Yearly Track Costs (or how to spend $20K/yr on a $10K Porsche)

[ckkrause]

Originally Posted by Jittsl

Just for information sake.i ran 5 race weekends in the PCA club race circuit in SpecBox in 2012 and my total spend was over $25K including hotels and fuel to and from the track. About 6K was on repairs maintenance and upgrades. All the rest were normal racing expenses including tires, brakes, entry fees, fuel, etc. . I'm budgeting 20k for 5 races in 2013 and keeping 5K available for unexpected contingencies. 2012 was effectively my rookie year and a lot of the 6k was just getting things sorted.

I really can't see how you spent $3800 per race weekend. At this point, in my 4th year of racing, I spend about $1500 per weekend and that includes all consumables,(on race car and tow vehicle!), entry fees, hotel bills, etc... Even includes garage rental at the track... You must stay at some really nice hotels.....

[Jittsl]

Well the break down is;
TOTAL $25,997.27

Accommodation $2,837.48 (avg approx $100 per night)
Fuel (travel and at track) $3,894.63 (avg distance to event = 600+miles)
Brakes and tires $5994.41 (6 sets tires & 4 sets brake pads)
Other parts, updates and accessories $6473.66 (as mentioned largely 1 time exp)
Safety equiptment $1312.61 (new helmet and suit)
Service and repairs $816.75 (paint repairs and alignments)
Entrance and Licence fees $4667.73

Obviously, some of this is non-repeating (IE I only need a new helmet every 5 years), I choose to travel a long way to events and that costs me and, as I stated, I probably spent more on tires than I needed to. Because of this I have budgeted $20,000 for 6 events for next year which will still be over $3,000 per event. That, of course, will go to hell if I crash, drop a gearbox or blow a motor (all of which are always possible in a race car). I would be delighted if I could drop that number to $1500 (and so would my wife) but I can't see it in the near future. Any advice happily accepted.

Also of note is that my numbers have a lot of similarity to the original post. If you added my onetime charges and travel costs to his total you would end up in a very similar place.