Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

WE hear a lot and read a lot about buying a ride, NASCAR, Indy Car, Sprint Cars, etc.  I've never read what kind of money we're talking about here.  Big article about 16 year old Landon Crawley getting the ride in Jason Sides'' # 7 in this month's Dirt Empire and full time with WoO.  Supposedly buying a ride in Cup and Indy Car and WoO cars is pretty much the norm.  But again, I don't have a clue what the "buy" costs, couldn't even guess, wouldn't dare as I'd be so far off. And the dollar amount is never mentioned.    Or is this too much "personal" information that is not talked about?  For all I know Crawley proved his talent (looks like he did earn the ride after reading that article and how strong he is at 16) and probably was no "buy".

Lawlessness + liberalism = HELL -  NYC, Detroit, Chicago, 
Seattle, LA  Who the H runs those cities. 

For some reason the cost of racing is a taboo topic on this site, it's hard to get staight answers. I've heard it cost about five thousand dollars to race a competitive 410 sprint car for a night. I'm sure that could be a base for a rent a ride. Some drivers have loyal sponsors to help fund their racing programs. I think buying a ride for an Outlaw season in a good 410 would cost $350,000+ and that may low.

I believe Kyle Larson said he had to bring $1,000,000 to get a Nationwide ride. 

Depends on how you define "buy" or "rent" a ride really. There are a lot of ways that could be considered a rented or bought ride. In some cases drivers may have a relationship with a sponsor that chooses to sponsor them. They can go to certain car owners or vice versa and work out a deal based on how many dollars they have. This has gone on throughout history in motorsports where the sponsor bets on the driver and not the car basically. Other methods are the driver and/or family has equipment of their own and will work out a partnership on how to use both groups equipment. Then there are the cases where the driver or dad writes a nice check to the car owner to drive the car regardless of talent or accomplishments. I know of someone who does this for their kid, who does have talent, but the reasoning is they work full time, own their own business, and do not have the time to build race cars and service them throughout the week. Plus their knowledge base is not that good for the type of cars so it is worth it to them to write a check to the team who knows what they are doing, they know their child is safer, and their kid has a better opportunity of success vs if they did things themselves. 

Personally I don't have anything completely against people buying rides but also buyer beware. Don't complain if things do not work out and you get beat by a team that has "less" because you choose to take the money instead of skill potentially. All of it is a phyical and financial risk. 

Agreed.  

Just one thing to note though. Don't complain about getting beat by a team with an average driver that took the money. The door swings both ways.  I guess you can boil it down to chose smartly however you chose and don't complain. 

Theres an Australian driver that has done some races overseas that has a top level ride here in Australia. He used to race a family owned car but now its rumoured that he brings $150k a season to the new ride. Its joked about that a top level driver still has to pay his way in.
If you ask me thats a cheap investment, you couldn't run a family car for 30 races a year for under $150k. 
Motorsport aint cheap. I often see people online whinge about how expensive it is to race these days, which is true obviously. But thats how it has always been. If you cant afford to race at the top level, dont. Drive something one or two rungs lower, that suits your budget. 
Rent a rides have always been around, not a bad thing because i know a 16yo Landon Crawley isnt out there working 70 hours a week to be able to afford to race. But his family and sponsors sure do believe in his talent so let it happen. 

9000 per night to drop the door per tyler swank when he was crew chief and kerry madsen drove the kenaric 29 car several years ago. He estimated 11-12 thousand dollar range now. This is a competitive woo type operation.

The Chilli Bowl is good example. Costs more to rent a ride than win. A card carrying WOO that runs in back1/2 of field couldnt compete without sponsers or has money. Stated before many who make a million racing started with 2 million but is fun. No way of knowing but a top crew cheif costs serious money

I thought I had heard the 8-9K price before. Now at 10K+, wow. So you can win a race and still lose money that just seems pointless, the top two finishers should make something. Shortie is right on with the Chili Bowl too, it's just rich dudes buying rides so they can say they raced there. Samcrack is right on also, racing has always been about having money, I don't know many middle class racing families. 

Its believed that Crawley brought $250k to race this season for Sides.

Joey logano's dad supposedly said he gave Gibbs 20M for his son to race JGR nationwide car while waiting for Tony to start his own team so Joey could have it when Tony moves on.

Brandon McLain
United Sprint Car Series Driver
2014 Season
National Rookie of the Year!
National Points - 8th
Southern Points - 3rd
Asphalt Points - 3rd
18 Races, 3 Top 5's, 14 Top 10's

What?  You mean Joey didn't sweat his way through the ranks, living check to check? 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

To be fair to Nascar, over the past 50 years, it would be safe to say less than 10% of all drivers in professional racing divisions, did so on talent.  Money brought to the table has almost always been the deciding factor.

This is going to sound ridiculous and I probably misheard or misinterpreted a bunch of the conversation but while walking around during the world finals I overheard snippets of a conversation between what I think was a driver and someone else. He was talking about  2024 for sure and negotiating a ride. He was talking in general about the equipment he was going to bring to the team (could have been a hauler; motors etc) and in the conversation which I heard about 30 seconds of he mentioned having to hit revenue targets of about $100-150k as well. I knew drivers brought money but I didn't know what performance targets the owners also set for pay to play drivers. It makes more sense when some drivers who clearly get their rides by bringing money also get canned midway through the year if they're not bringing in the performance agreed upon at the start. 

Pretend K. Kunz brought 8 cars to a midget race.  They finish 1 st thru 8th.  The winner would make a profit and 2nd place would break even Places 3 rd thru 8th would probably lose mony.  It  gets down to sponsors and selling rides to make it.  A uninformed guy told me the sponsers pay the team cost and the purse is all profit.  He went to college, so he should know.

The Kunz cars were quite dominant last night fore sure. I heard rumors a few years ago that a KKM ride for the season cost 250K- 300K? I don't see how an Outlaw ride could be less expensive. Way back in the day when I raced micros I determined a third place finish was a break even deal for me, second place I made a few dollars. I never made much money but it felt good to break even once in a while. I didn't go to college but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

This is incorrect. When Larson first visited Toyota NASCAR teams, they told him that they could put him in a K&N ride if he brought half a million to a million in sponsorship money, which Larson didn't have. That's why Larson eventually met with teams outside of Toyota and ended up signing a developmental deal with Ganassi.

Ganassi had his team sponsors to fund Larson's development. Larson typically had Ganassi associated sponsors in NASCAR Trucks and Xfinity such as McDonalds, Cottonelle, GLAD, Clorox, etc as primary sponsors on his cars. I think Larson did run a Parker Store truck at one point though, so that's obviously a sponsor that followed Larson from the sprint car ranks.

Mike Larson wrote a really fascinating article a few years ago detailing the meetings with the Toyota teams, Ganassi, and the contract process: https://thedriversproject.com/2016/07/hell-week/

If $500,000-$1,000,000 was required to fund a K&N team ten plus years ago, it's hard to tell how much something like a full Xfinity season would have cost back then, let alone in today's world.

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Since the Indy 500 just occurred, it might be pertinent to note that to race in the Indy 500, it's usually reported that a team needs sponsorship funds in the $1-1.5 million range depending on the quality of the team. Funding for the entire IndyCar season is usually reported as being around $3-5 million. SBJ reported in the last week that Hendrick spent $3 million to run Larson in the Indy 500. That sum includes sponsorship of the Arrow McLaren car, multiple tests at different tracks prior to the Indy 500, the on-track activity associated with the 500, as well as flights back and forth for Larson's NASCAR duties.

In 2018, Conor Daly raced in the Indy 500 and didn't make a dime. He found sponsorship from the US Air Force and put all of the funds towards buying him a ride in the Indy 500 with one of the worst teams on the grid. There was not enough money in the sponsorship funds to pay himself anything, so he essentially raced for free in an extremely sketchy car. He ended up extending that relationship with the Air Force though and was able to get more funding to race in more competitive rides in the future years. He eventually became a full-time IndyCar driver for several seasons after finding a crypto sponsor, but now he is back to only racing in the Indy 500 because his previous team hired a different driver and kept Conor's crypto sponsor that he brought to the team.

Ask Frank

There has been a few, the only current one that I know of is Brad Keselowski though.  I couldn't stand him when he started racing NASCAR since it seemed like he would wreck whoever was in his way but that changed after I saw an interview with him somewhere.  Basically he said that his parents were bankrupt from spending so much on getting him to the NASCAR level.  Things were looking up for him and in '08 or '09 he was under the impression that he would get to drive the 5 car for Hendrick.  But Mark Martin decided to race for an extra two years. which put Keselowski out of a ride.  He said he had nothing else to fall back on and that showed him how volatile a NASCAR career could be.  He thought he was doing everything right but because Mark Martin decided to race a couple extra years he was out of a ride (he was very clear that he had no ill feelings towards Mark Martin and that he had earned the right to do that).  So he decided that he couldn't go out and race to race anymore.  If he wrecked a few people along the way that was fine but he couldn't move back to Detroit knowing everything his parents had sacrificed for him well he rolled over and let other drivers beat him.  As far as he was concerned everyone he was racing against was secure in their career but his wasn't so he tried to win at all costs, even if some people didn't like it.  It was a cool interview and honestly I cheer for him now.  However I don't believe he ever wondered where his next meal was coming from but his parents weren't writing huge checks to get him there.

Brad Keselowski is the only current one you know of?  You don't know of Kyle Larson?  He was repeatedly turned down by all Nascar teams.  He was told time and time again if he brought a million dollars, they could put him in a Nationwide Series ride for a year.  (documentary on FS1)  He couldn't bring much of anything, let alone a million.  Chip was the only owner that saw the marketing potential for Larson, and took a gamble by offering him a ride.  Larson said he had the financial backing with Target, and was the only owner interested.  If Chip had not given him a ride that day, he most likely wouldn't have ever made it to one of the big market series. 

Ive had to educate folks several times on here before but ill do it again. TAX RIGHT OFFS ARE A HUGE PART OF THESE BIG TEAMS . Allmost all these owners have something else going on where tax write offs and losses come into play where its not costing these owners NEAR as much as it appears.