Costs per run??

Personally my dream is nitro , but thats just not feasable in this day and age the days of an everyday guy feilding one well you could still do it if you did it in a very economical manor but its beyond me right now . I am only 20 turning 21 this year and anything I wind up doing in dragracing will come out of my pocket I will have to be the driver , the mechanic , and probably the builder . But you have to start somewhere . If alcohol turns out beyond me as well then I will start smaller but what ever I build will have a blower on it because apparently getting used to the blower is important aparently that makes a big difference .

 

i dreamed of doing this since i was 8 years old and i know i have spent a shit load of money tring to do this and have accomplished almost every personal goal except winning a national or a divisonal event other than those two things drag racing the fast cars gave me a goal in life to become very good at some thing and where im from i have been the fastest in the area for a long time and i still look up to a lot of the older guys that were my heros when i was a kid how do you put a price on some thing we love to do these goals kept me from being a drunk ,drug addict ,thief, are any thing else illlegal and if i get more money i will buy more parts if i hit the lottery i will be burning the phone up buying a lot more parts BUT IF YOU GET ADDICTED TO THE NEED FOR SPEED BE READY TO SPEND EVERYTHING YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON THATS WHAT IT WILL COST

 

Here in New Zealand I don't think it matters what age you start , unless something changes in years to come here you can't make a living drag racing here nobody gets paid anything you do it entirely for the love of it . I don't care about being famous or rich or having some big motorhome or huge house infact my dream house would be a shed with a fully equiped machine shop lol .

All I know is Nitro funny cars is my ultimate dream and I am just looking at how to get there . I have considered just straight away building a nitro car but when you look at the fact that it will be my first ride and that nitro isnt cheap and the nitro carbon fiber bodies and diffs and blowers and all that are so expensive it doesn't look that appealing right now plus only a couple of people run nitro here and they only do exhibition and thats not really what I wan't to do I wan't to race you know .

 

maybe its the weather, gray fog and all, but you guys are depressing me with costs. as I rebuild my engine I wonder why Im doing this. addiction, yeah, but Im old enough to know when its enough. with guys wanting to run there cars for less than what it costs per pass, and no money being offered by the tracks, its getting time to sell it all and go fishing. well maybe just one more year

 

Lol you guys would both love and hate alcohol racing here , its more like pro comp really all the dragsters funny cars alltereds run together but the combinations a bit more leniant then over there . You can run 100% nitro with no blower but nobody does well one person does but its only a FED with a Billet Small block chevy in it and the blown guys get upto 50% nitro allowed but they must only run a standard helix roots , if they run straight methanol then you can run any helix and screws and whatever . You have to look quite hard in the rule book to find out you can run those combinations because they aren't under the standard top alcohol rules but it is in the rule book if you look carefully .

 

well said will but for some that way will never happen most will give up for me when i had the money i had the same car world champ jimmy rector had even had got a new car the right motor and jimmy was willing to help me but some where i had lost focus on what was important about my racing a long with the money came other toys sure i had 2 ta/fc semi and a stacker trailer plus a dually and 48 ft trailer 4 HD motorcycles in the garage big speed boat corvette and a linc mark VIII sitting in the drive way to many toys if i would not of had all those other toys i would of had a better racing operation even though i had a ton racing stuff and i was single did i mention alll that suff is gone now my point is if you really want to do this you must stay focused on your goal for me the money is long gone but the dream is still there and i was blessed to get another car you cant do this on a regular weekly pay check trust me unless it is a very very big one and like me times are getting tough my car is for sale just to be able to survive so if you can save for the car and not spend living exspences for racing like will was talking about you will be better off

remember dreams do come true if you believe

good luck

 

I think the reason a lot of people separate Race car costs with the Secondary racing costs is we forget these are Race cars, not a Fast street car that runs say 11's or 12's. In that case you don't need to worry about paying for crew, Hotels and the like. You see these cars in ND for sale for say $90-100,000, yet that doesn't address the per event costs does it? Remember my Steve Boogs reference, Joe Pendland Sr. himself told me that he invested close to $600,000 to get Jr. into racing, that was Truck/trailer, spare motors, Blowers, heads, Tow vehicle, etc... And this was the Mid 90's! I assume you can add another $100,000 to that figure today?????

 

William,
If you are a crafty guy and want to work hard keeping your goal in site it is possible. But you need to learn everything you can. Work for free for the best car owner you that will let you near his stuff. Teach yourself to weld, not just weld but weld good enough to build your own cars and others too.
Learn all you can about engines and how they function especially high horse power ones. learn about air flow, hydraulics, electronics, air pressure, and applications and principles. Oh and while you are at it study metalergy, and become the best machinest around.
By this time you will have your own business and enough knowdlege to start your own TAD team.
" THIS IS NO JOKE"
TAKE IT FROM AN OLD MAN WHO DID IT THE WRONG WAY MOST OF HIS LIFE

 

After reading all of these threads, and other post on this particular subject its apparent that this William is missing the big pic here. William sounds like a fan that would like to get involved in alcohol racing. There is nothing wrong with that dream, everyone has to start somewhere. My view is that what it cost per gas and go, makes no difference when there is nothing in your shop. Starting from scratch brings up a whole new set of obsticles. A simple racing operation takes cubic dollars no matter what, when, where, or who.There is no price tag on experience,so get it anyway you can befor you start signing the checks.