Henry certainly has a point. Most of the present production car guys are not
showing off there great old car, they are RACING that great old car. Big
difference between this and the Ferrari guys with a million dollar piece
making parade laps with others of kind.
Having raced a lot in the past years when these cars were production cars and
very restrictive regulations I have a couple points to make. (surprise)
The cars were pretty good in the reliability region when NEW, but now they are
40-60 years old. Parts that failed then are dangerous now. Axles, hubs etc.
That's settled.
The stock body parts are hard to find, expensive and difficult to repair, or
at least expensive to repair. In the end that bit of weight doesn't make that
much difference but cost and access does allow lots of people an easy method
to keep the cars up and running and looking good, that's important too.
>From what I've seen in the past three of four years lots of guys could do well
to go back to the original carburetors. Take a look at how the performance of
Randy Williams and Jeff Snook. They are QUICK. Good driving and all that
but the cars are FAST. Webers, uh uh., S.U.'s. Easy to tune easy to maintain
and in most cases because they are easy to tune for mixture you'll have a MORE
powerful car. Just another BIG complex mechanism eliminated form the stew. I
carried a really big box of Weber jets and parts to every race when I was
running the TR-4A as modified car in 1965. I made probably three or four jet
air correction and/or main jet changes EVERY DAY of running to keep up with
weather changes. Does anyone do that now. I don't think so. If you don't
you are leaving power on the pit wall. Tune the S.U's? Up a couple flats or
down a couple flats, adjustment over.
Overall the cars are being raced hard by most people and having the modern
rockers & rods & cranks are in the long run LESS expensive over a years time
than the old stockers. (given that you can find good old time parts). The idea
is to race and not need a couple spare engines sitting in a truck or spend the
weekend looking up at the sky under your car replacing parts. This has turned
into kind of a rant, but trying to simulate the "olden days" will not be
successful in the long run, it's like me trying to grow hair, maybe, but
unlikely. My only complaint is CUBIC CAPACITY. How about a 1650cc Spitfire?
Say, How about a 1650cc Spitfire? HMMMMMMMMM! I Knew there was more to do.
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