RacerRay wrote:
>There simply is not being offered the kind of dirt cheap, rock-bottom-in-cost
>thing that I am willing to get into.
So what is rock-bottom-in-cost? If one is willing to risk their daily
vehicle
to a potential rollover, curb impact, ditch, or light-pole incident then can
the repair and replacement cost of said vehicle be assumed as the
rock-bottom?
Or, once that risk is acknowledged and accepted, does one consider
operating costs as rock-bottom?
Or is rock-bottom-in-cost whatever it takes to win at the level that you're
willing to pay?
Back when I drove a new Miata, I considered all those factors. The
choice boiled down to the Miata R, Neon ACR, or used RX-7tt; I would
have chosen a Formula Ford or F440, but didn't have a storage area
or tow vehicle and F Mod wasn't a class yet. I could tell the Neon was
going to change class ASAP, so wasn't interested. RX-7tt was going
to have higher insurance and higher tire cost. That left the Miata as
a no-brainer... until I bought a house.
Prior to that, I ran cars of special interest to me. Presently I do the
same, but have a larger budget (though too many project cars). In
another year or two all my project cars will be close to completion
and the budget can focus on traveling more...
>It might be interesting if some publication dealing with the sport would
>conduct a poll to determine where the market is.
But wouldn't they be polling the people who are comfortable with the
current costs since those are the people who are spending the
money to play today? Sure, we all like the idea of lower cost, but
without making the sport spec-cars on spec-tires, it ain't gonna
happen. As a nation we've proven the popularity of diversity in autox
and that diversity has a certain minimum cost in all the categories I
can think of.
>I don't travel more than about 200 miles to run.
That's realistic and normal. Nobody wants to spend more than 6-7
hours on the road for a single day event and it's tough to find people
willing to spend more than 2 hours on the road for a single day event.
Two day events are a different story from my point of view.
>Time was I could run 30 times a year without going more than 35 miles.
Once upon a time (1988-1991) in the Portland area there were about
15 nonconflicting events per year. In the past couple of years that's
been 7-9, principally due to lack of sites. However there are 30+
events when one considers the 200 mile radius.
There are a number of factors leading to fewer sites, but principally
it's due to increased commercial, residential, and industrial
development... real estate in our metropolitan area is too valuable to
waste on large open parking lots unless we're willing to pay San
Francisco rates. Additionally, local zoning regulations require green
spaces inside parking lots and the stupid architects place the green
spaces in interior strips rather than clumps at the outer edges. I'm
digressing, so must be time to quit.
George Emery
gemery@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/gemery
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