costs for your own events, which may be different from what others pay.