Originally Posted by Charles Nungester:
I don't think what Ooley said is wrong and he would know about anything to do with this sport.
Motors barring catastrophic damage are refresh-able multiple times, Those like Chassis are a investment, Granted they will never pay for themselves, But a couple USAC or bigger show wins could pay the refreshes. Tires, You could go through 1500 a night in tires easy on some tracks, Even cut that in half and put it on a 45 race season, 34k. Allowing teams to choose their own brand, hardness etc would and can help to reduce that significantly both in initial tire cost and being able to reuse most of them. sometimes several times. This has changed significantly. I remember Sprint Racing where guys would get half a season on a tire.
As for driver being a factor in cost. Well they take half the returns, Even if the owner paid for the whole team to get in etc. Of course they should be paid, It's their life on the line. But its a huge factor in the cost of racing. Your driver also has a ton to do with the cars running cost. Does he junk a chassis every couple weeks? Does he burn the tires off down slick straights and also over rev the motor?
Granted everyone has a learning curve, some never get it, and some are just plain standouts and wear and replacing stuff is at a minimum while still finishing up front.
Not knocking anyone, Just plain facts The $$$ on these cars has become almost unfathomable for a sport where a few guys or a family used to say, Lets put a car together and be able to race it a full season without breaking the bank. The bank can get broken in just a few races anymore.
$1500 a night for tires is a bit extreme IMO. I think Kyle Cummins burned off both rears three or four times last year where they were trash at the end of the night. Twice in FL, the burg early, and Brownstown NWO 40. They usually put on fronts once or twice a year. Tire cost per Smileys? never heard of them but anyway for reference. RR:$265, LR and fronts:$167 for Hoosiers. American Racer like RR $179, LR and fronts $159. So yes AR might be a bit cheaper. $766 Hoosier, $656 AR for 4. The 3R team pays for tires out of their budget...no freebies unless a good natured race fan decided to buy a few. I know Kyle and the 3R team ran around 23 shows last year, and ran used tires in almost all practice session, heats, and B-mains if they had them. Probably 50%-75% of the time they put a new RR on for the feature, and ran used the rest of the time. Usually 2-3 nights on LR's. 4 feature wins, 2 being USAC wins, 13 Top 5's, 3 Top 10's, and 5 Top 15. 4 other. Avg.finish was 8.5 in all races that I could think of. Not bad on a 2015 Mach 1 chassis, and engine that ran 50 shows ( 2 seasons on freshen up), lots of used tires, and CSI AFCO shocks that were a couple years old (serviced of course). It can be done within a budget IMO, not my budget of course...LOL. Look at what KTJ did with Ottinger on limited funds, it was awesome.
Kyle is not a full time driver, he owns his own growing CNC machine shop business. Hank owns a electrical contract business. They both work hard at their business to make it successful and miss racing some shows due to business commitments (like Kyle missing eastern storm last year). They work tons of hours (like everyone it seems) to make the money to do it and have little sponsor money compared to some, I know I work for Kyle on my days off from the FD.