Cross country driving is expensive, even in a cheap car. The article yesterday on Jalopnik discussed some of the expenses involved but I thought the full breakdown might be interesting. Here is the spreadsheet that we provided to the organizers of The 2904 to explain how we spent our money. You will notice that the purchase of the car, non-safety related repairs, food, gas, oil, tolls, etc. are counted against the $2,904 budget. Our safety related costs are in the next column including things like lighting, suspension, wheels, tires, brakes, fuel system, etc. The next are event and travel related expenses that are also not counted. Obviously we stretched the rules of this contest to the moon and back. I really wanted to do something in the vein of what we did on the 2013 record drive. That meant using a Mercedes and that meant spending a lot of money on the non-officially-counted parts. My hat is off to the teams who drove 2,800+ miles in cars more traditionally selected for The 2904. Amazing stuff.
