Dirt Track and Karting

[centerville]

I started with a kart. Back could not take the pounding of no suspension. Karting is the most cost effective way to race and go scary fast if you want to. But you can still spend a fortune if you want to.

I spent my 20's with 2 friends who raced dirt track cars. A lot of time spent repairing attrition. CMC has nothing on the stuff we were doing every weekend to repair cars. Street fighter mentality is an understatement, at least back then. Lots of major feuds too. Cost is still in the consumables not vehicles.

What about legends cars? I know nothing about cost really.

[AllZWay]

I raced dirt for several years and absolutely love it.. still may return. Dirt racing has some issues though...

1. Cost.. it is not the cost of the car, or the racing, but the cost of the engines. Even the lowest slowest stock car classes are now running $10,000 engines if you want to be competitive.
2. Time... You work on the car non-stop, Sunday through Saturday, to do it all over again the next week.

CMC was a great class that you could race with an inexpensive car and be competitive. Initially I started racing CMC in a car I spent roughly $8,500 building and it was competitive, albeit a budget built car. Even factoring in traveling and registrations, I was still spending half of what I was spending racing dirt with the track within 10 miles of my house.

I personally feel, CMC has moved away from the original intent and is getting too costly as well, but it still cheaper than most other types of racing.


I never karted, but looks fun... but for me still a travel to anyplace.

I have rented Legends cars and had a blast.... even slightly considered buying in, but after talking with some folks the issues of torn up cars and Miata like engine builds made me decide not too look much farther into it.

I might would consider Spec Corvette, but haven't dug much into those cars yet either.

[BryanL]

I know little about the dirt world but loved a trip to Devil's Bowl for I think World of Outlaws or Sprints but they also had other classes waiting to come on track before the other cars were off-non stop racing for spectators.
From the looks the sprint cars are heavily supported operations with 18 wheelers, teams, $50-100k motors so budgets appear to be $100-1 myn I'm guessing.

My exposure to dirt was around 2000 when a neighbor bankrolled his son in IMCA Modified and it sounded like a circus. I was over there enough and heard enough stories to stay away. But here are the bullet points

-Worked on the car every night during the week with several guys working. Fixing wreck/broken, checking everything, and generally a motor pull/change, etc. It was crazy the time they spent but all single guys with a some drugs and alcohol mixed in.
-The rules and enforcement were ludicrous. They may go to a big money race and put in a $15k motor only to get their motor claimed. Then they were running a two barrel class and lost to a car with a 4 barrel but the track didn't enforce it.
-Of course that resulted in a fight. Common for a member of their team to get banned from a track. Lots of feuds between teams/drivers, etc. They all sounded willing to sacrifice their car to takeout someone else and nothing illegal it seemed.
-My understanding is when their car was on track they had to leave someone at the trailer to make sure tools/parts didn't get stolen.

Needless to say when I started looking at racing dirt didn't hit my radar. I was brought up going to the dragstrip and went there first as some of the newer heads up classes really appealed to me. I went to the track, met some guys, looked at the rules, and it was clear that every class became a wallet class. Meaning even in the lower classes that was an iron head nitrous class it was still who spent the most money and generally on the motor. I think it's why you see so many engine builders as drag racers.

I hear you James on CMC but I still think it's the most budget friendly to have a competitive car on the podium. The brakes aren't bad in the long run it's the tire program that is killing it now. Spec Vette looks cool but the buy in is many times that of CMC as they have some high dollar spec parts and I don't know enough about the torque tube issue and the drivetrain. They do have a tire program that probably makes up for the initial buy in after 3-5 years.

[mach1]

Good info guys! Looks fun but very demanding and scandalous.

[BryanL]

Good info guys! Looks fun but very demanding and scandalous.

Well my relayed info. was from a long time ago and the stories also sounded like the people I knew were crazy as well. Maybe the big money races weren't claims. Like we would tell someone looking at CMC or whatever. Go to a few races, look around, talk to some people and your going to have a feel for what kind of fun and costs to expect. Look at the cars before/after and ask them how much time they spent on the car since the last race.

I have seen a groupon for a dirt track driving experience with a few different cars-thinking it was Kenny Wallace.

Interesting info about claims james. I would like to think that spending more money on the motor would help them last longer but I don't know. I can only guess why they don't last is in the dirt and spinning your sitting on the rev limiter most of the race?