G'day Wes,
Here in Colorado, Rocky Mountain Vintage Racing (RMVR) got started in
1981 and had its first race in 1982. RMVR got an offer from the City of
Steamboat Springs to conduct a Vintage Race through the streets of
Steamboat Village, the ski resort just outside of town for the 1984
season. There was already a motorcycle race being held there. The
motorcycle event was an actual points paying race for our local
motorcycle sanctioning body, the MRA. They also included a vintage group
in this event that attracted some really nice machines.
The races were never combined so the bikes and cars never ran together.
The course was essentially the same but was set up with different
barriers and the bikes got a lot more straw bails to catch the riders
instead of concrete to stop the mass of an automobile. Paddock space,
pushed to the limit for the cars and scheduling also were deterrents to
attempting to combine these events. The typical RMVR Steamboat weekend
had 8 race groups and getting them all out on track at least 3 times a
day really eats up the clock. Adding a full set of motorcycles would have
made for an impossible weekend.
The Vintage Race and Concours de Elegance at Steamboat, Labor Day weekend
was the premier event for RMVR for 15 years. Try as they might, they have
yet to find a replacement street race event to match Steamboat.
The SCCA has vintage race possibilities but has never attempted to run
vintage events or add the groups to their regular offerings, considering
the competition. We have two active vintage racing groups operating in
this region, RMVR and Nostalgia Racing.
One of the other venues RMVR and others run at is the Pueblo Motor Sports
Park west of Pueblo, Colorado (we are blessed with 5 tracks within a 4
hour tow of the metro area, 4 of which are still available for our use).
This facility has a drag strip that is the main straight of the road
course. The road racers who arrive on Friday afternoon for a weekend
event end up sharing the place with High School drag racers for their
Friday night series. Every once in a while, some Formula Fords will run
the drag strip just for fun and surprise the locals with the performance
of the 1600 cc engined cars. I always thought there was a possibility of
conducting an event that combined vintage drag racing with vintage road
racing, road racing during the day and drags at night. I doubt that will
ever happen.
The most famous vintage event in the U.S. is the Monterey Historics run
at Laguna Seca in California and I think it started in 1973. That was
probably the beginning here. Bob Sutherland enjoyed the Monterey
Historics so much that he motivated the folks around here to get RMVR off
the ground.
Twenty five years of racing at one facility is reason enough to
celebrate. Make the best of it.
Have a great Winter,
Bill
On Tue, 22 May 2001 21:25:02 +1000 Wes Dayton <wdayton@attglobal.net>
writes:
> While all of you are in the midst of "Spring Cleaning" and looking
> forward to the coming warm season of racing, spare a thought for the
> (small but vocal) minority of FOT members who are up to our armpits
> in
> Autumn heading straight towards Winter. However, we are slow
> learners
> here "Down Under", so while it is almost June (think December in
> your
> terms), we have a race meeting this coming weekend at Winton - a
> long 10
> hour tow South from Sydney (which you would feel to be north - or in
> simple terms, the wrong direction at this time of year). But I
> don't
> write simply to solicit your sympathy. I'm just curious on a couple
> of
> fronts.
>
> 1) For the first time in my racing life, I have added to the list of
> things to pack - one tuxedo. This is simply due to the fact that we
> are
> going to celebrate 25 years of historic racing at this particular
> race
> track. I wasn't around for the first historic race in Australia,
> but
> it's clear that things historic racing started happening here around
> 1976. It's just made me a bit curious about when the historic race
> movement started up elsewhere.
>
> So question one is - when did the historic movement get started in
> the
> USA, UK etc.? I suspect there might be more than one opinion, but
> I'm
> just interested to know if 1976 was late in the game or ???
>
> 2) This particular meeting is unique in one respect - we share the
> day
> with our two-wheeled historic bretheren. I for one have enjoyed
> each
> year at Winton trying to come to grips with the historic motorcycle
> fraternity (especially those sidecar car guys, but I don't think
> I'll
> ever understand them).I've learned a little bit about Vincents,
> Velcettes, JAP, Montesa etc. I'm really looking forward to seeing
> them
> dressed in their Tuxedos!!!
>
> So question number two - anyone have any race meetings that they
> share
> with the bikes?
________________________________________________________________
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