How does the cost of racing electric off-road compare to electric on-road?
 

Looking to get into off-road on a high bite indoor track, coming from an indoor black carpet on-road track. Just curious how the costs compare? Seems that the kits are definitely cheaper in off-road, not too sure about tires. Anyone do both or come from on-road and could provide some input?

Off road is much cheaper.

• Tires are much cheaper
• Kits are much cheaper
• You don't need special setup rigs
• parts are cheaper. However, you may end up buying more parts due to crashes. Open wheels in traffic and big highspeed jumps can spell trouble.

Depends on what classes your taking about…

On-road Euro Truck and VTA tires last me 8+ race days. GT & TC classes sometimes one-run their tires…. Big price difference there.

Off-road 2wd tires last 3-4 race days, Stadium Truck rears ~2. 4wd lasts much much longer.

I race both. And for awhile carpet and clay off road. Almost everything I race is used. Broken parts is the hard expense to predict. I race with some that will drive through the wall to pass. And don’t mind breaking $100 or more in parts at a race. My main expense other then tires, has been buggy wings and spur gears.

On raced tc a couple of times, but from my experience:

Tc chassis is more expensive
Bodyshells, although cheaper don't last very long
tc are very quick and when it goes wrong it tends to be a fast/big crash. Buggies tend to be a flip over etc.
Setup equipment in more important and expensive for tc.

I've noticed the on-road tracks near me have some pretty budget friendly spec classes that are both popular and competitive, the cheapest being the box stock Tamiya class, but also some slightly less restrictive classes like a TC class with a price cap on the chassis and spec body/tire rules to keep costs down.

Off-road just doesn't have anything similar since box stock sct died off years ago.

Racing isn't cheap
Compare tire prices and usage duration for whatever class + track you are thinking about.

In off-road you have a lot of different tires. In On-Road TC usually the tires are spec's.

I currently race both in multiple classes. If your local track has it Euro Truck is the most fun and cheapest. Touring Cars (USGT, TC and VTA) are the most expensive. Kits are expensive, and tires and bodies don't last long. 2WD buggy is in the middle. Bodies last a long time except for rear wings. Ask the locals what tires they run.

I just started practice at my local off road track. I usually race USGT and VTA. I have to say that the VTA tires are quite expensive at $68 a set but I have raced them about 5 times and they have a long way to go. USGT tires are about $15 a set if you glue them to old rims. As far as bodies, it's usually about $35 +paint, but my bodies have been lasting longer. They usually get more damage from hitting barriers and dots rather than getting spun out. Consistent repetitive driving is great in "forgetting" about the barriers and focusing on lines and speed.

Without a set up system, the cost is about the same. I use standard height and camber gauges. A racer can get fully prepared for many different off road tracks by stocking up on multiple types of tires. That cost can skyrocket depending on the many different track conditions. With onroad, the spec tires are great. One current set, one spare set.

I have only broken a $15 part on my on road car and a $25 part on my B6.1. the AE car has parts locally at our track so it's more convenient to spend money on it.

The answer is a clear it depends. :nod: Some classes are more expensive than others. I can buy two (top) 2WD buggies for the price of one (top) touring car. Of course there are cheaper TC options and when comparing those to Off-Road, maybe even 4WD buggies, you'll get a very different picture. Also pan cars / F1 are usually quite a bit cheaper than TCs. And that's just talking about buying new cars. So, it really depends on what exactly you end up buying. Personally, On-Road has been quite a bit more expensive for me - but that is because of the choices I have made.

Luckily the electronics being used is the same for both On-Road and Off-Road, so no real difference there. Except that maybe, due to the nature off Off-Road for the jumping and bouncing, more vibrations, open wheels (more often than in On-Road since there's tons more buggies than F1s out there), chances of damaging a servo or ESC over time could be slightly higher. Still I'd say IMO not significantly so.

That leaves all the "consumables".
Let's start with bodies. On buggies they usually last a long time, up to several years. However, what buggies do easily destroy is their wings. Trucks are a different matter. Especially Short Course Trucks quickly and easily destroy bodies (and these are also the most expensive of all to replace), while Stadium Trucks are somewhere between buggies and SCTs.
While on the On-Road side... bodies usually don't last very long (except maybe for F1 bodies). Of course it all depends on your track as well. A tight little indoor track will cost more bodies than a wide open outdoor facility should. And to be fair, all cars with open wheels (like buggies and F1) may protect their bodies better... but at the cost of a more vulnerable suspension.

Lastly, tires. As has been said earlier in this thread, in On-Road you usually have spec tires in the rules of most classes so you don't have to buy or carry any options. These spec tires are usually also pre-mounted and glued, so rims and inserts are also nothing to worry about or fiddle with. However, all this comfort makes them quite expensive, since you cannot re-use any of it. Now, how long do they last? Again, it depends. Some tires last longer than others, but the most important factor is the surface you are racing on, and with how much power. On carpet, tires will usually become a little slower after several runs, but they are still usable for much longer, if you're not chasing lap times. On asphalt (even on wide open tracks with clean and very fine asphalt), you can literally destroy (some) tires within only a few runs, even in (super) stock classes. Of course tires will also wear faster in modified than in stock. That is of course valid on the Off-Road side of the hobby as well. But while there are pre-mounted combos available in Off-Road, too, it is much more common for people to choose rims, inserts and tires and glue their own wheels, which can cut costs significantly, since you can often reuse both rims and inserts after removing the tires again. Spec tire rules are less common than in On-Road, but at least in my area, even when there is no spec tire, choice of legal tires is usually limited to a few options for both carpet/astro and clay/dirt each, and out of these options, usually only one turns out to be popular and working on most tracks - again: this is in my area. In other placs in the worlds, you may really need to get different tires for each track, or even for different conditions on the same track, (be it weather or just time of the day that is changing) to stay competitive. Personally this would drive me nuts, but some people would hate not having 25 different clay tires to fiddle with... people are just different.

As you see, there's just too many variables to tell which is more expensive than the other in general.

The biggest variable is whether they wet the track or not... a dry track will go through tires just as fast as on-road, but a wet track will significantly reduce tire wear where depending on some places a set of tires might last 8+ race days off-road but a dry blue groove track can go through a set of tires in just 1 day much like on-road.

I think it depends on the level your racing at, here in the UK the cheapest popular classes are probably GT12 electric on road, followed by Tamiya M chassis racing.

I would say 1/10th stock touring and 17.5 2WD buggy are the biggest club classes here, touring will typically cost more for a high end kit, but you will have a lot less damage to fix. Buggies are quite cheap - but your more likely to bend and snap stuff.

At the high end (e.g nationals) touring cars are probably cheaper as last time I checked they had a rule for the amount of sets of tyres you can use in a day, where as buggies do not unless it's changed recently. But once you get beyond the regional level there's no cheap class really.

Tyres are probably the biggest cost to a class, if you show up for on road with any reasonably modern chassis (E.g a TC3/TA05) you can be quite competitive with the right setup and tyres. With buggies you probably do need a more recent chassis to be competitive on a modern high grip track, as you need mid motor and the right gearing for 17.5 which older buggies don't deal with as well.

TBH you can spend as little or as much as you want in any class really, but there's no substitute for preparation and talent :)