Well maybe we overpayed for the car and therefor over value it now?
We paid $4000 for the car and pit cart and spares/tools when we started in 2007. That was for a 2005 Storm/Sr. Honda that had finished 2nd in Sr. Honda the year before we bought it. Then in the process of running it for two years updated the shocks all around ($700) and added a Mychron ($350) and more spares.
My feeling was buying a used racecar would result in less depreciation than buying a new race car.
-Eric
I don't know if it's necessarily an over valuation. What I often see is under valuation on cars for sale at the local level hurting the sale of higher dollar equipment. I know what these things cost and what we all put into them and I can guarantee there isn't a single person trying to sell a car for anywhere near what they have in it (well, I do know of one, but that's a rare case) but it's hard to get 3-4k out of ANY car when you can find 1900s around all day long for 1500-2k.
I will attest to the fact that a 1900 isn't the best equipment one can pick up, but I don't see a lot of development with these cars. There probably hasn't been a necessary innovation in the sport in the last 5-10 years that can't be added to 90% of the cars out there to make them just as competitive. Shocks are probably the hot ticket item that you're going to get more of a percentage return than anything else right now.
When we got into this we looked at a couple Stanley's and thought about buying them seriously, but as we were new we didn't want to go that high in price until we were sure what we were getting in to. We ended up paying 2k for a Pro 2000 with a truck bed full of practice tires and spares of enough to replace every piece on the car including the motor. People we knew who were racing hounded us endlessly about buying an older car, telling us we shouldn't expect to win with the car we decided to get. We dialed the car in over the course of the first three races of the season and once we hit it we went on a hot streak. Won 5 local features, the Haynes Apperson Race, and the Down'N'Dirty Sr.Honda race at Kokomo against almost all of the best in the class with a rookie driver.
We've ran a newer Bullrider this season and as of now we're in the process of switching back to the Pro car, which has been sitting in the garage all season. We've left it sit because we would be very hard pressed to sell it knowing . I know that the price it would sell for would be insultingly low to us and that the price we want out of it would be insultingly high to anyone interested in purchasing it.