Do you share a race car?

"mcseanerson" (mcseanerson) 06/04/2015 at 10:41 • Filed to: None

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I’m talking with some buddies of mine about buying a dedicated car for autocross (yes, I know autocross doesn’t count as racing in most people’s eyes) and I’m curious how it works for most people and what your opinion is on sharing a car with friends or strangers?

Just to give you an idea of what I’m thinking of it would be me and two friends sharing whatever cheap piece of junk that we can find that runs for under $500 and throwing another $500 at fresh tires and brakes and a tuneup. So basically $150 each to purchase car and another $150 through the winter to work on it.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 10:44

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DO IT! Just remember that everything will take four times as long and cost four times what you think it will. Make sure your friends are very aware of this too so that they’re still your friends instead of everything getting ugly over money.

OPPOsaurus WRX > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 10:46

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i think the biggest battle is who gets to drive and what happens when that person wrecks the car.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > OPPOsaurus WRX 06/04/2015 at 10:47

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Multi-driver cars are a thing at autocross, and there’s nothing to hit other than cones.

mcseanerson > OPPOsaurus WRX 06/04/2015 at 10:52

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That’s why we’re trying to keep this as low dollar as possible so nobody gets butthurt if someone overrevs and blows an engine or kills a clutch.

yamahog > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 10:53

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Travis will be co-driving my car at our next autocross, but he doesn’t pay for it so that’s just out of the kindness of my heart.

A friend of ours has a 62 Fury which we are building into a lemons car, and everyone is tossing money at it to get it running with the understanding that we will all get driving time and another team member will buy it from the current owner later on. But this is more a case of no one really wants the thing taking up garage space and being a general tetanus risk.

mcseanerson > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 06/04/2015 at 10:53

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Yeah, that’s one reason I thought it would be a good fit. I’m more concerned about one of my buddies getting a little overzealous as they’ve not done any of this before. The idea is to keep the price of the car so low we can scrap it and get a good return on investment if need be.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 10:54

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Get something with a common lug pattern so that you can keep your wheels and tires to move to the next car.

BigBlock440 > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 10:55

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In high school I tried to share a 4x4 beater with two other friends. It didn’t work out due to one friend saying he wanted to but not wanting to pony up when the time came to purchase. Missed out on a hell of a Bronco, but oh well.

I wouldn’t do it on anything you can’t walk away from (sounds like you’ve got it though), or if it would be driven on the road/require insurance. For a cheap beater that will be trailered to events, I’d do it. Probably not a bad idea to keep a log of parts/maintenance cost, so however you end up splitting the bills there will be a clear record and not a he said/he said deal.

mcseanerson > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 06/04/2015 at 11:05

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Way ahead of you. I’m really hoping for something with 4x100.

witchdoctor11 > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 11:11

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My experience was good, I actually shared my last race car with my dad. It worked well in that when I crashed it, he paid for it...Ill return the favor for him one day.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 11:13

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AW11s have 4x100. So do Miatas.

mcseanerson > BigBlock440 06/04/2015 at 11:15

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In my mind I would see an account that we all equally contribute to and if there’s not enough funds in the account to race then we don’t race. Alternatively if one person doesn’t contribute they don’t race. I wouldn’t really trailer a car for this. To be good enough to race it would be good enough for the street. The only reason I might trailer is if we buy something with no title.

mcseanerson > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 06/04/2015 at 11:16

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Yeah, I’m still in my Miata club and would be attending some of their autocrosses so I can find cheap 4x100 wheels and tires all day.

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 11:16

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Just make sure the rules are agreed upon first. Like cost sharing if something breaks, etc.

youshiftem > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 11:17

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I have a shared race car with a buddy. The key for us is keeping an exact spreadsheet of all the costs and only working on and using the car together. Car needs a bit of work? It sits there untouched until both of us can work on it together, saves any arguments.

mcseanerson > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua 06/04/2015 at 11:17

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Yeah, absolutely. Basically I want to have a fund that we all contribute to in equal parts and if there aren’t enough funds for the car to run then we don’t race until there are more funds.

mcseanerson > youshiftem 06/04/2015 at 11:18

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That’s exactly what I’m thinking. If we can’t do something together then we don’t do it at all.

BigBlock440 > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 11:21

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My hang-up with that is to drive it on the street, you need insurance and registration. Who’s name does the insurance and registration go under, and in the event of an accident, who’s rates go up?

SantaRita > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 11:23

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My advice: keep a clear and detailed spreadsheet.

Those up front costs are nice round numbers, but they are only the first cost.

mcseanerson > BigBlock440 06/04/2015 at 11:23

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If one of them want to keep the car at their place and be the one to drive it to all the events they can do all that but more than likely I would keep it at my place and just add it to my insurance and only drive it to and from events. Any accident on track and I wouldn’t file anything and insurance on the road would just be minimum coverage.

BigBlock440 > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 11:29

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If the 3 of you are comfortable with that, great. I don’t know if I would be (realistically, I would be with 2 of my friends, the rest of them not so much), but I see it as a potential problem area and something to keep in mind.

mcseanerson > SantaRita 06/04/2015 at 11:39

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This is true.

BKRM3 > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 11:45

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I’m currently building a co-owned 330i race car. Spreadsheet on google drive keeps track of 100% of the expenses. We generally work on the car together, but I’ve known the co-owner since we were kids so if he wants to tackle something himself I’m cool with that. It’s going to the cage builder this weekend actually. The only bit of tip-toeing we’ve had to do is making sure one person’s idea of the build budget doesn’t radically conflict with the other’s. We’ve shared the car over the course of 2 HPDE weekends so far and all has gone extremely well. The car is destined for endurance racing, among other things, so the facts are going to get a bit more complicated as we find ourselves needing to sell seats for races, trailer long distances, etc. It’s been fun, I’d say go for it if everyone has a clear understanding at the outset of the expectations. Shared ownership sure does help keep things affordable if you can pull it off without anyone being a jerk.

mcseanerson > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 06/04/2015 at 11:54

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http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php…

Here’s a list of 4x100 cars. There are a lot of great autocross options in there.

mcseanerson > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 06/04/2015 at 11:58

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Just realized I could get another Pulsar!

That’s one of my dream cars to autocross. Only weighs right around one ton and you can easily remove the t-tops and the liftback at the track to lose weight. I’d want to swap in the 1.0 three cylinder from the Fiesta ecoboost and crank it up a bit. That is all way more wishful thinking than anything I’ll be doing with my buddies though.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 12:00

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T-Tops at autocross are the best. You get to pretend to be Magnum PI every time you get in.

f86sabre > mcseanerson 06/04/2015 at 12:14

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We have a LeMons team. My wife and I own 2/3rds of the car and a buddy owns 1/3. We split costs along those lines when we race. Works well enough.

It's a "Porch-uh" > mcseanerson 06/05/2015 at 17:29

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I share two LeMons cars. As long as everybody is good about showing up to get work done, pay for things they break (and understand when something might not be the driver’s fault and chip in to fix), help fix things they didn’t break, and split running costs fairly (not necessarily evenly) it will be fine.

If there are people in the group who have trouble with this it will lead to problems. Have a good sense of your co-owners. Even then, once money gets involved, things can get dicey. Have an agreement in place for a buyout if two owners feel one is not pulling their weight.

Good luck!

mcseanerson > It's a "Porch-uh" 06/05/2015 at 17:43

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Yeah my hopes are that anything we invest to make the car worth more than scrap value will be removable so if we have a major failure we can cut our losses and move onto a new vehicle. I really don’t think I want to try and force a single driver to pay for something unless it was just outright reckless because I see that leading to needless squabbles.