Ah, the ugly spector of non-vintage, illegal parts.
Dick, I have followed the thread, so I already know that you were talking
about a current SCCA car.
The thought of these kinds of parts sure did seem to touch a nerve with some
people. I don't know if these same people know it, but illegal gearboxes are
already out there. I've seen 5 speed Hewland gearboxes in small production
cars at events put on by those supposed bastions of period authenticity, SVRA
and VSCCA. (no, I won't name names of the transgressors)
I have also seen 4 wheel vented discs with Wilwood calipers on a 356. This
was at an HSR event so it may not have been 'illegal'. At least HSR is up
front about their policies - bring whatever you want to run & we'll find a
class and group to put you in. I prefer the honesty of that philosophy over
the hypocrisy of allowing 'cheater' cars to run when they don't conform to
the rules. At some point, vintage racing as a whole has to decide if we want
to race vintage cars that are period authentic or keep modifying and updating
until we have some form of silhouette series for vintage appearing cars.
I don't know nearly enough about most of the other cars running vintage
events to know what is and isn't legal and period authentic. The above
blatant examples are the ones that are hard to miss. How can stuff like that
get through tech!!? I can only guess that there must be a whole lot of other
illegal parts out there that I would not recognize. Call me a cynic, but I
am of the impression that vintage racers are one of the worst bunch of
cheaters in racing.
The only car that I can truly judge is my own. There are only two Honda
S800s vintage racing in the US. Mine and Chris Thompson's in Colorado.
We're both legal and period authentic. If I wanted to cheat, I'd love to
have better brakes. I could take a lot of weight off with some fiberglass
body panels. That slick 5-speed Hewland would be nice too. If I based my
next motor on the 900cc motorcycle engine, I could make some big power. Hey,
I could make this little baby FAST! I could run "up front"!! I could win
the small-bore group outright!!! -------- enough red mist? What would be
the point? It wouldn't be vintage racing.
Doug Meis - Team Escargot
1967 Honda S800
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