At 11:47 AM 9/26/99 -0400, Hottvr@aol.com wrote:
>
>When you talk about money there is one thing to be remembered. $10,000
>5 or 10 years ago is not $10,000 now. Theres a big difference.
>
>Mike B. TLS#1
>
>In a message dated 9/26/99 8:32:10 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>nokones@ix.netcom.com writes:
>
><< The late Larry Park built a nationals winning BP C3 Corvette for
> $10,000.00.
That's right; going fast enough to be competetive at the nats IS expensive
relative to a lot of other things we could do,like sit and watch football onTV.
One option to curtail expenses is to do all your own work. If you can't
handle that, you either pay someone else to do it for you or you find a
cheaper class and/or resign yourself to not being nationally comptetive.
That's the way it is and ALWAYS WILL BE! I will NEVER begrudge
someone who has a lot of money spending it any way they want. I also
appreciate these high-tech cars when they show up simply because they
are special. If I get beat regularly by one of them I put my ingenuity to work
and try to go faster. You could spend $50,000 on a stock class Miata if
you really want to. If such a thing happened would everyone be upset
about the money spent or just be wishing they had it to spend themselves?
If you take any car in any class to the full limit of the rules and then
optimize that combo AND pay someone else to do all of it for you, it
will be expensive regardless of what you start with. The days of TTD
with an MG on Pirellis and wire wheels are over.
I'll go out on a slender limb here and say Street Prepared is probably the
cheapest place to run in the long term. In stock you have to have the
"car of the year" to be competetive. In SP there are enough mods
allowed that cars which are not equal in stock form can be made compatible
together in the same class. This also makes it more likely that the cars can
be competetive for a longer period of time. Going to Prepared or Mod gives
more
opportunity to spend money on radical mods. If you start with the street legal
version of any of the cars listed in AP and take it to the limit of the AP
rules
you end up with a VERY expensive car. That's just the way it is. The modified
classes can be even more so.
Also, regarding the Fordahl car; I'll bet that if you really think about it,
there are a lot of things on that car that drove the cost of it up that are
not needed or desireable for autocrossing, but are there anyway to be
used when the car is roadraced. It's not fair to include those in the
"it's too expensive" argument since they are just "along for the ride".
Finally; when was the last time some of you Prepared and Modified guys
added up all the $$$ you've spent on your cars? Some of you probably
have cars that are "too expensive" and don't realize it!
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