Inform Yourself

The most important thing when choosing a racing car is this: check with your local club(s). For one, you need to fit within the rules of whatever classes they run. If you get yourself a nice touring car, but they only run GT12, you’re not going to do a lot of racing!

Once you know what classes are available to you, check out what cars racers are using at your club, as when you’re starting out, it’s quite helpful to have other people to talk to that can give you setup tips that are relevant to your car and the track you’re on. A good number of racers using a certain car probably indicates that local shops have spare parts readily available.

Saving Some Money

If a new version of a car just came out, shops will often have the previous version on sale, as one would expect. For example, at the time of this writing, the Xray T4 2015 had been recently released, and kits for the Xray T4 2014 could be found at a discount of almost £100! You might want to check if there was some big improvement that might make you want the newer kit, but changes are usually relatively incremental, and in many cases, you might be upgrade later to the improved parts (depending on compatibility, but they usually are).

Some models also sell for a bit cheaper, often because they have less of a world class racing pedigree, for example, the HoBao H4E (also known as the Ofna H4E). If you’re competing at the national or world level, maybe you would need the extra edge of the more proven cars, but at the club level, your own skills are likely to be much more of a limiting factor than the car!

Some companies also specifically make entry level versions of their more advanced models. Examples: Schumacher Mi1v2, Associated TC4 Club Racer, and Yokomo BD7 RS. The Yokomo is an especially interesting one, because it is exactly the same design as their world championship winner car, but with injection molded composite parts instead of alloy, for cost (meaning you can upgrade components to the current model), unlike the others which are older designs that they kept making.

Save Even More Money

If your club runs multiple classes, you might be able to cut costs by choosing well. For example, GT12 is a cost-controlled circuit racing class that can be nearly as fast as the much more expensive touring cars on a tight track (they lack top speed, but handle better). They also happent to be easier to build and set-up, which means you can spend more time driving than adjusting shock rebound. ;-)

For some idea of the cost difference, a brand new Schumacher SupaStox GT Carbon rolling chassis with the optional differential is currently “the car to get” in GT12, will set you back less than £120, and it includes a set of tyres. A brand new Xray T4 rolling chassis will set you back more than £350, and the tyres are not included! But if you still want a fancy touring car, read on…

Saving the Most Money

If you’re on a tight budget, you might want to get a used car. Asking around your club is definitely a good way to get leads on that. You’ll still want to remain in the same families of cars that people run at your club (say, getting an Xray T3 if the Xray T4 is popular, or a Schumacher Mi4cxl if the Mi5evo is popular), as some knowledge (and spare parts!) will still apply from one generation to the next of a given car.

In some cases, there can be very good deal to be had if the previous owner of a car did some upgrades, which might put you much closer to the base version of the current model than you might expect, in terms of performance.

Also, a used car might include extras such as wheels/tyres, body shells, or other spare parts, which can mean additional savings to the overall cost of getting the car running.