By Sam Tickell

There could be opportunity for teams and drivers to save money in the bad economic times by racing in sportscars

In hard economic times, hard decisions have to be made - as we have seen with Audi reducing their sportscar efforts and Honda pulling out of F1. Generally, it seems that over many racing series, 2009 will see a 20-30% drop in entrants. But what could you do to keep your racing shop open or your driving career on track?

The cost of racing will always be high - that is just a fact of life. But there are better ways than others to progress ones career and to maintain your shop.

The Last Turn Clubhouse had great series of articles on the cost of racing in the ALMS - these can be found here (>Part 1, >Part 2, >Part 3. But basically you can run an ALMS team for about $3m a year over three years. (I do suggest you read those articles - interesting stuff).

It is a generally accepted statement that Grand Am and Speed GT has slightly cheaper equipment but the running of the team is the similar.

But when you move over to a series like Indycar, the generally accepted cost of that series is $7-8m per year (> see this story). Yes, that's right, about $4-5m more than it costs to run an ALMS or Grand Am campaign.

Nascar is no better either and many teams in the main game, Trucks and Nationwide are feeling the economic pinch.

Which brings me back to the original point - how do you keep your team going or your career on track if you can't afford what you were in?

One option is to move back to a lesser series - like Indy Lights or Formula Atlantic (if you are an Indycar team). That is exactly what Walker Racing did in 2008 after the demise of Champ Car and their Team Australia money.

But as one unnamed (recent) former Formula Atlantic driver (assistant) said to Feedmesportscars "we were very annoyed, even angry when we discovered that we could have been running in the ALMS for the same money we were paying to race in Formula Atlantics."

That driver has also been hit by the economic crisis and has been trying to secure his motorsports future – away from single seaters.

I don't think you could argue against the ALMS being a more prestigious series than Atlantics.

The ALMS and Grand Am also have the advantage for a team owner and struggling under-funded drivers that the cost of an entry can be spread across two or even three drivers during a difficult period like this one - making sportscar racing more affordable than its direct competitors.

But what about the cost of the cars - I know that is an issue. If you already have an Indycar or a Nascar or otherwise, why would you dump that program to race in the ALMS or Grand Am?

Along with the ALMS, Grand Am offers a sensible solution to racing in a high level series on a budget

As a team owner, that would be a hard choice but there are plenty of cost effective solutions. For example, Rollcentre has advertised their Pescarolo for GBP250 000, Primetime was advertising their Viper for USD1.5m for the whole season or USD250 000 for the car itself and we all know there are plenty of Radicals, Creations, Zyteks etc to go round. LG still has their Corvette and the Ford GTs and Panoz Esperantes are still there waiting to be raced. Intersport has their Lola, Van Der Steur has their Radical. Again the Last Turn Clubhouse articles have great information on the costs of Ferraris and Porsches.

Once you have bought the car, however the maintenance is accepted to be cheaper than Indycars, where many commentators have complained about the price of Dallara parts. And both Nascar and Indycars race on ovals – expensive if you crash.

So there are options – for the team owner with facilities and staff you can buy a race car and run it in a series at a much cheaper price than in Indycars or Nascar and its related series.

And if you are a driver, your budget can stretch further and in a higher level series then the feeder formulas of Atlantics, Lights, Nationwide or otherwise.

In respect of costs, sportscars could be and should be at an unusually advantaged position. It’s cheaper and the ALMS and Grand Am are recognised series with flagship events and a chance for glory – important to secure the dwindling supply of sponsorship dollars.

Those at the ALMS and Grand Am headquarters will be working to stop plummeting car counts – as Indycar and Nascar will be so the competition for entries will continue to be hard.

As a result of the economic crisis, there are plenty of drivers and teams sitting on the motor racing fence right now, seeing if they can race in 2009. The good times have gone away, at least for a while.

But maybe, just maybe, sportscars is the most cost effective, sponsor friendly place to race during those bad times.