My 2 cents. Make the car easy to work on, and low maintance. Build it so it can hot lap if you have to.

A car that repeats and prints time slips is a lot easier to win with than one that has wild ET swings because of a little DA change or some track starting line inconsistency

Go to your local track and get involved with what ever you have that runs, and get ideas for what you really want to build.