Max:
Ok, I'll bite. I have a little bit of experience wandering around the
fringes of US vintage racing.
It is important to look at the history and popularity of racing to
understand the rules and classes now being enforced on older cars.
Competitive racing of current production machines has always had
extremely restrictive rules to prevent the domination of the classes by
a few runners with deep pockets. This is very evident when factory cars
are campaigned with the intent to boost model sales by the old addage of
"a win on Sunday, a sale on Monday".
Any organization that offers racing venues works very hard to ensure
that the vehicles in competition are as equally matched as possible so
that skill and preparation are more a part of winning than budget. This
intent obviously goes by the wayside when enough filthy lucre shows up,
but there are still many cases of less funded privateers taking tinware
away from the factory boys.
In the USA the primary competitive racing organization is the Sports Car
Club of America (SCCA). The rules and regulations imposed on
competitors and machines in the United States are mostly impacted by
this organization, so when vintage racing became popular in the early
80s the SCCA rules for the earlier time period were adopted by most
fledgling Vintage groups to maintain some level of restriction on
modifications.
In other countries there were different organizations running events
that included a number of marque specific clubs offering a range of
classes from daily driver to fully modified.
In Europe, the primary sanctioning group is the Federation
Internationale de L'Automobile (FIA). During the 60's many racing MGs
were built to FIA specs which were totally different to the SCCA
requirements in the USA. The famous DBL licenced MGBs for instance were
built to race in the under 2.0 liter GT class which is why they ran with
fiberglass hardtops, not because it rains all the time. In contrast, it
was illegal to run an accessory hardtop in the SCCA.
In general (note very general) the basis for United States Vintage
Racing groups is the allowable SCCA GCR modifications as stated in the
cutoff year for the club. Many clubs use 1967 as the cutoff year,
although more exclusive groups choose 1959 probably to keep out the
massed rabble of rabid Sprites, Midgets, MGBs and Spitfires.
The SCCA regs of the 60s tended to emphasize weight reduction by
allowing the removal of interior and exterior trim, but restricted
modifications to suspension, brakes, engine and carburation. Because of
this, the typical fast US vintage race car is stripped and unsuitable
for use on the street. In comparison a comparable FIA spec road racing
endurance car was required to be street licenced, so European influenced
racing cars will be closer to a stock trim level. This comes in handy
if the car is, as you mentioned to be also used for road rally events
between track use.
Luckily Americans were introduced to FIA spec racing at Sebring, so most
US Vintage Race Groups will allow a car that is shown to meet period FIA
specs to compete. This is where the letter of the law meets the intent
and it's no good yelling that your Weber DCOE is FIA homologated if you
are running with an SCCA cut down windshield and no interior trim.
When discussing Vintage Race Group regulations there is a lot of
variation from one group to the next with some groups notorious for
tight control and others that may need more entrants being much open to
modifications. Often a grid may be composed of period correct and
modified cars running in separate groups, so it is difficult for the
spectator to understand that someone close to the back of the pack may
be a group winner. This does not make the sight of a correctly
presented Homologation spec 970cc Mini Cooper S being left behind by a
pack of snorting 1340cc siblings any easier to take.
In most of the clubs I have encountered it does appear that Vintage
Racing is a state of mind and that there is competition available for
most levels of driver and machine preparation.
Kelvin Dodd
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