I've been watching this thread since it's started and I think it's a great topic of conversation and everyone has some great points to be made. At the end of the day or I guess in this case before the build you have to ask yourselves what your goals are. Everyone races for a different reason not everyone is out there to win. Some do it for the experience, some for the challenge, others do it for a cause, and a lot do it for the fun.
My recommendation would be to figure out what you want to accomplish and work backwards from there. Next step is to figure out where you want to race. If you're going to race in a series like SCORE it can be extremely expensive to do so with a majority of the money being spent in travel and logistics. A series like BITD can be less expensive because the races are in the US and with the exception of Vegas to Reno there isn't much travel during the race. If these two series are out of your budget then there are a ton of "regional" series that allow UTVs. I believe MORE, DRIVE, Whiplash, BORR and others all have UTV clases.
To get the best bang for your buck I would recommend spending your money building your car and work the bugs out at a smaller regional race. Put as many miles as you can on your car before you enter a race. I remember when I built my first Rhino I worked the bugs out at Vegas to Reno in 2007 and all I did was waste a bunch of money and peoples time. I never should have showed up to a race like that.
What you determine as your goal is going to determine how much money you have to spend to build your car. My goal is to win a championship so it's probably the worst goal to have when it comes to spending money because there is no expense you can spare to make sure the car is ready for each race. It still baffles me to this day how much money I spend preping my car to keep it competitive. In reality looking at the overall financial picture building the car is actually one of the cheaper pieces of the equation.
My recommendation would be to figure out what you want to accomplish and work backwards from there. Next step is to figure out where you want to race. If you're going to race in a series like SCORE it can be extremely expensive to do so with a majority of the money being spent in travel and logistics. A series like BITD can be less expensive because the races are in the US and with the exception of Vegas to Reno there isn't much travel during the race. If these two series are out of your budget then there are a ton of "regional" series that allow UTVs. I believe MORE, DRIVE, Whiplash, BORR and others all have UTV clases.
To get the best bang for your buck I would recommend spending your money building your car and work the bugs out at a smaller regional race. Put as many miles as you can on your car before you enter a race. I remember when I built my first Rhino I worked the bugs out at Vegas to Reno in 2007 and all I did was waste a bunch of money and peoples time. I never should have showed up to a race like that.
What you determine as your goal is going to determine how much money you have to spend to build your car. My goal is to win a championship so it's probably the worst goal to have when it comes to spending money because there is no expense you can spare to make sure the car is ready for each race. It still baffles me to this day how much money I spend preping my car to keep it competitive. In reality looking at the overall financial picture building the car is actually one of the cheaper pieces of the equation.
