Hey Tommy, welcome aboard.

For insurance, basic third-party liability insurance is what's required.

You can find a decent pre-built car in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.  Check out www.specialstage.com or our own classifieds.  Cars pop up from time to time.

Building your own car is almost certainly going to cost more money.  The bits and pieces add up quickly - things like skid plates, odometer, intercom, etc. etc. all cost money.  Buying a second-hand car is definitely more cost-effective when you are starting out.  And try a 2wd or naturally aspirated 4wd car for your first ride, they're much cheaper to run.  The Volkswagen Golf and Subaru Impreza 2.5RS are great starter platforms.

Suits can be found for around $350 new or less for a second-hand suit.  Helmets start around the same price.

Event costs vary.  For a single-day event like Galway, you should budget for a set of tires, towing costs, fuel and entry fees.  Probably around $1000 to $1500 if you're buying brand new tires.  An event like Tall Pines will require a couple of nights in a hotel, food, and more gas and tires.

You'll have to also factor in a parts and wear-and-tear budget.

Hope this helps.

Technically rally cars are street legal, but you don't want a car with a cage in it as a daily driver. Also you don't want to use your daily driver as a rally car in case it never makes it out of the woods.

What I would do is get a good tough car and set it up for daily-driving, solo and rallyX. Then you can start saving up money to buy a dedicated rally car when one becomes available.

As usual, I will recommend that you do the following:
1. volunteer at any type of rally, you'll learn a TON (or more) of stuff about what a rally really is.
2. be a helper person for a team at a performance rally ("service crew") so you find out what breaks, how it breaks, what works, what doesn't work, what it costs, etc
3. do some navigational rallies, it will actually help you, and you'll meet lots of rally people, CHEAP!!!  In Canada most road rally people work or compete at stage rallies.
4. Get the rulebook. Rally is a ton of rules. A ton!!!!  Not knowing the rules will cost you in many many ways. People lose rallies because they forgot a rule, even though they went real fast. So know the rules.
5. start off in a "cheap" FWD car. That's what pretty much all the guys in the big cars say. When you can't go any faster with it, move up.

Have fun and good luck.

Craig

C. Hamm wrote on 11/22/6 at 22:40:23:


So Craig... how much longer till Frank can't drive that Swift any faster and he has to move up?     (You ever wonder if one day frank was browsing a rally forum, saw that, and said "Ohhh, I'm supposed to drive low powered cars to their limits first..." Evo goes into storage, and then came the Swift)

Tommy, like these guys are saying, go for an inexpensive 2wd/4wd car... a 2wd non-turbo car would be a great starting point.  Don't focus on making the car fast, focus on making it reliable.  You can't learn to push the limits of the car if you're constantly worried about it breaking  (also the reason your rally car is NEVER your daily driver!).  

I drive AWD cars... but I have a feeling that my first rally car is going to be 2wd, small, and light.  Maybe a little Mazda 323, or a Civic.  Of course... I may end up building something... which will probably be awd and turbo... helps when you have the collection of older audi's kicking around.

The Pursuit would make a good rally car.
It's basiclly the next generation of the Swift+ that the Sprongls are racing.