Open letter to all board members and policy makers,
I know there's been significant discussion lately regarding policies to
insure that cars that race with us are "in compliance" as to period
"correctness". This is a perilous path... and it requires some forward
thinking to be effective, as well as fair to all. Those of you that monitor
the "vintage race" list have witnessed how poorly HSR handled an incident of
a "rule" recently.
A few hypotheticals...
Let's say a racer has an extremely fast Sprite. Let's say he's spent a
ridiculous amount of money (let's call it $70k) in developing it to its
current state. Casual observers can call it a "cheater"... but it would take
a careful eye and inspection by someone "Sprite specific" to get down to the
details that could be considered "illegal". Note, I'm not talking about
"prepared in a vintage spirit'... but just plain illegal. If those items are
discovered, and notification given to the owner of the car, with a
reasonable time to correct the issues (while allowing him to race, albeit in
another class if necessary). However, if you chose to do this, you must also
be prepared to require every car out there to adhere to these rules. There
may be a number of cars that have "illegal" preparation, but since they
don't run in the front of the pack, the blind eye is given to them. You
can't just target the frontrunners.
Let's say another racer...could even be the same racer, has another car... a
fiberglass bodied Sports racer with production car chassis underneath, and
say... a small block Chevy engine. Let's figure, once again... many
thousands of dollars have been invested in development to get it into its
current state. A close inspection reveals perhaps... late model brakes, and
a "crate" 350 4 bolt main motor. Should you choose to enforce the "rules" on
him, and eliminate him from competition, then, once again, be prepared to
enforce the rules on either mid-packers, or even, say an Augie Pabst. Last
time I peeked under the hood of his Scarab.. those weren't 283 fuelie heads
on his car.
So, are these "problems" that need fixing? Is it driven by a vocal few that
dislike being beaten regularly by cars of supposedly "humble" origin?
It would seem to me that the easiest, by far, solution to this situation
would be to institute (or enforce) the minimum weight specs for any given
car. You roll thru tech... and you roll onto a scale. Easy rule to apply to
one and all fairly, without ambiguity. Speed is devoloped by more hp, less
weight, better brakes, better tires, or superior driving. We don't want to
get into a "tear down" situation on protested motors. Although brakes can
certainly be helpful in better lap times, they also can be viewed as a
"safety improvement". The "tire" issue has been dealt with in what I believe
to be an equitable manner, and as long as there's no favoritism going on
behind the scenes, allowing one entrant in, while disallowing another...
tires seem to have become a non-issue. I hope we still applaud superior
driving...
Of any time in recent years, with today's economy, the last thing we need to
do is to (again) piss off the paying customers. Last year's Group 2/Group 8
debacle solved very little, but did go a long way in getting a number of
regular racers/faithful members all in a lather (and rightly so).
WST
(just another paying customer with an opinion)
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