Jack,
I'm ready to end conversation now, but must say my observation of racing here
in the east is that as an organizer, you are not necessarilly supporting
someone's value in their Lotus 23 by excluding replicas and such, but what you
are doing is continuing to have that class of car show up. Because of HSR's
open door policy, you won't find nearly the quantity of Lotus 23s or other
sports racers at their events, if any. I decided very early on that HSR was
not where I wanted to take my Eleven. With my new single seater, this probably
will be an option again.
Typically, SVRA has done a better job of policing the entries or at least
creating the aura of doing so and thus, the sports racer classes have
survived. That is the true effect, rather than enhancing someone's value,
although this value is probably a collateral effect.
We must all realise that racing at any level is expensive and there are
certain indicators, such as the number of restoration shops involved in the
sport and the accompaning auctions following along. Another indicator is the
number of large tow rigs and semis in the paddock. That don't come cheap.
Almost every race too has a sponsor kicking in some $. If the people who have
the most money involved in the sport lose interest, and that means their
expensive, investment grade cars, there won't be any race for all the rest of
us. Like so many things in life, money makes the world go round.
Roger
>>> <JWoesvra@aol.com> 07/11/01 03:08PM >>>
In a message dated 07/11/2001 11:34:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
grant62@starpower.net writes:
<< And I was recently told that of the 106 Lotus 23's made, over 400 are
racing world wide. >>
Depending on how you look at it, the sad part of vintage racing is that
certain cars have an intrinsic value beyond the sum of their parts. That
these cars have a collectable value is contrary to the reason they we builti
n the first place. In period, it wouldn't have made a wit of difference ify
our made an exact replica of a Lotus 23 for example. You could have gonea
nywhere and raced it in the appropriate class or category.
It is difficult to separate the usefulness of a vintage racecar from it'sc
ollectable value. A Lotus 23 has intrinsic value both because it is stillv
ery competitive amongst it's peers and it is a Lotus. The difficult question
using this example is, should we as organizers be in the business of
supporting a car's value by being exclusive? Or should we open the way form
ore people to participate by allowing less expensive examples which are nuts
and bolts perfect except that they weren't built by Lotus between 1961 and1
965?
How much responsibility does the organizer have to protect owners who havei
nvested a lot of money, wisely or not, in a car that few others can evero
btain?
The dirty little secret in most cases is that we aren't in the business ofc
hecking i.d. numbers and paper trails. Sort of a "don't ask, don't tell"s
ituation. If you declare that you have a replica then I have to turn youd
own. If you just register a Lotus 23, particularly one that we have seenm
any times before, I would probably never give it a second thought.
Is this fair? I dunno, but it is reality.
How far do you wish to take this conversation?
Jack
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