Money Question **possible spoilers**
I just saw this film and something bothers me about the plot: How did the Mechanic and the Driver run out of money so fast?
Early in the film, the Mechanic says they have $300 in race money, which they put up against the driver of the '32 hotrod and win. That gives them $600. Shortly after that, they meetup with GTO and the race to DC is on.
But towards the end of the film, about a state or two short of DC, they tell GTO they are out of money and have to do some side racing to replenish their funds. At first, I thought it was a ruse they were pulling on GTO. But then the Driver tells Mechanic he had put up his tools against $300, indicating that they really were out of money at that point.
Back in the early '70s, you could have lived on the road for quite a few days on $600. Gas was a mere 30-40 cents per gallon, so even with a low fuel econony vehicle (6-12 mpg), a cross-country trip would still have been under $200 in gas, tops. Motels ran between $7-$9 per night. Road food (burgers, fries) were cheap, too, as were auto parts (note the carb kit Mechanic bought for GTO was about $8). And with the Mechanic's ability to fix both vehicles, that would have eliminated garage repair labor costs.
So, with the relative cost of everthing then, how did they run out of money so fast? Even if they had lived "high on the hog" (which is not depicted in the film), $600 still should have been enough for a straight shot to DC.
Am I missing something? Were there other expenses I am not thinking of? Did they lose some of that money in a cash race along the way I do not remember? I thought maybe it was a time-compression problem...that maybe many more days had actually passed overall than what was depicted, but that is not evident to me in the film's pacing.
One of the things I liked about this film was its realism. But this apparent plot hole really crimped that realism for me. Can anyone help here?