I raced from 1952 thru 1960, then ran the driver school at Riverside for three
years and was on theBoard of Governers at the Calif. Sports Car Club, so I've
seen a lot of production car racing and been in a lot too. I was also on the
Constest Board and the Nat'l Licensing Chairman for the SCCA. (credentials)
In the Fifties almost everyone drove their car to the race track and on the
street. We had Riverside, Pomona, Willow Springs, Paramount Ranch, Del Mar, Hour
Glass Field and others too. The Porsche drivers usually had a VW engine that
they put in their cars after the event for their street driving. I would change
heads, camshafts and tires and then drive the same car to work on Monday. We
raced generally about 10-12 atimes a year. In my class of E production, there
were the MGA Twin cam cars, Morgans (not supersports) TR-3's, Healey 100, Arnolt
Bristol, Porsche Super and an occasional funny kind of car or maybe a Jowett
Jupiter. Anyway there would be an average of 35 to 40 cars in the class, all
production cars of which all but maybe two or three were either flat towed or
driven to the track and hopefully home again. !959 was the first year that I
was sponsored by Triumph and won the Championship and had a trailer and pickup.
What a difference. Most people had retread tires and they had to be treaded. No
slicks allowed, no re- grooves allowed. As everyone was driving their own car it
was a matter of survival with your wallet so you didn't crash. You take it
right out to the 'nth of your ability at every brake marker and corner but you
looked around and wern't as brave as some I see today risking cars ( not their
own) for not a good reason. You had to be careful with the revs and be accurate
as this car also had to take you to work. You want to get funny with the engine
or chassis? There were people as part of the tech inspection that were looking
for locked rear ends, alternate springs, oil coolers and goofy setting on
suspension. You had to be very cool. No options were allowed. The Tr's of
course had the overdrive but most guys didn't use it as they hadn't figured out
how to make it work very many laps. It was really fun when I worked that out and
be racing with a Porsche side by side down a chute and have him waiting for me
to shift, flick the switch and he was history. The Porsche had a lot of the best
of it as they had adjustable suspension and many transmissiion ratios that were
all listed as standard. If you couldn't buy the option or feature off the
showroom floor you were not allowed to use it in any of the racing. Now that was
Cal Club where the rules were pretty darn good as the SCCA later copied them
almost exactly. I was part of the team that wrote the rules and a feature that
was great about then o options was that you could not then go to Germany or
England and buy a spoecial car that had been homologated by the FIA for factory
racing and run it as a production car. At the same time in the EAST the SCCA did
allow options and that created a class of cars well beyond the reach of most
people. One of the major regulations that was picked up by the SCCA from the Cal
Club was " You may take away maaterial but you may not add". So this allowed you
to mill the head, grind a cam, lighten a piston or cam follower or pushrod, but
you can;'t weld up the combustion chamber or the manifold or other parts of the
car like the spider gears becuase you were adding material . Some guys tried to
pull off the deal that they cut off part of the inlet manifold, melted down into
a stick or rod then used this to weld up another part of the manifold. ( I
didn't get away with that one either) Heavy suspension springs were not allowed
unless delivered off the showroom floor on that model. But you can get around
that by cutting a coil off then heating the spring partialy, pulling the coils
further apart to get the right length and you wound up with a stiffer spring. A
lot of work but absoultly workable and LEGAL. There were a few folks unhappy
about this little deal but it certainly didn't cost much to do and was available
for anyone that had the right frame of mind that there was very little that made
a car go fast that
was too much trouble. ( They did change that rule and allow springs the next
year) No anti-roll bars either. These were for the most part true production
cars that were raced very very hard but a pain in the neck to get thru tech
inspection if you had your heater hooked up to the oil pump and you tried to
have a cooler under a fender or something of the that nature. At tech you were
refused entry if caught, fix it and come back, okay. BUT if you raced with it
and were caught in the after race inspection (top 3-5 cars plus one car at
random from the field) you would probably lose your license for at least 6
months and maybe a year. So if you were getting loose with the regulations you
had to be prepared to defend your position in a court called the "Contest
Board". Bring your proof or argument and lay it out. It worked amazingly well.
There was also the opprotunity to protest any vehicle in your class that you
wanted by putting up a $50 dollar bond. After the race the car was sealed in the
portion protested and anything from a full scale engine tear down to whatever
else was protested was done later in the following week in the evening and
presided over by the Contest Board members. If you refused the sealing or the
protest you were OUT right then no maybe about it. This makes you think really
hard and be very very determined to improve your car in a extremely clever
fashion. The part about not being able to just buy options and put them on and
the restriction of "add not material" keep the costs down and created a class of
hard driving and very careful preparation. The cars used the stock cranks, rods,
pistons or replacment type with .040" oversie the max. No oversize valves etc
etc. From my experience in this business it was found that the majority of the
BIG cheaters were in the field about midway or fast of the slow guys. This
position in the field generally just could not believe that the people who were
in the front could possible be legal but it was very seldon indeed that anyone
in the front was put down for an illegal car. Crazy driving ,yes, but not for
cheater cars. Now that was the Fifties and very early Sixties racing in
Southern California. The SCCA also was putting on races both in So Cal and in
the San Francisco area under the Nat'l SCCA ruiles (with the options and stuff)
I had a complete different set of stuff for my car so that I could go play with
those people also. All the options that Triumph listed and there other
preparation rules also. Silly stuff but that was ironed out when the Cal Club
merged with the SCCA. I was a part of the negotions on that deal and looked
after the regulations for production car racing. It was then that the National
organization took up the Cal Club rules and went on to be a really good
organization. To this day the Cal club is the only region of the SCCA that has
its full name involved as the name of thier region. The California Sports Car
Club region of the SCCA. There were no fender flairs or even enlarging or
"bumping out" of the fender lips at that time. When the slick race tires came
into being and were allowed in production classes that was the start of the
allowed body modifications ( bad deal too). Just a little stretching to begine
with then roll the lip a little then bump it out a bit then finally flairs
(ugly). But it did take over twelve years for that course of events to happen.
Another time maybe some more on the 60's. Anybody care?
Gt6steve@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 9/24/99 7:37:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> kaskas@earthlink.net writes:
>
> << I think it really amusing on how people think the cars were raced in the
> late
> 50's and 60's. Most of the production cars I have seen aren't even on the
> same page.
> >>
> Kas, can you expand on that thought for us? I assume you mean the cars were
> run harder then? All the FOT would welcome your observations. Steve
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