In a message dated 5/15/01 10:57:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
marcsayer@home.com writes:
> Who cares what class they put him in? Look at it as a compliment, instead of
> taking offense. They think a 2000 is so good it has to run up a class. If he
> really is 4 seconds faster than the rest of the class he "should" be in,
> then
> perhaps they are right. Maybe he belongs in a faster class. I know I
> wouldn't
> want to run in a class where I had no competition. I'd rather race my ass
> off
> and come in second than cruise through a season because I am so much faster
> than
> the rest of the class. In that sense vintage racing often does capture the
> essence of racing better. Here is an example. John Morton in *any* car
> belongs
> in a faster class than I do. Doesn't matter what car I have, he is always
> going
> to be *much* faster than me. Many vintage groups would bump him up, out of
> his
> car's class, because of his lap times. The same thing happened to a friend
> of
> mine who raced a Big Healey. His car was just another 6 cylinder Healey,
> nothing
> all that special. Certainly legal for his Vintage class. But he was bumped
> up to
> a much faster class because he consistently turned much faster lap times
> than
> the rest of the cars in car's class.
>
List,
VARA in Calif. as well as other groups around the country use a
*performance-based* system, that is, the car and driver as a package. As a
starting point. They use the car's historical classification, running against
the same cars as it did back in the day, then move them up or down based on
the performance of the car/driver. So, there are novices with big-bore cars
running in small-bore classes, and the opposite... last year there was a hot
bugeye sprite running well in C Prod. against 3-Liter cars...but this is the
exception. It makes for better racing due to the disparity of talent and $$$
amongst the historic cars and their *vintage* drivers.
Craig Carter
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