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Budget for Super Touring classes


Chris H

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Hey all,

 

Was listening to a podcast earlier today called Slip Angle and they started talking about Super Touring and TT classes. It got me curious about what the budgets are for the various classes and how much they differ.

 

I know from guys I race with how much budgets vary and factors like sponsor labor etc come into the equation. If you had to ball park a build for each class what would you expect to spend?

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Cheapest route is probably a converted tube frame circle track car. $20K all in?

 

For a building a production car, $35K if you work hard at working the internet, and starting with a cheap donor.

If you have a pro shop build it with nice new parts, plan on doubling that figure at least, and $100K would not be hard.

 

Scared yet? Buy someone else's dialed in car.

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If that's the budget for ST1 sure. I'm trying to make a run at ST4 when it comes to life. Have a shop doing all my labor for free and a guy who is doing my setup and giving me free parts and labor on some of the more intricate parts of the car.

 

I'll spend 2017 eye balling class times and see how competitive my setup is as I build it. Was just wondering what you would expect to spend assuming no help. 35k isn't bad when you factor how much labor accounts for.

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Let's say you take a well sorted SpecZ as your starting point, saving yourself the effort to gut, cage, and safety everything.

 

That's a pretty good starting point and call it $30k. A really good deal would be $25k.

 

Likely cut some weight, add some power, maybe then detune or ballast depending on where the ST4 rules come out or if you're stretching to compete in TT3.

 

Now, develop aero. Again, depending on how the ST4 rules shake out you might be spending $2k on a bespoke wing and a cheap splitter. That's just the start. You could throw almost an unlimited amount of money into development if you really wanted to. Then go back and upgrade everything from the Spec Z. Suspension, wider wheels and tires. Oops, now you ran into the limits of factory ABS. Develop a bespoke system for $3k.

 

ST classes are an open book that allows you to spend all the money possible. $30k is a good starting point. Cheaper is possible.

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What is fun to you - close competition where the spending doesn't get big gains OR getting to wrench and build super cool stuff but you may get outrun by someone with more resources to explore the development areas better than you?

 

If you truly want budget you may want to look at one of the Spec or semi-Spec classes. Maybe not as fast, maybe not as many development avenues to work in though. If you want to build something crazy ST is a good one to consider.

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Thanks for the input guys. I didn't know it was completely open in that sense. Sounds like fun.

 

I wanted to build a car for fun originally and got a great deal on a super charged motor. A close friend who has ties to Mazda told me I should try to win NASA to get to the shootout so that's where my focus has moved.

 

Win or lose I just want to have a good time and run the car. If it's competitive, great. Car is a 1st gen Miata that will be gutted running on 255 width slicks.

 

I have a great tire deal to boot.

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