How much does it cost?

[John]

Dont know if anyone knows, or if anyone who does know is willing to tell, but I was just curious how much it costs for a season in a championship like the BTCC. The costs of the cars are fairly well known as they are often advertised in Autosport and the like, but other costs such as registration fees, testing costs, spares, driver wages (if applicable), travel and accomodation, team wages etc. are less well known.

Obviously costs will vary hugely depending on the scale of the organisation, and whether it is a works team or not. Therefore for simplicity I'll restrict the question to a modest privateer BTC-touring team (eg TAK or Barwell last year) and a mid sized 2 car BTC-Production outfit (eg B&Q or Beacon).

Cheers.

[Alfa Fan]

Entry fee for a tourer is £22.5K. Cars generally cost about £100K to build.

[MG-ZS EX260]

well, i saw the BTCC programme about honda and they said ther would be 6 noughts involved certainly, so its coting honda well over (or at least) a million squid!

[Reynard]

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the costs ran into 6 figures for running a tourer for a season.

I know for a fact that a Champ Car (rolling chassis) costs about £100,000 and an ASCAR (including engine) will set you back some £60,000 so a new BTC Touring car is probably somewhere in between.

Added to that tyres (about £300 each), fuel (£4 per gallon), entry fees, general running costs, wages, extraneous equipment etc, it all begins to tally up.

*OUCH*

[The Stig]

Are all or some drivers, irrespective of who they race for, salaried ? Or do some teams take a driver of, with great respect, less percieved ability but with a budget to assist team coffers. Are team budgets controlled by TOCA/BMP in the way the rules govern such things as universal component supplies and other measures to reduce costs

[Reynard]

No - usually only drivers racing for one of the works teams get a retainer i.e. wages plus expenses. Others have to bring some level of funding in with them. This doesn't only apply to BTCC, but also to other forms of "professional level" motor sports. Even so, that isn't always the case - even works drives may require some money to be brought in by the driver. You'd be seriously surprised how few drivers are actually salaried.

Your average club racer on the other hand, will either own or hire the car that he/she drives and pay expenses out of their own pocket. Now that's what I call dedication! :)

[Reynard]

For those of you who are interested, there is a very good article in this week's Autosport on the cost of competing in the BTCC.

Makes very good reading as well as there being a few interesting and unexpected facts. The main article centres around an interview with Barwell commercial director Chris Needell (younger brother of Tiff) but there are sidebars with mini-features on car developement and running in the independents cup.

Ian Harrisson of 888 makes a few interesting contribuitions to the two mini-features, in particular regarding the tactics of TAK MG last year...

Opinions, anybody? (if you've read the article, that is)

[John]

Just been to buy it and read the 'Money talks' article.

Very interesting read! DonÃ*t think there's anything in there I donÃ*t agree with - its good that the cars can be easily updated to the newest spec. which means a team will get more use out of it than they would have done in ST days when the car would only be useful for a year at the most.

I had always wondered about how TAK ran as independents and Egg were not allowed (by which I mean that obviously egg shouldn't have because they were in effect factory run cars, just funded by someone else, but it seemed that the TAK cars were in the same situation - i.e. run by WSR). Liked Vic Lee's quote at the end 'Anyway its good that we beat them...' :p

This bit should probably go in the TC thread
(http://toca.forum-host.biz/showthread.php?s=&threadid=219)
but I'll leave it here as it was about the same article. How many times does Chris Needell say about the fact that if they had experienced drivers they'd have got far better results? He even mentions the 2001 drivers as an example and basically says that the reason they had the drivers was because of funding and sponsorship.

As a few of us have said in the TC thread this isn't the ideal way to run a team - and fortunately this problem has been aknowledged by the teams and by RW who says he wants to address the issue of funding for privateer teams. I would much rather see a large prize fund for independents which would make them employ the best drivers so that they have a better chance of winning than to employ the drivers who bring most money to the team in terms of sponsorship, and then not finish very highly in the championship.

[Reynard]

What really makes me laugh is the fact that all the arguments about cost, parts, funding etc were the same ones that were being bandied about right at the start of the 2-litre era.

When the BTCC used to run as 4 classes (up to the end of 89) the most exposure was given to the class A cars. However, these things were horrendously expensive to run and although there was no OFFICIAL manufacture support at the time per se, the thinking behind the introduction of the 2-litre class (running as class B at the time) was that it would bring costs on parity for all the competitors whether they were pros or independents and boost competitiveness.

While that idea was fine in theory, in practice it didn't quite pan out as planned, particularly after Alfa turned up in 1994 running a car to Euro regs in the BTCC. While it wasn't completely illegal, the parts the Alfa was running were deemed to be against the spirit of the regulations.

Before then, an independent could do well in the series on a smallish budget and running a 3-series BMW, but once the wings and fancy parts were made completely legit in 1994/5, if you didn't have the money to develop the car in that way, you were left up a creek without a paddle.

When super touring was in full swing, costs spiralled and entries dropped - first in the independents and then even among the manufacturers as the returns for initial expenditure diminished. 1995 through to 1997 were the golden years, but after that, things just took a downhill turn.

I think TOCA has learnt from the problems caused by the advent of super touring, and Richard West's ideas for the funding of independent teams are up the right track. However, care needs to be taken to ensure that "works" teams like TAK don't slip through the net to get money that they should not be entitled to.

[Reynard]

I've been thinking about the issue of budgets and remembered a couple of things:

Back in 1990, Rob Gravett (driving for Trackstar) won the championship in a Ford Cosworth with a minimal budget as I believe they lost their primary sponsor at the end of the 1989 season.

Rob beat Andy Rouse - the driver who was the undisputed benchmark of Class A for many years - to the title, and this was despite RouseSport's large budget, fantastic development programme and support from Ford - although that support was nothing like today's works efforts. Although Andy's performance in 1990 was hampered by mechanical problems, Rob Gravett's (eventually) comprehensive win in the championship proves that the wallet doesn't have to be bottomless in order to win a touring car championship.

Interestingly, BMW, in partnership with Frank Sydner and Prodrive ran a scholarship for up-and-coming young drivers during that 1990 season, allowing them to get some top line experience in Class B of the championship. The names I'm sure are quite familiar: Kelvin Burt, Kurt Luby and Tim Sugden - all of whom have gone on to compete at the top level both nationally and internationally.

Perhaps if TOCA ran something similar for talented British drivers who would otherwise not otherwise have the budget to compete at the top level, it would bring some additional finance from interested parties and generate good publicity as well as perhaps finding the next big name in BTCC.

[The Stig]

You guys beat me to it. Great article with some contributors who should know what they're talking about. Perhaps a link there too with the TC thread of a couple of days ago. One or two thought provoking opinions in the "Independant Means" feature as well.

[John]

Came across this article that fits in well with this thread so below is the text.

JAMES KAYEÃ*S TOTAL COMMITMENT
ëMy budget was less than AlfaÃ*s expresso bill to be totally honest; I had no Option but to win the Total CupÃ*

Without that generous £25,000 first prize my budget would have had a big hole in it! Now, having won the Cup I am pleased to say that I have not only broken even on the year but also managed to compete in 1994 in the world's best touring car championship for less than many people spend on a season of Group N racing. After a dreadful 1993 season I had no Option but to be 'creative' in putting together a programme for the 1994 Auto Trader Championship. First, I managed to keep the support of my main sponsors such as Enny, Defflon Tweeks, Bilsom etc. This raised £57,500 in cash and a further £20,000 in kind. Hardly a record-breaking figure, but it was something to work with while 1 looked for the other two missing parts of the equation - namely a car and a team to run it. Having enjoyed a good relationship with Toyota over the last few years I was offered a 1993 Toyota GB car but I would have to buy it for £30,000. Fortunately my employer Park Lane had just sold its two 1993 Carinas for £50,000 each and so we managed to persuade another Park Lane customer in Asia to buy this latest car for £30,000 but with delivery at the end of the season! Provided I kept it in one piece!

So I had the car but no team. Then Kevin Maxted came to the rescue. He offered to run the car for a very reasonable figure but in order to cover this I would still need, first, to win the £25,000 and, second, to find another £10,000 or so. In the end I managed to find the extra money by renting the car to a Japanese team for the Spa 24hrs; this was a deal put together by Park Lane's Tokyo office Maxted ran the car at Spa and therefore could enjoy some extra income.

The season was a nailbiting experience, in some ways, mainly because I couldn't afford to damage the car badly; first, because Park Lane's customer might not take the car and second, because I wouldn't be able to repair it anyway Most of the year we used second hand tyres and I purposefully always started slowly as I had a ëcheapÃ* clutch (not carbon) and I couldn't afford to get involved in any 'first lap fracas'. This meant 'coming from behind' a lot of the time and relying on getting a good race set up rather than trying to qualify as high as possible. I can now say that, despite a couple of upsets along the way, it was the right strategy to adopt to win the Total Cup. I had to race to be top Privateer at all times rather than trying to mix it with the works cars; something that I honestly could have done many times.

The bottom line is that it is possible to have a good, rewarding season racing in the BTCC if you are sensible and careful, thanks to Total Oil, for less money than some touring car teams spend on tyres alone! The key for me in Putting together a successful and relatively cheap 1994 season is the support Of loyal sponsors, in particular Enny, and also the support and resources of Park Lane as my employer.

Taken from: Touring Car Year 1994-95, (1994 ) The Nott Organisation, Dorking.