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

Reminds me of the conversation I had with my father 2 weeks ago.  He said he saw on the news the average cost of a new car went from $34,000 in 2005, to $50,000 in 2025.  I asked him what his point was.  He said that's ridiculous.  I got my calculator out, and it's not ridiculous.  It's pretty much in-line with cost of living and inflation.

There is so much more to the success of local sprint car racing than the motor costs.  It's all relative, and has been for as long as there has been racing.  I would say a pretty good combination of the effects of streaming, and families having other interests besides heading out to the local track.  (My number 1 culprit being the explosion of club sports and the effect it's had on weekends for kids, parents, and grandparents who used to look for entertainment on the weekends)  

That's basically a result of less fans in the stands

This conversation has been around the world and back. Turth is, 410 Winged Sprint Car Racing is as strong and healthy as it ever has been.  Keep the cost restrictions for local classes. If you can't race with the big boys stay on the porch. 

I'm curious where you're getting your data from? If I use an inflation calculator based on the Consumer Price Index, $25,000 in 1995 equals $53,003 in 2025 dollars. If I average the first 5 inflation calculators that pop up in a Google search, I get $53,305.

I dunno. If you cut the engine cost for everyone in a top-tier 410 team by $20,00 and they go through 5-10 per year, I'd have a hard time beleiving that costs the car owner more money. How much did it cost when the rules were changed to a maximum 5x5 top wing?

$50,000 or $70,000 motor, and the rich man will spend his money. Maybe he can buy 2 cars. Maybe there would be more teams on the track.

That's true, but it's also a result of less cars in the pits which also effects the number of fans in the stands.

It must be as strong and healthy as it ever has been in your area, but not everywhere else. 

"If you can't race with the big boys stay on the porch" works great, for IndyCar, Gran Prix, NASCAR, etc. It's not so applicable to traveling 410 series that need local cars to fill out their fields. 

He used different starting dollar values and calculations on 2.5% and 3% inflation.  I believe the OVERALL inflation rate of all goods, services, and cost of living is around 2.55%.  "Normal" inflation is going to affect things differently.  For example, appliance prices have actually had negative inflation over the past 30 years, while steel prices and skilled labor have had an annual increase of over 4% per year on average.  So, depending on whose numbers you want to use, you'll get different values for a dollar today vs. 1995.  I think his 3% (which is what I always use) estimate is probably about on target for this type of product.  

No, It appears you're just picking a number with nothing to back it. You yorself say that steel and skilled labor have had annual increases of over 4% and then say 3% is the number you always use because you think it's probably on target. The government people whose job it is to do the math disagree. 

$70,000 sprint car engines are way out of proportion compared to inflation. It's not relative. 

Murphy the starting numbers purse and motors in 1995 are arbitrary or an educated guess.  The spreadsheet does the work and was just to show how egras numbers could be accurate.  I put 1 in front of the decimal ie 1.025; whereas that gives the actual amount each year at 2.5% Annual increase.

I to believe some of it is not relative as 2.5% of say the $2,000 purse cannot keep up with the motor at $25,000 as 2.5% of that every year is way more dollars every year and is unsustainable for local racers/ non corporate teams to keep up with on a weekly basis.  Stay on porch is not relevant if there are no more local shows because of a lack of fan support.

IMHO the perceived decline in local shows can be attributed to the traditional owners no longer existing.  A fact that is apparent even in central Pa.  There is no doubt there are way less owners hiring drivers .

I understand what you're saying about the math. I'm just saying the the inflation % used in the spreadsheet might not be accurate according to the Consumer Price Index gauge of inflation. When you use the accepted inflation rates to compare $25,000 in 1995 to 2025, it seems that motor costs went up a lot more, realtively speaking.

Could the decline of traditional owners be affected by the rising costs of running a 410 sprint car team? 

I'm following you and mostly agree.

and 100%agree with the last part 

Knowledge and know how cost money too. The material cost can fluctuate a lot but as is the case in a lot of industry, particularly in the racing industry, once the cost goes up it very rarely goes down. What was the line the Joker uses in the Dark Knight, "if you're good at something never do it for free." With as specialized a skill it is to build a 410 sprint car engine is, the engine builder to race team ratio favors the engine builder when it comes to setting a price. Plus you look at the amount of top teams that most likely will pay a little extra to shorten the wait time for a rebuild, I cannot really see material cost being an answer, at least when it comes to the engine side of things. That's just my experience when it comes to goods and ingredience within the supply chain world that I have to deal with. 

Egras working in the machining industry can probably explain it a little bit better when it comes parts. I mean yeah, I am sure the cost of certain materials will go up and down within a certain range over time but, are you or your students going to change your rates to do the work? And just speaking from the consumer goods sector, not ALL savings are passed down to the consumer. Some companies call that a raise for themselves. 

I just don't think even if you found a way to justify decreasing the cost from 70,000 to 50,000 that it will happen because in racing there will be some guy or guys with money that will pay 70,000 in order to get the "best stuff." And they will not want someone who is paying 50,000 to consistently beat them for the same stuff

This has been discussed a few times but I'll share my ideas (because I know everyone's waiting lol).  

First off, I think the real cost is how often they need to be freshened.  Some years ago I heard they needed to be freshened every 5-6 shows and I think I heard that cost between $3,000-5,000 IF there was nothing else that had to be fixed.  I can't remember when I heard this but I'm thinking 10-20 years ago.  I'm sure the costs have gone up since then but simple math with these figures if you ran 60 races a year you would need to freshen that motor ten times which would cost at a minimum of $30,000 and that's if nothing else breaks inside the motor and you never blow one up (highly unlikely).  Again my numbers are old but something to think about.  Also with that many times freshening them you need an extra motor or two because of that.  My first solution would be a gear rule to limit the motors to around 7,000 RPMs.  I like this for a few reasons.  First off without turning them that many RPMs they should last longer between freshens.  Also outside of swapping a cam, this shouldn't cost the teams much since they should all have all the gears in their trailer.  The other thing is with that many RPMs the bottom ends need to be much stronger which means more expensive so this should save teams there.  I heard at one point the bottom end of a motor was about $30,000.  I know what some will say already.  "You don't think teams will spend the same amount of money to get more power in that RPM range?"  Yes I do, the idea of this is to save money by freshening the motor less.  Honestly $70,000 isn't that bad for a motor if you don't have to do anything to it at least in my opinion.

The next thing I would like to see is getting rid of the 410 motor.  Someone else would know better than me but does this current motor share anything with any other motor of any kind out there?  Maybe late models?  A few years ago you could buy a hellcat with 900 HP for about $60,000 with a warranty.  I'm not suggesting they put in stock hellcat motors my point is that there's cheaper ways to build HP.  The LS based motors and Coyote based motors are loved by people and I heard it doesn't take a lot to make a LS motor take 1,000 HP as far as the bottom end goes.  However these are both still being manufactured and there are tons of them in junk yards (though I know that no 410 teams will be getting their motors out of a junk yard).  I should also be clear that I'm not saying the computer controlled crap should go with them.

The motors are one part of the cost, I think there's still a lot of room to save costs.  Personally I don't like the idea of smaller wings or narrower tires just because I'm a traditionalist.  But I think they could and should outlaw ALL exotic metals on sprint cars.  It has done nothing for anyone and just raised the price of racing.  I know there's tons of other things on a sprint car that could be cheapened up and nobody would notice.

It's always the same argument against rule changes.  "Now everything I currently have is worthless"  You could have a two year "transitional period" or whatever you want to call it.  And if you were running old stuff you would have to add weight or something to current rules to make them on a closer playing field.

I do think this is something that needs to be looked at though.  As Murphy said there used to be a lot more tracks with 410 racing than there is now.  The death of sprint car racing has already started.  Neither the WOO or HL have enough cars to put on an entertaining show by themselves, they both need local cars.  Because of that I believe it's up to them to help with rules to save costs.

Also as far as the dollar numbers go that everyone's debating, I'm guessing the motor dollar numbers from 1995 are higher than that.  I remember hearing as a kid (early 90s) that a local 360 team spent $30,000 on a motor, no idea if it was true but they won a ton of races the next year but I'm guessing a good 410 motor was more than that.  I don't think the cost of sprint car racing has gone up as much as other things but I think it comes down to other things and not near as many people have that much disposable income anymore.  Look at the cost of a new vehicle or home.  I remember as a kid (early 90s) my parents bought a house for $40,000.  In March of 2020 I bought a different house and paid five times that for our house and they're honestly about the same house (square footage and age wise).  Now just five years later according to the tax assessor it's worth double what we paid.  I don't care what they say the inflation numbers are life is just a lot more expensive now and that leaves less money for hobbies and even if some can afford it they are a lot more careful with their money.  This is all just my opinion.

Give me your car count data. I'm thinking the avergae now is higher than years back. I know this is only back to 2015, but it was lower before that. 

Year By Year Stats - 410 Wing
 

Not picking numbers with nothing to back it.  I worked in the machining industry for decades and we quoted work, had to re-price our products and services, and calculate tooling and machine increases.  We also gave employees raises.   It was about 3%, on average, each year for each of these.  When making these calculations, I wasn't interested in cost of groceries and medication.  I wasn't interested in how much a washing machine cost.  I was interested in the cost of steel and aluminum, the cost of labor, and the cost of tooling and equipment.  We had years with negative pricing (2009 and 2010 for example) and recent years that hit double-digits or near double-digit increases.  I have been out of the industry for 11 years.  I would bet the past few years in this business have put this 30 average above the 3% we used to use.  

$70,000 sprint car engines are not way out of proportion compared to the inflation involved with manufacturing and materials.  A $30,000 engine, of which the value increased on average 3% over 30 years, would be a $72,817 engine.  

phew a lot to unpack here from my experiences of being a member of a 410 team in PS:

Paragraph #1 refreshing top 410 motors somewhere between race 10-15....rarely ever less than 10 and rarely ever more than 15.  just 3 years ago i saw a bill for a refresh of 410 it was $8,500.00 and it was not blow up.  i believe a comphrension rule as drivers and owners have expressed would lenghten the refresh window.

#2 i like it not sure it would work but in theory love the idea.

#3 i only disagree with the traditionalist part look at a 70's and early 80 sprintcar and tire and wing size is noticealy smaller..i cant remember the year they put the front wing on them to hook them up even more.

#4 you are 100% spot on here without a transition time is necessary i remember these conversation within our own team...the running joke was okay what is this rule change going to cost us.

#5 man is this spot on can't put a show on with 12-13 WoO and 14-15 High Limit need locals!

#6 i think your opinion is pretty good and murphy to add to your relative point and what i was saying about the difference of 2.5% on purse and motor is: 

1995 purse to motor differential between 22,000 and 25,000

2025 purse to motor differential between 46,000 and 58,000 

Not disputing your numbers however the average number can get skewed by loss of tracks...

as late as 2000 Lincoln, Port Royal and Selinsgrove each had full fields on a saturday night and most places had a consolation race. So minimum of 72 sprintcars and closer to 84-90 each night.  now they both for regular especially handicap show struggle for 24.

Additonally the holy grail Williamsgrove who no other track is allowed to run a 410 race against them well except for Port or face the death penaly of losing your speedweek date can't draw a full field on most friday nights.

Egras your inflation numbers are understandable and i believe your motor costs from my limited knowledge are pretty darn close.  i don't think we should just look at inflation number without considering numbers on the return on investment......

....so the return on investment thought - the question is you are an owner in 1995 and the difference between a winners purse and the motor is 22-25,000....and now time warp that same owner where the difference in 2025 is 46-55,000 which year do think the owner would pick - Inflation rates are only one part of the equation as the return on investment IMHO seem to be  way out of whack.  

After you guys get the inflation rates figured out, then take into account that you are not getting the same engine as 20 or so years ago. I will bet those engines could not compete with todays engines. I also don't think there are as many big time blow ups now as then.