Race Weekend Central

Report: Costs Around $1.5 million Per Race Weekend for Four-Car Team

Late last month, Sports Business Daily writer Tripp Mickle followed Stewart-Haas Racing for the Kentucky Speedway race weekend to determine the cost of being a competitive race team in the Sprint Cup Series. The findings are startling, to say the least. Team expenses including flights, hotels, pit box transport, food, drinks and other expenses total up to $125,181. Competitive expenses such as the racecar, labor, tires, credentials and entry free total up to around $1,434,654.

“Over the course of three days in June, Stewart-Haas Racing trucked eight race cars and flew more than 100 people to Kentucky for the Quaker State 400,” Mickle wrote in his article. “It rented 27 vehicles and reserved 44 hotel rooms. It spent more than $1.5 million (see chart below), and its four entries finished seventh, 11th, 12th and 21st to collect a combined purse of $428,401. (That doesn’t include driver salaries or additional personnel costs.)”

Photo Credit: Tripp Mickle via Stewart-Haas Racing
Photo Credit: Tripp Mickle via Stewart-Haas Racing

With the cost laid out there for the eyes to see, including a simple $48, 434 spent on hotel rooms alone, it brings importance to why an organization like the Race Team Alliance may be important in helping to maintain and minimize the costs. Perhaps they can work together with the hotels for a group rate, or find other ways to bring the costs down in certain sectors as they have discussed that they would like to do.

About the author

Residing in Canada, she freelances for a number of racing publications, from SpeedwayMedia.com to On Pit Road while covering local short tracks up in Ontario.

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Russ

Which came first the need or the demand? 44 rooms @ $304. Me thinks that all of this isnt trotally necessary. However as long as some sponsor wants to pay for it?

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