Andrew, you wrote....
>Group C cars do get invites to a number of Open Race Meetings, not
all-Historics >though and they prove popular with the spectators. By
encouraging this trend we >may see more of these original cars returning to
the track - BTW, I had a telecon >with a fellow competitor this morning and
have now located (hidden in a country >shed) a Group C Tourer that hasn't
raced for over 15 years.
Sounds like an exciting telecon to me! I could imagine they are very
exciting with spectators and the more original cars reappear the better.
>However, doesn't the concept of promoters putting together classes / races
that >suit them puts us back in the situation that has been aired a number
of times on >this list by many people in the US? Surely you end up with
valid Historic cars >being denied a race because somebody doesn't like them,
or, you get some late model >cars that run all over the rest of the field?
Hmmm. I think the latter already happens anyway whatever the class system or
cut-off. Even with 1950s GP cars when they tried to restrict it to
front-engined only then the car to have was either a Ferrari 246 Dino or
something like the Aston Martin. The former a good but outclassed car by the
Cooperisti while the latter was even less impressive by the time it got
racing properly. I don't think either works particularly well. The CAMS
situation always delays things and that's tedious. I don't mind CAMS running
the regas for anything, I just think the proceedure could be speeded up by
running "invitation" events to tentative regs. and then getting CAMS to
adopt the show afterwards - instead of witing for the bureaucrats to get it
together at a reaonable pace. I mean Group R seem to have been interminably
delayed for no good reason that I'm aware of (but then I do have a "snooze"
button which operates every time somebody involves me in a CAMS politics
discussion so I'm probably wuite wrong here!
>Also, by having one central body for vehicle rules, eligibility, classes,
etc don't >we avoid what appeared to me (observing from outside the US) to
be the cause of >much soul searching on this list where different clubs
allow different >specifications for the same model of car, thus making it
difficult for people to >race their cars at some events (or for their cars
to be totally non-competitive if >they run somewhere else)?
Absolutely agree with you here in so far as CAMS has done a very good job as
an arbiter of what is or isn't historic for a long time and held the rules
together for eligible cars. My only problem is where certain modified cars
with history don't fit CAMS rules (which is silly) or where cars with
history have to run as racing cars when they are really not pukka cars but
actually essentially sports/sedans. In the latter case, again I am probably
being ignorant of precisely what is happening so my apologies if this is not
strictly true.
>Much as we may knock the Confederation of Australian Motorsports, at least
they >have provided a standard set of rules for each Group within the
Historic 5th >Category and everybody in Australia knows exactly what those
rules are and has to >conform to them. It may sound like structured
despotism, but at least the result >is that it allows competitors to run
their car at any race meeting in Australia >that has invited entries for
that competitor's Group.
Structured despotism is I think just about the only way to run motorsport
regulations in most cases. Furthermore, if only the Italians or the French
or the British would run the eligibility proceedures of CAMS for paperwork
and then we wouldn't have an historic racing world knee deep in fakes in
many instances (Lotus XI/23 comments passim on this list for one good
example alone!) I would not be remotely in fabour of destabilising what CAMS
have done to date. However, if somebody wants to run a certain class and has
consenting adults wishing to pay to do it in cars complying with essential
safety regulations then I don't really believe they ought to sit around
awaiting for CAMS to say they can go motor racing. That is really my
contention here.
>Maybe the numbers of cars is significantly greater in North America, but
there still seems to be a steady input on the topic from people such as
BrianE, MylesK, SimonF, TedS, et al, which seems to indicate that there is a
desire from competitors in the US to have a chance of running at any and
every race meeting in the US - or have I misunderstood what people have been
saying?
Certainly once we get into sedan regulations it can become a minefield as
then how modified is modifed and suchlike really does require good
interlinkage of regulations between clubs. Certainly, I can sympathise here
having seen the Irish production saloon racing scene decimate itself because
they went to slightly modified rules which weren't Group A (this was before
2-litre shopping cars) and suddenly the English grid fillers didn't want to
play because thet weren't remotely competitive.
Regards,
Patrick
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