In a message dated 98-10-28 13:32:05 EST, BillDentin writes:
<< But for the sake of discussion, I am just questioning the logic.
>>
Here is the "logic" behind my, and hence I guess SVRA's feeling on "newer"
cars. ie, our group 10 which includes appropriate (in our mind) post 1972
production based and GT cars. We expect these cars to be cars with real race
history in most cases and be in a configuration and livery consistant with
their most historic period.
The logic goes like this:
When vintage racing really started rolling someone coined the terms VINTAGE
and HISTORIC. I started in 1983 and at that time most organizations considered
vintage cars to be at least 20 years old and historic cars to be at least 10.
About that time most of these groups established absolute cut-off dates of
1972 for historic and between 1962 and 1967 for vintage. VSCCA has always had
1959 as a cut-off date which is fine for their type racing and limited
membership.
We are now nearing 1999 which would make a vintage car a 1979 by these
standards. I certainly don't propose this approach, but I do begrudgingly
accept the fact that time moves on and so do people's ideas of what is old.
Do you realize that there is a whole generation that doesn't know what an MG
or Triumph is? That don't know that Datsuns were made by Nissan? That think
Miata and Z3 when asked to identify 2-seat sportscars? Aren't Jensen-Healeys,
Fiat & Alfa Spiders, X-19s, TR7 & 8s pretty hard to find anymore?
It is all a matter of perspective. History shows that organizations that don't
recruit younger members eventually die. I'm sure that some of us would say "so
what". Since I expect to have many more years of active racing (I'm 53), and
since a lot of you will be pushing daisies before I'm done, I don't wish to
race alone. I like big fields. I wish all the other cars were slower and had
poorer drivers than me. I also wished for a Lionel train set and got a Marx
wind-up.
That is my logic.
Jack Woehrle
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