I recently had an "experience" with HSR and I was wondering if this type of
experience has always been a part of HSR or is it indicative of new
leadership at HSR. I flew out to FL from CA to crew for my Dad at Sebring.
He is racing a 1964 Jaguar XKE with a Chevy 327. It is the actual car/same
configuration that he raced in SCCA (A Sports Racing) during the late
60's-early 70's and he has documentation to prove it. He has raced in HSR
for the past three years with no complaints or problems. Anyway, at the end
of the Thursday test day, this guy shows up at our paddock area, says he is
the "new" competition director, and says that "we" are putting him in a
tough spot with the car. He was then quite insulting (ran a safety check on
the car - even though it had already passed tech) and claimed that HSR has
no place for "mongrel cars". My father pointed out that this is an actual
vintage race car (not a new build),that he asked for and received approval
to run from Joe Pendergast (previous Comp Dir), that he had run this car for
the past three years in HSR, and that he is more than willing to run for no
points, since he just races for the fun of it. All of this fell on deaf
ears. The new Comp Director's decision was that if we wanted to run that
weekend, (1) we would have to get bias-ply tires (even though tires in class
3A- Sports Racers from 1967-1974 are "free") ,(2) if we had any problems "of
any kind" (his actual words) in practice, he would not let us run the race
(nice how he invented a rule "just for us") and that (most important of all)
(3) we would not be allowed to run any other HSR events this year. Needless
to say, we don't run where we're not wanted, so we packed up and went home.
I find it very interesting that this same weekend had a Panoz LMP entered
(since when is a current ALMS car "historic"?) and a Ginetta with a SB Ford
(but hey HSR doesn't allow mongrels and kit cars, right?). By walking
through the Sebring paddock, it appeared that HSR caters primarily to the
very wealthy or folks with Porsches and does not want folks who just are
racing for the joy of it.
Hugh Barber
Hollister, CA
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