I been wondering how to have income racing cars. Are there racing leagues which we can stick on as well as competition for money? we do not wish to draw towards race. we wish to do highway racing, identical to SCCA bar racing.
How much money has passed thru your hands in a lifetime? If we had to guesstimate upon average, together with birthday income from relatives, your income from your job, graduation money, income from offered items, taxation...
First, you have to be under 25, and start in SCCA, or a Skip Barber series, and then buy into Star Mazda, or buy a seat in Koni Challenge. You will not make money until you get a paid seat in Koni, Rolex, or ALMS….guys even rent rides in Rolex (TRG Porsches are often rented). You will need at least 100k a year in order to buy a season ride with Koni or Star Mazda, and then be one of the fastest drivers there, and then use your skill (if you have enough) to negotiate a paid ride with a higher team.
Yes, you definately need a big budget in order to make money. You will not get noticed in SCCA, unless you win a National Championship, if you go the SCCA route, buy a Formula Continental, Formula Enterprise, Formula Mazda, Spec Miata, or Spec Racer Ford….Mazda has a good ladder, but you have to win a National Championship to be eligible.
Good luck, I’m 16 and I race a FV in SCCA, I will move up into a FC, or FM Nationaly.
There are two basic areas where cash comes in: prize money and sponsorship. So in short, to make money, you need to bring in more prize money and sponsorship money than you spend!
The previously mentioned saying (about how to make a small fortune in racing) is funny, but oft repeated because it’s true. 99% of everyone racing spends alot to do it. And those that get prize money at least semi-regularly and have sponsors? They just are able to off set their costs and spend a little less. If you are skilled enough all aspects of driving and running a team, then after spending a large fortune, you may get to a point where you are actual able to bring in money!
If you want to run your own program and make money, you will need to be an exceptionally skilled driver, and equally skilled as a manager and marketing director. You will need to regularly run at the front of grid, and convert a good portion of those into race wins. Winning makes it easier to get sponsors, but you will still need to be good and creative at marketing yourself.
As simply a driver, if you are capable of winning there are often options to be paid to drive (though the chance of this goes up alot if you have personal sponsorship deals to bring to the table – especially in pay for drive scenarios).
As said above, the old saying goes "To make a small fortune in racing, start with a large one." I ran 3 seasons in SCCA Club Racing’s Formula Continental and did some US F2000 races as well, and ran a FABCAR Porsche 911 in some endurance events. I don’t even want to mention what that cost. The lesson I learned was that TV coverage of a series is gold. US F2000 lost their coverage in 2002, and it is nearly impossible to get sponsors interested in a series when they wont see ‘their’ car on TV. Sponsorship is advertising, and if the ad isn’t seen it’s not effective. You will have to start out in karts or an inexpensive car in SCCA (or NASA) paying your own way until you can convince sponsors you can win and get them noticed. Formula Vee (like Steven) is a great class to start out in, as is Spec RX-7, Spec Miata, or Spec Racer Ford. The latter is a sports racer class that is fairly inexpensive (remember, this is an expensive sport/hobby – all things are relative when I say inexpensive). Do a season or two in one of these, then try to move up to FC, F1000, or similar, or maybe T1/T2 or similar if you want to go touring car/GT racing later. Build seat time and experience, and build your resume and gain exposure. You will almost never find sponsorship in club racing, unless you have family or friends who throw a little help your way. Once you can consistently place in the top three and have some wins, you can move to trying to rent a seat in a car in one of the pro series. Grand Am and Speed World Challenge offer good programs with TV coverage; these are TC/GT series. If you want to go open wheel then the Formula Mazdas are THE way to go. Great package and great competition. You will be renting a seat (car) for the season (or maybe a few one-off races if the budget requires) from a team who owns and maintains the car, providing track support and a crew for you. This can run from $100k a season up to $500k and above depending on the series, the car, and which team (read: how competitive they are). To raise this money, you usually will need sponsors. You contract with a sponsor (or sponsors) to pay you $X dollars in return for the exposure they will receive (in effect, you are selling them advertising to a key demographic). You are at this point a professional driver, and racing is now your job. To get such a highly sought after job, you will need a powerful resume, full of a greater amount of and higher-quality experience than others who are basically applying for the same job. You have to look the part, sound intelligent, and be someone the company trusts with their image, since you will become a spokesman and representative for them. Just like any job, you have to always strive to be the best around, and continually improve, because if you don’t someone else will. It is a lot of hard work and sacrifice, but if you truly want to race at a high level as a career, it will be completely worth it in the end.
Oh, and you don’t HAVE to be under 25. It would really, really help, but if you want it bad enough the extra years you have driven street cars and experienced different things in traffic will at least help some, and the additional maturity can help shorten the learning curve. Search "Elliott Forbes-Robinson" and you’ll see someone who can still get into a competitive car and compete at the pinnacle of sportscar racing, so there’s not necessarily an expiration date. I’m 33 and having recovered from a broken back am now trying to get back into a car. But the younger you start, the more years you can compete, and seat time racing other cars is the only way you can gain experience and improve.
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Comments: 6 comments
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Stevenfv19
August 13th, 2009 at 4:03 am
First, you have to be under 25, and start in SCCA, or a Skip Barber series, and then buy into Star Mazda, or buy a seat in Koni Challenge. You will not make money until you get a paid seat in Koni, Rolex, or ALMS….guys even rent rides in Rolex (TRG Porsches are often rented). You will need at least 100k a year in order to buy a season ride with Koni or Star Mazda, and then be one of the fastest drivers there, and then use your skill (if you have enough) to negotiate a paid ride with a higher team.
Yes, you definately need a big budget in order to make money. You will not get noticed in SCCA, unless you win a National Championship, if you go the SCCA route, buy a Formula Continental, Formula Enterprise, Formula Mazda, Spec Miata, or Spec Racer Ford….Mazda has a good ladder, but you have to win a National Championship to be eligible.
Good luck, I’m 16 and I race a FV in SCCA, I will move up into a FC, or FM Nationaly.
Good luck
Steven
D B
August 13th, 2009 at 4:03 am
You make money by winning. Ive never heard of any racing for cash events but i’m sure they exist. You probably have to join a club
Rocky
August 13th, 2009 at 4:03 am
Your question is like one I heard once before, How do you make a small fortune out of Motorsport?
Answer: Start off with a Big one! lol
Paul S
August 13th, 2009 at 4:03 am
There are two basic areas where cash comes in: prize money and sponsorship. So in short, to make money, you need to bring in more prize money and sponsorship money than you spend!
The previously mentioned saying (about how to make a small fortune in racing) is funny, but oft repeated because it’s true. 99% of everyone racing spends alot to do it. And those that get prize money at least semi-regularly and have sponsors? They just are able to off set their costs and spend a little less. If you are skilled enough all aspects of driving and running a team, then after spending a large fortune, you may get to a point where you are actual able to bring in money!
If you want to run your own program and make money, you will need to be an exceptionally skilled driver, and equally skilled as a manager and marketing director. You will need to regularly run at the front of grid, and convert a good portion of those into race wins. Winning makes it easier to get sponsors, but you will still need to be good and creative at marketing yourself.
As simply a driver, if you are capable of winning there are often options to be paid to drive (though the chance of this goes up alot if you have personal sponsorship deals to bring to the table – especially in pay for drive scenarios).
Joey
August 13th, 2009 at 4:03 am
If you want to make a million dollars racing, start with two million. Racing is extremely hard to make money from.
Michael
August 13th, 2009 at 4:03 am
As said above, the old saying goes "To make a small fortune in racing, start with a large one." I ran 3 seasons in SCCA Club Racing’s Formula Continental and did some US F2000 races as well, and ran a FABCAR Porsche 911 in some endurance events. I don’t even want to mention what that cost. The lesson I learned was that TV coverage of a series is gold. US F2000 lost their coverage in 2002, and it is nearly impossible to get sponsors interested in a series when they wont see ‘their’ car on TV. Sponsorship is advertising, and if the ad isn’t seen it’s not effective. You will have to start out in karts or an inexpensive car in SCCA (or NASA) paying your own way until you can convince sponsors you can win and get them noticed. Formula Vee (like Steven) is a great class to start out in, as is Spec RX-7, Spec Miata, or Spec Racer Ford. The latter is a sports racer class that is fairly inexpensive (remember, this is an expensive sport/hobby – all things are relative when I say inexpensive). Do a season or two in one of these, then try to move up to FC, F1000, or similar, or maybe T1/T2 or similar if you want to go touring car/GT racing later. Build seat time and experience, and build your resume and gain exposure. You will almost never find sponsorship in club racing, unless you have family or friends who throw a little help your way. Once you can consistently place in the top three and have some wins, you can move to trying to rent a seat in a car in one of the pro series. Grand Am and Speed World Challenge offer good programs with TV coverage; these are TC/GT series. If you want to go open wheel then the Formula Mazdas are THE way to go. Great package and great competition. You will be renting a seat (car) for the season (or maybe a few one-off races if the budget requires) from a team who owns and maintains the car, providing track support and a crew for you. This can run from $100k a season up to $500k and above depending on the series, the car, and which team (read: how competitive they are). To raise this money, you usually will need sponsors. You contract with a sponsor (or sponsors) to pay you $X dollars in return for the exposure they will receive (in effect, you are selling them advertising to a key demographic). You are at this point a professional driver, and racing is now your job. To get such a highly sought after job, you will need a powerful resume, full of a greater amount of and higher-quality experience than others who are basically applying for the same job. You have to look the part, sound intelligent, and be someone the company trusts with their image, since you will become a spokesman and representative for them. Just like any job, you have to always strive to be the best around, and continually improve, because if you don’t someone else will. It is a lot of hard work and sacrifice, but if you truly want to race at a high level as a career, it will be completely worth it in the end.
Oh, and you don’t HAVE to be under 25. It would really, really help, but if you want it bad enough the extra years you have driven street cars and experienced different things in traffic will at least help some, and the additional maturity can help shorten the learning curve. Search "Elliott Forbes-Robinson" and you’ll see someone who can still get into a competitive car and compete at the pinnacle of sportscar racing, so there’s not necessarily an expiration date. I’m 33 and having recovered from a broken back am now trying to get back into a car. But the younger you start, the more years you can compete, and seat time racing other cars is the only way you can gain experience and improve.
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