No, I’m not talking about costs of professional bike racing like Moto GP and WSBK. I’m talking about good old amateur club racing, the one that’s supposed to be affordable.

This weekend I had a pleasure to attend my local club race, WSMC. A friend of mine was debuting in novice race, so I had to support him. During the idle time (his race wasn’t to start until 4pm) we tried to round up the cost of the racing weekend. The final figure was pretty staggering, especially if you compare it with the money I used to spend racing supermoto. Tires alone were almost $700, and that is considering the fact that he raced on tires he used in the morning practice, ideally he should’ve spent another $350 on a fresh set. Add the entry fees, costs of food, gas and service and the price quickly skyrockets way north of $1000. This makes me question whether I can afford racing.

It wasn’t always like this. With costs on everything going up this year the paddock was half empty, and the racing grid wasn’t as full as I remember it. I really hope economy turns around soon, people should be able to do what they like without stressing out about how much money they put on their VISA.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 11:25 am and is filed under Racing, Motorcycles, Life, Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.