I can tell you from my limited racing career on the rivers, not only does it cost everything you have money wise, but the time commitment is rediculous.
Although Circle racing is (or maybe should be) easier on equipment than whitewater rock dodging, there are a lot more races to get to.
We only had three or four races a year in this country, so unless you had an endless supply of the green stuff to ship your shit overseas (New Zealand, Austraila and Canada) then there was no way to win a World Championship..
I would agree with the comment about unless you have run it, don't discount it. If you were to look at the Trinity River in Willow Creek Ca., you would have to be 2/3 insane to think you could run a 100MPH jetboat up it, but they do, and from what I am told, the most fun you can have fully clothed....

Our "junk" never ran well enough to run the Trinity, wish we had. The race was normally pretty close to the Rogue River time wise, couldn't thrash hard enough to get our Band Aids to stick...

I saw a race several years ago, all the "B" class boats were a DNS except one, came in third overall and only averaged 45 MPH, beat most of the boats that normally averaged over 90 MPH, his exact words at the end of the race, "Boy, we passed a lot of broken shit! Glad she only broke simple stuff". That shows you how often a $2 part can park you and make you feel insignifigant and small....
I have a ton of respect for anyone with the good fortune to get to go racing, only because I know first hand what it takes to do...
You Comp guys are going with one boat one motor....Try one boat, two motors and enough crap to build a third....The expense is almost stupid.

I will not be racing this year, even though I had somewhat planned on it, the economy is too wierd and I am struggling to keep my shit together economically right now, but if I fix my situation well enough, next year looks pretty promising...

I am not running a fiberglass hull though...It goes against my instinct of what works...

If time becomes available in the near future, I would love to offer some of my time and help out with crew duties...lemme know..
GT