Dude, there are a shit load of places in the bay area with large plots of unoccupied land, and I don’t think you’d call that rural. Go take a cruise through Fremont, San Jose, Milpitas, or any of those areas… In Fremont there are literally 1000’s of acres that meet your criteria of rural.
Also, just to point out, the $20k car had one race on it, but was fully prepped for GTS2/3. I’m also sure it would blow the doors off your buddies E36 for the same price…
The point is not whether the car is $19k or $17k. That’s negligible in this sport and from one vehicle to another. The lesson to take away here, if you can ignore the minutiae for one second, is that buying a 22 year old BMW design is an expensive headache. It ends with a Craigslist post to recoup some of your lost investment, then the Internet yawns and LOLs at the price.
If I was building a track car on the cheap I’d get a 2007 GTI 6MT and gut it. It’s a good safe track car with a proven reliable motor and a huge aftermarket. You can find a lot of examples for under $10,000.
And, I don’t necessarily disagree with some of that logic; although I think a RWD car is a more suitable track car for more advance drivers. The fact is, there are many options for building a track car if you want to start from scratch at under $10k (Miata, S2000, 350Z/370Z, GTI, WRX, etc.).
I do think the car I posted for $20k was a pretty good deal. Pretty low milage S52 motor, and pretty much completely ready for the track with the exception of new tires. I think you could make the argument that any track car is an expensive headache regardless of what or where you start.
@drob23 for track capable oil, I use Redline Euro 5W40 502/505, which runs about 12.50 a quart retail.
what is the empty lot you’re referring to? the dusty fields beside the track in the photos on their web page? I guess you live in rural california since we’ve seen photos of you at Laguna Seca surrounded by dry dusty fields and hills?
Bringing the conversation back to the track, going to mid-ohio again this weekend with the BMW club. I’m glad to have a functioning exhaust system and lack of CEL’s. Grabbed a standalone gps for HLT, will see how it performs. I’ll try to get better video this time, but I usually lose patience for the 15 cords and various batteries that are dying.
One thing kind of strange - ordered some xp24’s a week ago and still nothing shipped. The vendor claimed carbotech is still manufacturing them. Weird. I believe I have about 8mm of pad left on each of my fronts, but it kind of sucks to have no backup track pads. I will have my street pads, but really prefer not running those on track.
In other good news, my employer just threw me some retention $$ to not pull a westwest and move to the sunshine state. Nothing crazy, but enough seed money to make the track car search more viable in the near term. I’ll probably wait till the season ends and people decide to sell their toys. I’ll probably look for something on the order of 15k all in. So probably e36/s2k type of money. Will look forward to the help finding a viable option and the westwest trolling.
I’m one retention bonus away from a lightly used 991 GT3 with front axle lift system.
Regarding your employer’s generous offer:
http://theideaforge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/2015/07/its-a-trap1.jpg
Wow congrats drob!
That will be a cool relocation. Some nice tracks in the area too 
Cars will be rust free out there. All wins from the driving perspective!
I vote 944 turbo 
Haha I kind of worded that wrong, pretty much the opposite…I can’t move out west cause they took advantage of my greed and weakness lol Nothing like the big money guys here, but enough to make this track car thing likely to happen 8)
^^ I think you worded it right the first time. Congrats, man - happy for you! Really appreciate your contributions to AR - you’re a valuable member here.
And greed is no weakness - it’s motivation 
S2000 would be boss. Regardless of what you pick up, be sure to post a thread on it here!
Haha thanks man, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel it was a great place to post.
My buddy has a pretty sick S2000 CR (club race). My rec would be a gutted A3 or GTI. Beware the E36, as even an E46 can be a headache with all of the known deficiencies that must be corrected. The E36 was a bad idea in 2005. It’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard of in 2015. But if you must, my buddy in Sunnyvale will sell you his and frankly he doesn’t need the money so he’d negotiate. It’s in perfect shape now, he just wants to do it over again with a Cayman.
If I was in your shoes, I’d pick up a 2001 Boxster and do suspension/brakes/rollbar.
I see he has dropped the price to 15k…interesting…
I did not realize that. PM me if you’d like me to facilitate an introduction. He really spared no expense prepping that car and he’s barely put 10 track hours on it. He used to race bikes but his wife made him stop.
Thanks for the offer west, I probably won’t seriously consider this until later in the Fall.
Had a great weekend at MO, sun was shining and temps were pretty reasonable. Picked up about 4 seconds on my best time. I’d guess I’m leaving another 3-4 seconds on the table. Still lacking the consistency to hit each technical section properly and even close to the cars limits. But I really cleaned up the section from after turn 1 into the keyhole, which is a real quick section.
The only issue I had on track was my bleeder screw seemed to be seeping a little bit. Noticed some fluid on the tires and wheels. I probably need to get in touch with stoptech, because I bled the caliper and re-torqued the screw and it seemed to slow leak again.
Here are some vids
Fastest lap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX7F5z483ss
Running with a 1M (on hoosiers) and a F80 (on cup 2’s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWFpRGNTPjE
Following some kind of prepped cayman, you can see in the keyhole (turn 4) how much better that car rotates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDt7F4CWRw8
Some serious iron at Laguna today. Ford is here with 25 copies of the GT350 and a bunch of GT350R. The carbon wheels feel like plastic - warm to the touch even though they’ve been sitting out overnight.
An observation: everyone with an M4 has already modded it to hell. I’m not even sure how that is possible.
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/08/24/005a8bbabdbb7862b2f84f722637a0ec.jpg
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/08/24/95b678272e1f3fe8c82a775f0eaaafb2.jpg
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/08/24/de912f2496c8edd9d10020b62cec3397.jpg
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/08/24/dadeea548da276c5dbac23320be11d63.jpg
http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/08/24/56410bd80ba06a1335737faba216a25e.jpg
So how did those GT350R’s do out there? Any chance to get seat time?
Ford isn’t part of this event. They may have the track tomorrow.
The Cayman next to me is owned by a kid who works at Tesla. He writes TCU firmware in C, which they can update over the air. Incredible.