Jim,
Very well put, right on the money.
WST
Team Thicko
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Hill <Jim_Hill@chsra.wisc.edu>
To: vintage-race@Autox.Team.Net <vintage-race@Autox.Team.Net>
Date: Monday, July 06, 1998 2:15 PM
Subject: Big V8s in Little Sports Cars
In response to some of the recent comments about vintage racing's raison
d'être:
Life is a series of never-ending compromises. Especially when you're
trying to recreate something that no longer exists (like the past) or
something that perhaps never did exist (like ourselves as the pilots of
famous racing cars). The good news is that we all get to decide where to
make those compromises, where to draw lines, and who we want to play
with.
Tell me this: If you happened to own the Cooper Monaco that Stirling
Moss put on the pole at the Times Mirror Grand Prix for Sports Cars at
Riverside at the dawn of the sixties, and it had been hermetically
sealed until you bought it yesterday, would it be the "same car" without
a thirty-year-old, pre-Goodwood Stirling at the wheel?
Would it be the "same car" if you ran it today with Valvoline oil,
without a hint of the smell of burning castor oil that was the hallmark
of the racing cars I remember from that time? (Who knew that a laxative
could supply such an exotic aroma?)
If I have to buy someone else's history to get on the track, I can't
afford it. Besides, I'd miss half the fun that _WAS_ sports car racing
in the 50's and 60's - trying to turn a sports car into a passable race
car.
Multiple choice - Which of the following cars is more "period correct"
(i.e., the one you'd most like to see next to you on the grid at Road
America):
1) A mid-50's special that was raced for some 20 years, during which
time every part from the steering wheel on out was wrecked and/or
replaced with a part that was lighter, faster, more aerodynamic, etc.
(Suppose it started out looking like just another MG-based special and
now it looks like a spec racer with a Kevlar body.)
2) That same 50's special that's now been "restored", using modern
materials and techniques to recreate all those now-unobtainable original
parts. Of course the frame is all new higher quality steel, and the body
was fabricated by an artist in aluminum rather than being beaten into
rough shape with a mallet . . . &etc
3) A "brand new" special, built last winter by the same fellow who
originally built the car above, who's used the same 50's technology that
went into the construction of the original car - and built for the same
reason: because it was fun. (Perhaps, as someone suggested, a "new V8
engined MG-TD")
4) Your best friend's restoration/racecar project, which began with the
remains of a Healey 100 of undetermined origin and which has consumed
two parts cars, every period-correct speed and reliability modification
that could be found, the finest modern safety equipment that money can
buy, and five of the happiest years of his life.
5) A brand new Speedwell Sprite replica containing not a single part
more than 6 months old, but with a grinning now-68-year-old Stirling
Moss behind the wheel - about to provide you with a story you can tell
for the rest of your life regardless of the outcome.
Me? I'd like to see them all. If we remember that it's more about
"vintage" than about "racing", and we don't lie about our cars, and we
can hang on to the goal of period authenticity without spending all our
time debating history and eligibility, and drive with the proper respect
for each other and the cars, we can all have a good time.
Jim Hill
SpyderWeb Racing
Amici Triumphi
Madison WI
Motto: The First Concept of Superior Principle is Always Defeated by the
Perfected Example of Established Practice
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