What you are clearly advocating is 'Historic' racing. No problem.

Where we have fallen down here is a set of rules purporting to be 'Thoroughbred & Classic' - T & C, which is something similar and the main issue which has never been addressed, right from day one, is a literal definition.

We can mix Classic, Thoroughbred and Historic on the track, but the definitions have never been quantified. In fact, I think that you'll find (or when I last bothered looking) that there is absolutely no mention whatever of Thoroughbred in those regulations.

So let's please, stand back and sort out a set of rules and a CoD system that was primarily aimed at Historic Cars, to confirm a NZ provenance and therefore add value, and to offer a playground that was indeed representative of an earlier era.

Don't confuse that with a set of rules for Classic cars, often of a much lower value, where replicas (Cooper S, Lotus Cortina, TR7 V8, MG BV8, Capri Perana) are welcomed and encouraged and the rules are a little bit more realistic in enabling these cars to run. They may have been constructed recently, out of age related major components but they have no history, other than the one they are creating, year by year.

Add Thoroughbred, where the make is enough to bestow this title - Ferrari, Maserati, Aston Martin, Porsche etc. and we might be making progress.

But please, all have a place in the sport and any series will develop to cater for those needs so if a series organisation elects to include or exclude a specific sector, that is up to them. Some people seem so strangled with rules and regulations and eligibility that they defeat their own objects. A car is either pre 1977 or it isn't. If it is built to represent a 1977 car, different issue. If it is a 1992 Thoroughbred, so be it.