The Ford Focus ST-R comes from the factory ready to race in Grand-Am ST, World Challenge TC and Canadian Touring Car Series and the Nurburgring 24-hour race. It costs $98,995 and comes with a 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder, six-speed manual transmission, Ford Racing clutch, new brakes, a limited slip differential, FIA-spec safety equipment and all of the other goodies you need to go racing professionally (AEM data logger, computer tuned to run race fuel) right out of the box. (Read Church123's brilliant comment on our ST-R news story if you really don't understand the cost here. The comment begins, "The stupid in this short thread burns like lava!")
So we know the specs (except power), now watch Ford Racing's Andy Vrenko give you a walkaround of the Focus ST-R. There's very little driving here for a video of a racecar, still worth it, though.
church123 says:
03:31 PM, 12/22/11
Aww, you're too kind Magrath. I would have settled for "informative". Brilliant would have been if I could have done it without being such a dick about it :)
On the topic of this video, it pointed out a few more thngs that I had forgotten such as:
Replacing all rubber bushings in the suspension with harder durometer pieces. Probably less than $1000 parts cost, but the labor, my god what a PITA!
There's also a nice racing steering wheel and a couple other items. And I'm sure I've forgotten more. $99k looks like more and more of a bargain.
SC
stovt001 says:
01:25 PM, 12/23/11
Mike, please warn me next time. I'm on suicide watch now after clicking the link and reading the comments. I have lost all faith in humanity and life just doesn't seem worth living anymore. Scott Oldham once asked me my thoughts on why it seemed there were two distinct groups of people here: those who comment on the main page and news articles and those who comment on the blogs. To put it as diplomatically as I can, I'd say there is a significant knowledge gap between those groups.
Anyway, I love Grand Am and am thrilled to see this entry in the ST class. I probably won't make it to their only west coast race, Laguna Seca, this coming year due to service commitments, but hopefully future seasons.
tmarcjones says:
09:22 AM, 12/25/11
@Church -- Great detail on the costs; many folks just don't understand how much different racing is from pretty much anything else in terms of development time/cost etc.
I'm wondering how much factory race support Ford will offer. I would suspect that would be a pretty fair amount in terms of race engineers, component engineers etc.
So to add to your cost example where you priced a build at about $100k with still more possible development work required; I would assume race support would add at least $5/k per weekend at a minimum if you had a bunch of volunteers. (For the Pro series).
I would assume Ford wants the program to be successful; so I would think that customers would have pretty good access to Ford race engineering.
It is true that reading the comments can make one's head hurt. A lot.
Yours was well written.
Cheers!