----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Palmer" <mgvrmark@hotmail.com>
To: <dmeadow@juno.com>; <mcobine@earthlink.net>
Cc: <vintage-race@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 5:55 PM
Subject: Re: Vintage eligibility & intent
> Mike, David, et al,
>
> It all comes down to the line-drawing game, doesn't it? Maybe some types
of
> cars, and some vintages of cars, should require period race history to
avoid
> lopsided fields of modern, high-production-volume cars. But older, rarer
> models might be exempt from period race history requirement. We'd
probably
> all agree with that principle, but the difficulty comes when defining the
> demarcation point. 1972? 1967? 1959? Or 1972 for sports models, but
1960
> for sedans? Are all sports-racers & formula cars presumed to have
history,
> or do you have to prove it? What about the spare F1 car that was never
> raced in the period? What if the factory used this chassis only for
> testing? Do we require pro racing history, or is amateur racing history
OK?
> Then what groups to we recognize as valid amateur groups -- certainly
> SCCA, but what about Cal Club? Mid West Council? CASC? EMRA? PHA? Does
one
> or two small hillclimbs constitute "period history"? Does an autocross?
> What if the car was rallyed? Then what kind of rally is acceptable as
> "period competition history"?
And bonafide history is easy. Did it ever race? No? Sorry. Now what do
you consider a race? I never said it had to be pre-72 history, just As
someone said, what groups? Well, did they hold races? Did they have
officials? Did they have them scheduled? Did they have a sanctioning body?
That pretty well covers most of it. I think you'll find that most of those
groups mentioned had those things.
If you held out for only pro racing, then you would have to eliminate about
75% of the cars out there, and you'd have vintage fields of 30 cars total.
Besides, how many pro races were there prior to 1960?
As to cut-off on racing history, I think it is easier than you think. The
current '59 and '63 and '72 cut-offs of some clubs are fine as they are.
But some allow cars with no verifiable history in or later history. Now
that isn't bad either. But when a car comes to vintage racing, it should
have had some racing history at some time somewhere, whether it is SCCA,
IMSA, PCA, NCCC, MWSCC, EMRA, RCCA, etc. And this could be the floating
cut-off date that many talk about from time to time. If it didn't race 20
years ago, sorry. Or 15 years ago. Just not last year.
The point is, you should have a car created to race and not one created to
vintage race.
The answer on those F1 test cars or the spare Can Am that never raced, it is
easy. They were built then, not in 1998. They may not have hit the track,
but they were not built yesterday, and that is pretty darn easy to prove.
And we are not dealing in those with $5000 to $20,000 cars, but in many
times that. What I'm talking about is the guy who buys a '63 Corvette,
sticks a cage in it, and goes racing as a "vintage" race car. Or the guy
who buys
a Spridget out of a back yard and fabricates an F/Production car - for
vintage.
No one had a problem suggesting that building a C-Modified car or an
H-Modified car today from scratch would be wrong. Why is building a B/Prod
or an E/Prod from scratch today not wrong?
If he wants to build a new race car, let them race them where new race cars
have been raced for decades - in current series.
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