<p> </p><font face="Verdana" style="font-size: 9px;">quote:</font><p>you used to rally race? 10x more props there</p><p>how hard is it to break into, financially and otherwise?<br /></p>
<br /><br />While a graduate a student, my roomate and I bought a rally prepped 85 VW Golf together. We paid 4k for it which was a good deal considering that it was fully prepped. You can actually buy a used prepped car for around 5 to 6k and be competitive. The major costs in rally are the entrance fees and upkeep on the car. Typical entry fees will be around 300-500 dollars and will usually require a hotel stay since the events are all over the northeast. We also had to rent a Uhaul with a trailer to be ready to tow the car home in case we crashed out. We would drive to the events in the rally car (they have to be street legal..our's was legal except for that pesky NJ state emissions inspection) and then tow it home on a UHaul trailer. Total I think we spent around $1000 per event (which was usually a two day event) when everything was included. If you have your own tow vehicle and dont mind roughing it a bit you can save a bunch though. My partner wrote all our stories on our old website:<a target="_self" href="http://www.ronfez.net/messageboard/editmessage.cfm/Forum/46/Topic/48597/Message/www.2097Racing.50megs.com"> </a><a href="http://www.2097Racing.50megs.com" target="_self">www.2097Racing.50megs.com</a>. One thing about rally is it really helps to have a friend to go in with. You will need a codriver anyway so its good to have someone you trust. A good site with info and forums is <a href="http://www.specialstage.com" target="_self">www.specialstage.com</a>.<br /><p> </p><p>Once my roomate graduated we sold the car (for 5k) and I went and bought a 100cc kart to race at Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ. </p><p> We were never very fast but we did finish every event we raced in (one was the national Maine Forest Pro Rally..that was incredible).</p><p> We also had the coolest "feature" of any rally car. You can hear it in this movie clip:</p><p><a target="_self" href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eeddie/maine_rally_eddie">The white Golf is our car with me driving.</a></p><p>Rally is the most amazing thing I have ever done. Driving as fast as you can through a closed forest road (and through sections of a small town as in the NY Irish Hills Rally) is an experience thats tough to describe. The night stages are especially rough, mostly mentally too. Once I finally get a job, I'll be buying another car for sure. </p><p>One thing you might look into is Rally Crosses. Those are similar to autocrosses (a circuit is created with cones on an empty parking lot) except they are performed on dirt lots and will resemble real roads with elevation changes and a clearly marked path to drive on. There are some in upstate NY a couple hours north of Jersey. If your car is in decent shape you should be fine. I've only seen a couple of broken radiators and only one car roll <img border="0" src="http://www.ronfez.net/messageboard/images/smilewink.gif" /> . </p><p> </p>
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<font color=black>This message was edited by TheRealEddie on 2-6-06 @ 1:50 AM</font>