How do you pick? Here I am sitting at my laptop and there seems to be quite a good number of good, fairly well developed IT and other cars out there for sale. How do you decide which one to go for? I've taken the time to look around and see how much the consumables cost for various cars, rotors, pads, hubs, tires. The cost of an engine refresh and miscellaneous bits. I fully accept the fact that I'm going to have to do some personalization to whatever I decide to go for, seat, wheel, guage setup etc.

Or am I making this all too complicated and just pick one that I like?

Thanks for your help, insight.

 

(Resisting the urge to say "just buy mine" here...)

Depends largely on what's important to you. Do you want a Honda Challenge car? Do you want a car that can do both HC and IT? Do you want reliable and not quite as fast, or real fast but might blow up tomorrow?

I would suggest that you look at the safety equipment first, as that will A. save your life, and B. is expensive, and C. is doubly expensive to undo and then redo "right" (ask me how I know). I'd say the cage is the most important thing I'd look for - if it's got a crap cage in it I wouldn't bother.

After that, is the suspension sorted? Was the car well cared for? What's its reliability record? What expensive, hateful things will it need to work right? What things will it need to run up front if that's what you want to do? I'll use my car as an example. Apart from its recent appetite for driver side outer CVs, the thing just keeps on running. It's got a LOT of track miles on it and the drivetrain is still solid. Now is it a front-running ITS Integra? Of course not. I simply haven't spent the money on it to make it so. If it doesn't move this offseason, I will likely do so and keep it.

In the context of "what's important to you" I would also consider rules stability, but right now, between HC rules changes and IT "competition adjustments," there isn't much of that. Any purchase, IMO, is a crapshoot.

Tough question.

 

To clarify what I want in a racecar since I didn't state it before. I'm not going to buy any old car to say that I own one. I would like to have a car that has the potential to be a winner in class. Even if I personally have a bunch of catching up to do I want the car to have winning potential.

 

Whether a car has potential to be a winner in class depends on all the things I listed above. What class? Which race?

 

Most rookies start in ITA or ITC as opposed to starting in H1, because its cheaper and you can concentrete on beeing a better driver and be competitive. Atleast you are on the right route of buying a used as opposed to starting fresh, i think its mainly depends on your budget and decide from there and don't forget to multiply by 2 on what ever number you came up as far as "consumables" I also Pm'ed you

 

Its actually NOT that hard. Especially if you pay attention and learn from the mistakes of others.

As far as deciding what to buy, remember that all race cars will require an ongoing budget to run. The best advice I've ever heard (from John Whittaker I think) is to figure out what you can afford to run and then go one class lower. In other words, if you *think* you can afford to run an H1 car... Go H2 or H3. Never go straight to the fastest, most expensive class unless you just plain old have disposable income running out your ***. It almost always costs more than you think it will.

Also. As a general rule remember that weight + speed = more money.
This is why even two cars as similar as an ITA CRX Si and an ITC Civic S end up costing differing amounts to operate. The ITC car has less motor, so its easier on brakes, hubs, tires, etc. Now apply that same thought process to say a 2800lb ITS BMW and the same ITC car and the differences become pretty massive.

So, once you've figured out what you can afford. Now decide where you want to race...

1. What is the strongest sanctioning body in your area? SCCA? NASA? PCA? All of the above?
2. How competitive do you want to be?
3. Which classes have the most entrants? (see number 2)
4. What are you familiar with? (can you build a D series in your sleep but can't find the alternator on a Sentra?)
5. Aftermarket support
6. Do you want to do more than one thing with the car (Autocross? Honda Challenge? IT? DEs?)
7. What is your towing situation? Are you driving to the track for a while?
8. Do you want a "real" race car or a production car?

Now. You have answered all of those questions and have 2, maybe 3 chassis you are looking at.
So, now what do you look for when you find one...

1. Safety equipment - Avoid bolt-in or badly built cages. The only thing worse than building from scratch is undoing someone elses ghetto'd up ****.
2. Goodies - Is it built to the limit of the rules or is it a project?
3. History - How many races has it won? How many DNFs?
4. Wrecks - Most used race cars have been crinkled at least a little bit. You're looking for major stuff like a crooked chassis or a front clip thats a different color.
5. Legality - Take a GCR and a FSM with you. Check the VINs and codes to ensure you're buying a legal car.
6. Look in the logbook. Wrecks, protests, etc. etc. will be in here. No logbook=Don't buy it. "I lost it" won't cut it.
Finally...
7. Does the price match up to numbers 1-6 above?
If its a straight, race winning, proven car, expect to pay for getting someone elses hard work.
If its a "project," it should be pretty cheap.

I'll toss out Karl's car as a perfect example of a mixture of the above. It has a very good cage, seat mount, and suspension. Its also never been seriously wrecked, has a couple of sets of wheels/tires and an LSD. A well cared for car since he bought it brand new. It can also legally run in Honda Challenge and ITS.
But... it hasn't been fully developed under the hood. It needs motor work and some ECU dyno testing and tweaking to get up near its potential.
The price has been adjusted accordingly (likely even too low) in the $10K range.
Your out of pocket cost to copy what is sitting in Karl's garage right now is far more than what Karl is asking. That is the first indicator of a really good deal.

Hope this helps. I know it reflects alot of mistakes I have made (and will never, ever make again).

 

Very nice post by Catch.

great advice!

RJ- Needs to sticky that post somewhere. "how to buy a used race car"

 

Pay particular attention to the "learn from the mistakes of others" clause up there, and the race one class lower concept. Our eyes are ALWAYS bigger than our plates on this account.

I'd also recommend finding an experienced someone in your area who would be willing to help you shop, ply them with beer and pizza, and have them look with you. There are things you won't think to ask, that can help you avoid getting burned.

K

EDIT - post this same question on improvedtouring.com and I promise you will get offers of help.

 

Thanks Scott. Seeing the questions in my head in print has been a quite helpful. It has to be an SCCA car first, if it falls in anywhere else after that, bonus.

 

Spec Miata is the way to go.

we're about to go national (likely 06, but maybe next year), so the prices of cars will likely jump a bit after that becomes official. there are plenty available for sale, they are safe, easy to work on, fairly indesctructable, and easy on consumables.

for regional racing you can go through 1 set of pads and rotors for the year (i did 14 races, 3 drivers schools, and 2 test days on mine), 1 or maybe 2 sets of tires, 1 set of blueprinted hubs will literally last forever (nobody has toasted one yet, and they're getting close to 100hrs), and new engines are cheap ($1850 for a brand new-never used-factory built unit i just bought). you can buy good cars for around 10-12 grand, or buy a winning car for 15.

no other class has bigger fields, is more competitive, or has greater comroderee (sp?) than SM does. it really is the way to go right now.

 

[QUOTE=Knestis]
I'd also recommend finding an experienced someone in your area who would be willing to help you shop, ply them with beer and pizza, and have them look with you. There are things you won't think to ask, that can help you avoid getting burned.

K
[QUOTE]


Very good advise, this will be extremely helpfull especially if you are new to IT type racing. I luckily have a guy in my area who is a top finisher in ITA in the car that I am planning on running eventually, and he has been extremely helpfull in prepping my car and all the dos and donts of everything in SCCA racing. He has a shop that he owns so if there is something I need done, I send it to him and I know I can trust the guys working on my car. If you could find a guy like this in your area, it will help you a TON! Good Luck!


-Mark

 

That should be stickied. All excellent advice.

 

if we keep sticky-ing stuff, you'll soon need to be looking at page 2 to get any interesting new stuff. I'd more in favor of adding it to a sticky-fied FAQ. JMO, YMMV, blah blah blah.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DBurke &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thanks Scott. Seeing the questions in my head in print has been a quite helpful. It has to be an SCCA car first, if it falls in anywhere else after that, bonus.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I see you are in CT. I'm in Worcester. I can't offer help on buying a racecar (I don't know enough about it myself. I knew I'd race a Miata if I ever did it so my choice was easy.), but I can tell you SM up here is a blast. (Or SSM if you don't want to spend all the money for SM right away.) It seemed to be a bit of a rough crowd by the end of this year, so probably plan some money for body panel straightening. They are trying to crack down on the contact. We got read the riot act Sept 11 after the race. The fields I've run in have been 40+ and almost all SM and SSM cars. There's always someone to run with, which I find big fun.

IIRC, there were several for sale at the Sept 11/12 race.

Read what TNORD said. I'd agree with it.