rally on
I saw your question and the responses you're getting are off the wall! This prompted me to join the forums and add my two cents. I've been rallying going on 3 years and I just built my second rally car, which happens to be a focus...just competed in my second race with it (doo **** rally, Aberdeen WA) and I hope what I say will make clear some of the responses posted for everyone reading.
I'm glad you've chosen a focus, we need more representation out there. Over half the entrants in rallies are usually impreza's which means you have the guts to turn something less proven into a rally car. For those of you who say driving fast down a dirt road is not fun, then to each their own, but I'm definitely not of that opinion and neither are millions spectators who make rally one of the most popular forms of motorsport in the world.
But first, places to buy rally stuff:
www.safedrives.com - good safety equipment in general for racing and driving
www.rallylights.com - these guys sell a lot of the gadgets you need for rallying, like computers and racing lights
www.p-sport.com - Sells rally tidbits
A lot of your more focus oriented sites I'm not an expert with, but there are many floating around. Obviously buying direct from dealers is an option, and unless you know somebody authorized to deal parts, I often times find I pay the same price whether going to a middleman or not. Fordracingparts.com has some of the upgrades you may be thinking about, and they are conveniantly listed under NASA's spec focus rules and parts list. As somebody else mention that is a great place to go to see a starter list of what you may want to upgrade.
Any kind of racing is a lot of money and there are definitely things you should do if you have the money. But if you don't, I say still go for it. I started racing when I was still in college, and basically put the money into preparing the car. If you do that much, and show up to race, everything else will fall into place. As long as you're a nice guy, people will help if you have problems, as I've often had other teams give advance offers to tow us if we crashed at an event. Just this last weekend, we were trying to fix the car at service and people from other teams were just coming over to help without us even asking. There was one guy at the race who probably put 3 or 4 grand into car buying, prep and travel and was pumping up his tires with a manual pump! We've even set up a tent before to save hotel costs, and we never pay for premium gas. With rally you're going to be faster if you have skill at cornering, then if you have 30 extra HP.
As for some of the other discussion people have been posting: All rally cars are street legal. If it's not, then you're breaking the law and rally rules. (there are ways around this if you're really desperate, like getting temporary registrations just on rally weekends that do not require car testing and such). DMS runs about $4500. You can probably get an equal suspension if you know the right people (people who know a lot about suspension and mod work, not people who sponsor) for $2000. I raced an MR-2 for 2 years on stock suspension and never broke it. However, my second race in the focus and I bent my front left strut, but I was also going around a corner at 80 mph, into a dip with a car sized pot hole at the bottom. If I had slowed down to spare the car, I garuntee I would not have bent the strut. So you only need to do suspension if you know you're not going to slow down for anything, and when you're a novice, I garuntee you want to slow down for these types of things. Check out this video of what happens when you're a novice and don't slow down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5trPo2M4CM. The first 3 competitors have been in the sport for years, the rest are all new.
Buying your first rally car used is cheaper. I bought the MR-2 (also in the video above, but with the new owners) for just under 3 grand. But I had to put TONS of work into it becuase it had been thrashed for 2 years from rallying! Everything seemed to be breaking on it. So there are trade-offs. With the focus, I bought it for just over 5k, in perfect running order, and there are very few things I have to worry about breaking. Little things don't break everytime you race it, like with a used car.
There are rules for starting in low power cars becuase people were literally killing themselves and spectators in overpowered 4wd monsters that they couldn't handle. And it was those kinds of things that helped to make insurance rates go up. IMO, these rules are good! A focus has more than enough power to get you into a deadly accident anyways. It really isn't about teaching people proper driving techniques, it's just about being safer, as it isn't a requirement to go through a racing school before you rally.
People already mentioned
www.specialstage.com. That is a good place to frequent if you're serious about rallying.
And one more thing, take out the blasted Fuel Cut-off switch or your car may die when you hit a bump really really hard, which may cause you to DNF if you don't know about fuel cut-off switches.
-Lou
Focus Rally Car #251
Monster Dog Racing