There is another aspect of this debate that I've been waiting to hear, but
nobody has brought it up yet. Please forgive me if I'm unrealistically
off-base.
First off, I don't think it is good to send a guy home with his car. Put it
in another group maybe, but don't send him home. Bad form. Plus, I believe
that it was the policy in SCCA for years, at the regional level, to allow
almost any combination of body and engine, but the car had to run in the
sports racer class which was called 'modified' then, which of course was
populated by really serious cars, so the modified car rarely had a chance
to do well.
The thing I'm curious about is this: HSR has had the reputation among the
racers east of the Mississippi as tending toward a "run what you brung"
group. I've only raced with them twice, and found that the degree of
creative preparation, inclusion of later cars, and inspired driving seemed
to live up to the reputation. Many of my small-bore friends on the east
coast prefer to not run with HSR because of these things.
Not too long ago, HSR and SVRA merged. SVRA has always had the reputation
of being more conservative and as far as I can tell, always tried its best
to keep things more in the spirit of 'vintage' racing. Many of us wondered
how the new combination would evolve.
Now, comes the 2002/4 issue of Vintage Motorsport magazine. There are three
places in that one issue where the new combination is criticized for its
migration toward mega-events, inclusion of not-so-vintage cars, etc etc --
see pages 16, 36, 68. In addition, in that magazine's several-part history
of the SVRA ending in a previous issue, the same concerns were expressed.
Now, my question -- was the incident that started this thread a result of
the organization's reaction to this criticism or was it an isolated incident?
uncle jack
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