I’ve posted on the costs before for our small local non wing team. It takes every bit of $1500 a night to unload the car. Everyone’s travel and engine costs are different I suppose but mine is more than what was posted in this thread. I estimate $80 of diesel, as most tracks we run are an hour and a half away roughly. I budget engine costs at $500 per night. There is no paid help and the car is in my garage so I don’t count any of that.

The easiest way to save costs and not make everyone incur costs with engine rule changes, is to make the rear tires hard as bricks and not have performance fall off. These new tires are better than what they were and budget racers like ourselves can flip them as well. We can get 2-3 nights out of a RR if the track was decent but the performance is definitely better their first night.

Just a random comment that I bet the average fan doesn’t know. At local shows most tracks pay the same to finish 10th as they do 20th and the incremental increases up to the top 3 are pretty small. For instance, at one place 8th pays $20 more than 20th, and 5th pays $80 more than 20th. So it’s really hard for the car to help pay the bills, unless you’re running top 3 every night with a couple wins sprinkled in. Below are the stats from someone who most would say is a top 5 local driver and has 3 non local starts (usac/boss/mwts) where payout might be a bit more. Barring disaster he finishes top 10 every night locally, and 2/3 of the time he’s in the top 5. They’re averaging $550 a night that’s covering their fuel, 1 tire, and their pit passes.

Races: 21
Wins: 1
Top 5: 13
Top 10: 17
Payout: $11,550