I sat down yesterday and worked out two financial sheets: 1 detailing every penny I've spent on car stuff to support racing the Miata, and one forecasting an annual budget to keep it racing.
Oh. My. God.
The first one was horrifying, but not entirely unexpected. I knew that the build had just about doubled my initial projections, both through mistakes and waste. There was over $2K in parts that have since been abandoned. Just plain wasted money. I've recovered probably 40 - 50 % of that money in re-selling the components, but still, that money was just wasted.
Then there's truck & trailer costs, safety equipment, and fuel estimations before even getting to the race car itself. Add in event fees, lodging, meals and tools, and then you're ready to start counting the car and its associated parts.
All of that was yucky to look at, but figuring out how that plays out across the course of an average year was really depressing. Figuring on doing only 2 events at VIR and 14 autocrosses (which is actually more than we've ever done), the truck will burn 180 gallons of gas. Not the race car: just the truck. The race car, in those same events, will burn roughly 100 gallons of 100 octane fuel. That stuff runs about $6 / gallon, so that's $600 in fuel for the car, and (figuring $3.29 / gallon for 87 octane) $592.20 for the truck.
The fuel alone is almost $1200 / year.
Looking at the numbers made me realize that without sponsorship, this venture will run aground by the middle of next year.
MWM seeks sugar daddy for racing budget. Must like the smell of gasoline and burning brake pads.
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