Autocross budget questions

[DreamNforSpeed]

Well, now that I have my first autox under my bet, and I liked it, I was curious about doing it more regularly - or even competing in the points in a year or two. My question then is how much it costs to do, if anyone else does the years schedule. And this is just about operating costs - assume the car is setup for running.

Atlanta runs 12 events plus the championship (I don't know if this is standard or not.) Obviously tires are a big chunk of the budget once you get set up. Any ideas how long a set of summer perforance tires would last getting 3 or 4 runs a weekend?

Just a general idea of the yearly costs of getting into this.

Oh - does anybody have sponsors? How do you go about finding a place willing to do that? Are local garages or parts suppliers better to approach? Mostly curious about this... I doubt anyone would sponsor a rookie.

[reptar]

As far as yearly operating costs go, it's not too expensive. Tires are the main expense, everything else should be just normal maintenance. I usually figure a set of autocross tires will last from 1 to 1.5 seasons, depending on how much you drive, if you also use them on the street, etc.

Modifying your car for autocrossing though... that can get expensive... :) And, actually, I'd hold off on doing that as much as you can for a while. Since you're just getting started, improving your driving will have much more impact on your times than new parts.

[EricF]

many regions have local "sponsors" that usually give discounts for alignments parts... etc...

also consider getting a membership either regionally or full SCCA membership
it can sometimes save you 5-10$ per event. which adds up.

I found that getting a set of autox tires, used on my old stock wheels, also saved wear and tear
on my street tires, thus saving me money.

But I agree with reptar, work on your driving skills before dipping into the mods heavily.
Even tires I didn't get a set until 2 years of autocrossing.

[DreamNforSpeed]

Well, I've kind of taken the bass-ackwards approach to this. I started modifying the car for fun, then I was looking for something to do with it. So I've already swapped the SVT parts, the y-pipe, exhaust and a ECU chip, which seems to put me in DSP. And I was planning on doing some more stuff anyway - the autocrossing is more of a way to enjoy the mods - not that I am modding to enjoy the autocross more. If that makes sense. But that leads to another question... where in the world do you get the info on classes? I've been searching all the websites and can't find the modifications allowed under each class. Mostly I am just curious how it is all broken down.

[EricF]

http://autox4u.com/novice.htm

link for classifications on that page.. for complete listing you'll need the rule book.

[DreamNforSpeed]

Sweet! Thanks - the Atlanta regions website is a little slim on technical info... or hidden very well.