That's why I decided to use the passenger floorboard. I already had "drain holes"
drilled so putting a couple more in was no biggie. In Chumpcar, they use rechargeable transponders, and since it's $500+ to buy one of my own, I wanted a location that would be easy to pop it in and out but without a whole lot of hassle. That being said, a pretty stock 1.8 was never going to come down to a photo-finish, so mounting it close to the front bumper wasn't really a consideration.
I would consider buying one one day that is permanently wired into the car, but I'm not sure what the future of the car is - most organizations use the AMB transponders, but it would suck to buy one and then it isn't used in another series.