Dirt Track and Karting

[Trublu]

I very nearly went sprint car racing before I went to CMC. Grew up watching dirt oval racing and I still love it. Need to bring your street fighting skills.....

[ShadowBolt]

I very nearly went sprint car racing before I went to CMC. Grew up watching dirt oval racing and I still love it. Need to bring your street fighting skills.....

I went to high school with a guy (Donnie Moore) that was fast in everything he touched. He raced motocross (like I did) but he was one of the fastest in Texas. Then after high school he raced every kind of car on every dirt track in Texas. He also is one of the best race car builders around but when he got a ride driving a Sprint Car and flipped it eight times he said no way would he ever get in one of those things again.
Smiley Sitton used to have a deal where you could go take a few laps in a sprint car and I always wanted to do it. I don't see it on his web site anymore. http://www.outlawdrivingschool.com/classes.html

JJ

[mach1]

I went to high school with a guy (Donnie Moore) that was fast in everything he touched. He raced motocross (like I did) but he was one of the fastest in Texas. Then after high school he raced every kind of car on every dirt track in Texas. He also is one of the best race car builders around but when he got a ride driving a Sprint Car and flipped it eight times he said no way would he ever get in one of those things again.
Smiley Sitton used to have a deal where you could go take a few laps in a sprint car and I always wanted to do it. I don't see it on his web site anymore. http://www.outlawdrivingschool.com/classes.html

JJ

yeah, sprint cars scare me, I was thinking a limited modified, they go for around $10k

[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.

[AllZWay]

yeah, sprint cars scare me, I was thinking a limited modified, they go for around $10k

Yep.. no sprint cars for me. I would like to drive one, but I don't think I have what it takes to not think about flipping those things.. they don't wreck gracefully.


Dirt cars are really pretty cheap.. I see stock cars daily race ready for 5-10k depending on how nice. I see the limited mods and even some IMCA mods in the 10-20 range.

The buy in is not bad at all.. it is the engine cost that are so outrageous.

[Supercharged111]

And the fact that those engines don't last forever. I rebuilt my LT1 for about $800 back in 2015, had to replace the rotating assembly. It burns a little more oil now, just ask John, but still makes the numbers.

[AllZWay]

And the fact that those engines don't last forever. I rebuilt my LT1 for about $800 back in 2015, had to replace the rotating assembly. It burns a little more oil now, just ask John, but still makes the numbers.

Excactly.. One year I bought a built 383 stroker and paid roughly $5000 for it... it made it three nights before it grenaded. There are no warranties on racing engines.

Brian.. for the most part the engine claiming has gone way.. for IMCA I think they have a swap rule, but it isn't used anymore.

Oddly though.. this is partly what has driven up the engine costs. When IMCA had a $450 claim rule, you didn't run a $10k engine.. you ran a $2500 engine. A pretty successful racer I knew was claimed 4 times in one year... and he would tell you that was still less expensive than the no claims now days.