I don't follow drag racing anymore, so I don't know if local tracks do this anymore, but we used to get booked in for match races. The track would pay us some and then there would be a purse for the winner. Usually it was a 8 car field no weigh ins just heads up Pro Stock style racing. It was really fun. My car was extremely light, with me in it with fuel it weight a Little over 2100 pounds. So with the weight out (had to weigh 2300 to be legal NHRA) I could run high 7.40's low 50's.
So that could be a way of getting your feet wet. Again there is so much more to this than having enough money. I ate, slept and worked at it 7 days a week for years.
This was a topical week. Mon.- pull the motor and freshen everything up, clutch, Lenco, motor, and check 3rd member.
Tuesday- rent a local dyno making sure the power was still there and any changes we made helped. Always trying to make more power.
Wednesday- rent the local track and test clutch and chassis changes and motor combinations. Get new tires mounted, change valve springs,get the trailer ready. Try to leave before 12o pm to get to Denver by Thursday early pm. Go threw tech and make one qualifying pass, have dinner and get to bed. We drove all night so we were beat. If anything went wrong on the qualifying pass then we were up until it was fixed.
Fri- 2 qualifying runs, we were usually still trying to adjust for the altitude change.
Sat- 2 more runs and hope we made it in. If we didn't, we packed up and headed home to get a jump on the next race.
Sound like fun?