Endurance Racing

On Occasion, the past year or so, I've tried to get an endurance team together. A partnership where each member purchases the bike (3 bike owners would put up about $1500 each and you'd have a decent bike. No success in that. I hoped a couple of former bike owners would come together in recognition of the added work and expense of being the bike owner and seize the opportunity to share expenses....for a change.

I've talked with other racers that have had teams, been on teams etc... It seems you have to buy the bike. Like, If you build it they will come. But...I can't get through all the effort it takes to get everything ready only to have riders show up, helmet, leathers, pay the fees (entry and tires) and leave. As we all know the expenses are much more than that, and the effort of bike set up, parts, and prep is considerable. It is a good deal of work for me and a great burden to my wife that helps me.

Anyway, I invite discussion on this topic. I know we've discussed this before but times seem to be worse now.

I am on the verge is simply offering $75 per race to a team owner, plus the sharing of, entry fees, tires, fuel, and complying with an acceptable crash policy. ..In addition to set up/take down, supplies, warmers, easy up, generator, pit board, quick fill, bike repairs....


Merry Christmas all !!

 

Gene, you might want to talk to Joe over at Blue Grass.
Not sure what his plans are for next year, but they ran a 2nd team
which was kind of along the lines you are looking at.

 

This past year was my first year racing (endurance and sprint). For our Endurance races, my team mate and I just alternated what bike we used. i.e. one round we used his bike, next round we used mine. We had talked about setting up an endurance only bike and splitting the costs of the build, but to be honest with you, since we both already have bikes it doesn't make sense. We have not talked specifically about 2010's season, but I expect that we will likely do the same as we did in 2009. (It worked for us to the result of a championship so why change )

 

It is hard to plan on what to do i dave 07 sv that has been endurece bike we ran this bike with moto-gt/stfor a couple years!!It does seam like there is always one person eating all of the work!!i am trying to figer out what todo for upcomeing year!!new team or sprint race?????i have top of the line equipment need teammates that want to put some effert into the team!!

 

Personally, if I own the bike, I actually prefer to do most of the work. Riding on an endurance bike that you havent touched would be kind of spooky if you werent tight with the people who worked on it. I ran the 2nd bluegrass team last year but this year am running gsxr 600's in middleweight and Joe is still running the sv team in lightweight. Got kind of bored with the smaller grids and sv's. I havent put a roster together yet, but am looking for a good deal on a trailer and another gsxr tank to build an endurance tank. gene, email me at [email protected].

 

what year tank do you need? I have an 04/05 tank...a little banged up, but it's already setup for a dry break.

 

Hey Shane! Call me, Russel and I can build your tank when you get ready... All we'll need is the tank and the dry break mount.... Chris 615-364-3662

 

Hey -- we had a good dice for over an hour at Miller!
Best of luck next year Shane. Hoe to see you in May.
--dave

 

Hmmm...this has been up awhile so I'll have to assume. Please forgive me if I seem cynical....

People would rather ride yo chit.
Let you do the majority 90% of the work
Let you cover a great majority of the costs
Without exposing themselves to much liability. After all, nothing can really make them pay if they crash and burn your bike.
At the end of the season, the bikes is worth only a small portion of what it once was.

These are the issues I have with endurance racing. I feel like I am the "bitch" and as other people are freeloading. I try to "not" feel that way but... I'm open if someone can give me a different perspective.

Merry Christmas !!

 

I've had the opposite experience. I prefer to own the bike, buy the parts and tires I like and set it up for me, then invite good guys THAT I KNOW to ride it for a flat fee and a crash/blow up agreement. The "finding the right guys" part is the hard part no matter what the scenario is!

 

If you don't mind PM me the particulars. I've heard of people doing this. I'm interested in the flat fee and the agreement for crashing and engine issues. These are probably the points I am missing. I believe the costs of racing should be shared.

You're right though, finding the right people is difficult but I see that my lack of knowledge on the finances part is an issue. That said, two race bikes already and I don't need a third dedicated endurance bike...which is what I would want.

 

endurence racing is a differnent life!!of racing you have to keep a lot more parts and different setups than sprints and it takes more people to do it right!!

 

Eric, I've done 5 or 6 endurance races on my bike. Never a break down, pegs and levers are all I have needed. I've done all the work myself. Set up and take down with the help of my wife and one other rider. Lots of people are there to help out and that's what's really nice about the racing community. I don't believe in having a ton of spares, you seldom have what you need anyway. Besides, I like the McGuyver aspect of it all. :up:

Apart from a team purchase of a bike I think I'd like to do the SV and alternate bikes for Endurance races. I think that's pretty fair. I won't endurance my R6.

 

What's the going rate for a "rider fee" over and above the race, tire, and fuel fees?

 

Depends on the level, and what you can offer. Normally when I put a strong team together for any series I am bringing something very valuable to the table. As in a great bike, great team, great equipment, and the riders get to show up and focus on riding. If youre doing it for fun with decent stuff and looking to stretch 1 set of tires or something you really cant charge much.

The last organized effort I made was pretty in depth. If I remeber right we came up with a cost of around 2500 dollars for the event. I was going to charge the two riders 1000 a piece and I would swallow the remaining 500 as well as the parts/labor/equipment. The riders were responsible for up to 4500 dollars in damage in the case of an essentially total loss scenario (10,000 dollar bike). Any damage under 2000 was expected within a month of the incident. Over, and we would figure something out. Riders were responsible for their mistakes, accidents caused by someone else or extenuating circumstances are to be split by the team. motor failures and major equipment failures were my responsibility.

But if youre doing a weekend at 1000 bucks for a race on a slow SV and just want to have fun then split the cost by how many riders you have, each rider covers any problems he creates, and the team splits big failures. Pretty simple really, in reality the other riders are taking a risk riding your bike, accepting responsibility for any damages, and helping you do what you want. Doing the work on the bike yourself is a decent trade.

 

I raced with Bluegrass Motorsports Park Racing, and we spent an averyage of $5,000 per event. (driving to MILLER cost $1400 in fuel alone)
That includes (4) bikes(SV's btw) worth of Friday practices, and fielding at least (2) teams in each event. We had (3) teams at Cycle Jam this year.

We had 4-6 riders at each event. A rotation of 7 riders.
(4) of the riders are local to one another and friends of many years, me being one of them, but I was out of the scene for several years.
(3) of the riders have been friends of Joe/Shane (team co-owners) for many years and they would drive or fly to each event.

Joe has been racing the Endurance series hardcore for the past 10yrs. Team Bluegrass won the LWT Championship but the fields were so low....A championship's a championship but would've been nice to have had more teams to race against.

Anyway, if a rider crashed, he was responsible for the repairs. We had probably 10 get offs this season, and often times the damages incurred were squared away before the weekend was over.
Nothing major, a slipon, a lever, or rearset. If a tank was slightly dented or bodywork scuffed, it was just kinda 'fixed' and no replacement of those pieces was warranted.

Being a close group of friends/racers is the key, I think. There was never any argument of who paid what, who got cheated, etc... Sometimes feelings may have gotten hurt just because of the 'cost of racing' shock, but we're not new to the game...we all know what's involved going in.

Hell, at Talladega, the B bike crashed twice and I was unable to race... I had about 15 mins of practice total for the weekend, and it still cost me $750. I cut a break, and I didn't have to pay for tires that weekend. I was disappointed, but that's the way it goes...Next time, it'll be somebodys' turn to unfortunately lose out.

 

Hey Ben,
Yea I'd just run a stock engine with good suspension, slipon and a power commander or something on a 600cc inline, on a SV I'd have some light engine work. I'm all about fun, but like most guys out there I am serious and focused. I'd probably spend about $750 per weekend with the SV. You're $1000 is probabably more realistic when you calculate everything but I wouldn't care about nickles. I'd take $75 extra per rider on a three man team all day long...reckkin would be something that would need to be discussed.

Man you guys are helping me out more than you know or maybe...you know how much help you are. Either Way...thank you so much. :up:

I guess there just aren't allot of riders out there...even less with money.

Merry Christmas to all !!

 

if i was to do it again the only way would be if i owned the bike and it would be by my terms or nothing its just all in what you wanna do and how u wanna do it people will either pay to ride or not thats there call but no need to short yourelf so others can have fun . the big exspense is gunna be when i feel my son is ready lol

 

Not much to tell, with 3 guys racing my SV at a 4 or 6 hour race I just added up ALL the costs (including consumables like brake pads) and divided by 3. For the "blow up" agreement I stipulated that the rider that suffered the engine failure would pay x amount (around a third of the cost of a used replacement in my case). As for crashes, the crasher would pay for all broken parts and I would take care of labor/bodywork (used parts ok). All of this was on a "handshake" basis, as a written document is worthless if you can't/won't pay a lawyer to enforce it. The downside to this is obviously I'm shouldering a lot of the hidden costs and efforts, but the upside would be that I (the team) would benefit from any contingencies won and there's a lot less hassle in dividing things up at the end of the season or whenever we call it quits. For me, the bottom line is that MY costs vs fun ratio is much better that just running sprints by myself. If you're chasing a championship things get a lot more complicated... giving up your (or another guys) seat time because somebody else is 2 seconds a lap faster sucks the fun right out of it. The guys I raced with were all within 1-2 seconds at most tracks and I tried hard to make sure we all got equal time on the bike and all did our share in the pits.

 

AMEN