Going Even Older!!!

[Oldfart]

Right, I took Oldfarts advice and applied for, and got, a Historic Racing licence from the VCC. Piece of cake, cheap, and lasts for 5 years. I have now applied for a COD for the Amco mini from the club, but this is not quite so instant. But thats OK, I am a patient man, sometimes. Apparently there needs to be some 'discussion' among the officials to determine whether the car meets the criteria of the club. However, we have a problem straight away......there is a cut-off date of 1960 for cars participating in speed events. Can someone tell me why that is. Surely if a vehicle is accepted in the club as a p60 then it should be able to participate in ALL events, not just non speed events. Which brings me back to Oldfarts class of 1950's saloons with no, or minimal, modifications. Surely these are already catered for in the VCC, although, yes his won't have to have rego and wof. I think people are going to be put off having to spend money on cars that will only have a couple of meetings a year, without having to cart them all over the country. I have written to the Speed steward of the VCC asking for his comments on the 1960 cut-off, but so far a deafening silence has ensued. Oldfart, you seem to be up to speed, as it were, with VCC stuff, perhaps you can enlighten me on this perplexing problem, and perhaps that is why you have suggested this new class because you have come up against officialdom.

A few answers (which might raise more questions).
The Dec 31 1960 cut off is an agreement between FIVA (Vintage version of FIA) and FIA. You are not quite correct re speed events. The manual says 1960 for 'circuit racing". This applies to all the cars Formula Junior, sports cars etc, and explains a bit why there are sometimes Historic Sports cars (eg U2, etc) and pre 1960 as was the case at the Roycroft meeting. It was run with 2 organisations, VCC and the Historic guys and 2 permits, one Motorsport for the "newer" and one for the pre 60 races.
The reason for the saloons was to give some of those who want to drive their saloons a chance to have a bit of a thrash without having to own a sports or race car which is eligible.
In regards officialdom, so far I have found vintage easy to deal with. They are somewhat bound up in trying to remain onside with motorsport, and the above FIVA/FIA agreement.
It does not really suit my personal ideas either, but I am now old enough to realise that I will never be a real race driver (never was capable), don't have the budget and a bit of fun every now and then will do. So vintage suits me. Won't suit everybody, but isn't it good we are not all the same??

[GeebeeNZ]

Gerald and others. One word comes to mind and unfortunateley it is "Money" The reality is that it is much cheaper to race a car in a Vintage Race than it is a Motorsport Race. By extending the vintage racing to the VCC 30 year rule that could encompass most of the Classic Car field and Motorsport NZ would never allow it. The 1960 cutoff has a number of reasons why it seems to be a good cutoff and both Motorsort and VCC have agreed to this for circuit racing. VCC can run newer cars in hillclimbs unless the individual clubs make their own rule. Bob on commenting that rare and collectible cars are too valuable to race. Someone once made the comment "but yes they are always worth fixing if they get damaged."

[Jac Mac]

Unfortunately gentlemen we are talking about motor-RACING here, and with the best will in the world, and the best intentions not to do anything silly, I'm afraid it will still happen, that once the lights go out, it's all on. When I am sitting on the grid waiting for this to happen, my accelerator foot is shaking so badly, that I am mentally booking myself into the specialist to check for Parkinsons!!!!! It's called adrenalin, and it needs to be got rid of, quickly, and the way to do it is to drive like a dick-head. Havent you noticed that about half-way through a race things start to calm down, and hey-presto your lap times come down.....amazing.

Easy way to fix that, run the first half of the race under a 'fast' pace car until you foot stops shaking & adrenalin levels drop then let them go!

[AMCO72]

OK, so thats it then. I can't, and never will be able to run the Mini in a VCC circuit event. So to make use of my newly acquired licence I am going to have to go and dig that Citroen L15 from out of the barn and go racing with Oldfart and his pals!!!!! This is of course why I have had no response from the VCC speed steward. I should have read the rules. OK, I give in. Now where are those knitting needles!!!!!! GeeBeeNZ, you are right that cars can be repaired, but after putting your heart and soul into a restoration there is a great reluctance to go through the whole process again. It has taken us, read Angus, nearly 30 years to track down and reunite the special equipment that was on the Amco Mini when it raced in 1972. He has now done that, mainly through sheer persistance, and because he had the contacts in the racing world to point him in the right direction. If left to me, it is unlikely it would have happened. So getting back to racing cars with historical value, I can quote no better than Mr. Justice Ortton in delivering his verdict on the 'Old Number One Bentley' saga.....".Continuous History is the basis for evaluating a classic car. The car has a life of it's own that transcends the sum of it's parts. A motor car is not a painting or a piece of antique furniture that you put in your house. It is a functional piece of machinery to be driven and enjoyed, and then repaired when it breaks, and driven again. The motor car is a product of the machine age, not the craft age. The obsession in certain quarters with 'all matching numbers' is to loose the sense of what a motor car is, and risk consigning them to mothballs and museums. The thought uppermost in your mind when out driving should NOT be that the car is loosing value if you break the engine."......How very true.

[Oldfart]

I met with a guy at the Weston Super Mare (super mud) speed trials who had a very significant Speed Six Bentley with which he felled a power pole, did no good to the car either. I tried to commiserate with him, his response was "if I can't afford to fix this old racing car when I prang it, I don't deserve to own it". Note the "when" not if.
Gerald, please note I am not getting at you, nor any other enthusiast of historic racing cars. I admire you greatly. If my memory serves me correctly a great number of these cars are way better now than when they raced, and they are fabulous, but at the end of the day, they were racing cars. Most looked good from 10 feet, now they look fabulous from 10 millimetres.
It is great they are preserved, but for what?

[bob homewood]

Old fart , I have got a question ,been chasing up on a couple of "barn finds " .1960 Peugeot 404 ,no doubt that fits into the same scenario as the Anglia / Mini as it carries over in years in the 60's ,also a 1959 Ford 107E the 100E shape with the 997 OHV motor will that fit in the time frame as long as it retains the 997 motor ?

[shellsport]

My goodness a fast back Vanguard !

Fast back Bob . Slow front !

[Oldfart]

Bob, I have not asked others, but in my opinion either of those would be OK. Only reason for the 105E and Mini scenario is they would dominate way too easily. Then again someone like you would make a 107e just as quick I suspect!
Need any bits for the 404? Got a mountain up here!

[AMCO72]

Oldfart, if you look at my comment at the the end of Mr Justice Otton's summing up on the Old No1 Bentley case......'how very true'....this sums up my attitude to cars that are so beautifully restored that the owners are petrified of getting a stone chip on them. I cant see the point....they are cars for Gods sake....meant to be driven. I have/had a friend who found a 4.2 Jaguar E type in Hawaii. He dragged the thing home....thing because it was an utter wreck....and spent years getting it absolutely perfect. Then what? It sat in his garage with a dust sheet over it because he was keeping it mint for the concours events he hoped to win. I got into quite a heated debate with him...hence the have/had......I said, go and win a concours if you must, then get it out and enjoy it. But no, the bloody thing sat there while he got an ulcer worrying about stone chips!!!!!! The same with old race cars and the Amco Mini is no exception. I am a hopeless race driver and it shows, so my nervousness on the track....shakey feet etc....does not translate into fast lap times. Angus on the other hand takes the poor car out gives it a hiding to within an inch of it's life!! I cant do that; I'm worrying that things might 'happen'. But he is a professional...you cant think like that in NZV8's if you want to win. So perhaps I should take a notice of what Mr Justice Otton said........'when out driving the thing uppermost in your mind should NOT be that the car is loosing value if you break the engine'. But dont worry Oldfart, we will keep competing in the car.....so long as MSNZ will give me a licence to do so. The attraction with the VCC was that racing is still fairly gentlemanly, however I have been thwarted in that department. And dont worry about 'getting at me'.....I can give just as good as I get, if necessary!

[Steve Holmes]

The way I see it, an old race car has lived two lives and served two purposes in life.

Its first life is that where it is just a tool created to win races. As soon as it is no longer competitive its either sold on or updated to remain competitive, but invariably time eventually catches up with it.

Its second life is that of an historic race car, resurrected and freshened up or restored back to how it was in its first life (or better in many cases). Its purpose in life now is to bring a sense of enjoyment both to its owner and to enthusiasts of motorsport history.

If an old race car makes it beyond its first life and to its second life, it deserves a certain amount of respect that it didn't enjoy when new. But at the same time, it is still a racing car, and is far more enjoyable when brought to life than it is sat silent behind a roped off fence.

To me, the ideal scenario is to create somewhere for these cars to race, not in a win at all costs environment as they were when new, but at a speed that the owner is comfortable with, and against cars of similar ilk, and like-minded owners. When restoring an old race car, to get the car as accurate as possible, while at the same time still making it usable, the car will never be as fast as a newly built car built specifically for historic racing, and using all the modern tricks and knowledge put into them.

So ideally, you want to somehow create a class for these historic machines, where the owners can get out and give them a good flogging, but without the fear some other guy will tear the side off it because he is trying to win a corner.

I do agree with Oldfarts comments above, race cars need to be used, but at the same time, I think for the owners of historic racing cars, they shouldn't be placed in a situation where they have to repair damage. At least not body damage. Mechanical damage is a different scenario, and something the owner has more control over.....ie, how heavy is his right foot?

[faminz]

oooo... I gather from this thread I could finally do something with my 1959 Bugeye Sprite?
Its just sitting in the shed wasting licence fees at the moment...

see Steve I dont just draw and collect models only!!! heh

course I think Im in the category of "I cant afford to fix it again so I cant race it"... lol

ps: the pic was after a Christmas tree run a couple of years ago... its main yearly use!!

[AMCO72]

Yeh, the shakey right foot!!! Very well put Steve, couldn't have said it better myself. I will let you into a secret. Before Angus set about re-restoring the Amco Mini, after I had done the initial restoration in 1984, and it's inversion at the Hamilton Classic Street Race in 1994, we actually considered doing a replica of the car to use as a race car, and keep the original safe and intact. I shudder to think that we were having thoughts in that direction now, but never-the-less it's true. I know this is has been done in the UK with important old race cars but probably not Minis'!!!!! I mean ,what enjoyment would you get piloting the false 'Amco Mini'. Thats the whole point of the car....you are in the ACTUAL machine that did the business all those years ago. One of the most satisfying things that has happened since we got the car is re-uniting both Rod Collingwood and Dave Panckhurst with it at the Bruce McLaren Festival of speed, and when Rod took me as a passenger, out for some demonstration laps at Pukekohe the following weekend, I couldn't stop grining for a week!!! He was talking me round a lap of the circuit, a bit slower than what he did way back when, but it was a fascinating experience. Funny thing though, he was looking for a 5th gear down the back straight......he had forgotten what 8000 revs sounded like, and he used to regularly rev to 10,000!!!!!!! Angus is putting a VERY special engine together for the car now with a lot of those special performance enhancing bits that were on it back then. It has been a long process, with a lot of detective work, but it's coming together. I will probably be very nervous thinking of all the effort that has gone into it, but I have no doubt he will take it out and have no mercy on it, just as Rod did.

[Oldfart]

oooo... I gather from this thread I could finally do something with my 1959 Bugeye Sprite?
Its just sitting in the shed wasting licence fees at the moment...

see Steve I dont just draw and collect models only!!! heh

course I think Im in the category of "I cant afford to fix it again so I cant race it"... lol

ps: the pic was after a Christmas tree run a couple of years ago... its main yearly use!!

If you wanted you could run this with the "postwar/pre 60 sports cars".

[Oldfart]

Wouldn't it be so cool to have a place for everybody and whatever they want to run. Now I would have to win Lotto a number of times over, and then have a class for; Shellsports cars, historic sports cars, Group 5 saloons, allcomers, single seaters which ran any time (say) pre 77, F5000, FF, F Vee and keep going forever! Of course I would then build a circuit (or hire endless days at HD) and have them all run for $25 a day. What a dream. Bugger, I just woke up.
We all have a favourite bent, in my case a fair few! Can we think of a "Roaring Season Meeting" where all can run? I think HD might actually be pretty co-operative.Would the crowds show up? On the surface this sounds really stupid, but when I hesitated to think it might just work??
I have a very good friend from South Africa where all the historics run together according to lap times. Separate groups, so perhaps Angus runs the Mini in one class (the fast one) and Gerald runs in the next slower in the same car, Obviously the open wheelers can't run with the saloons, but... or am I just being really dumb, and I only had 2 JDs tonight!

[pallmall]

Go back 50 years and less, and how many classes were there? Formula Libre which usually included the faster racing sportscars. Sportscars maybe 0-1500cc and 1501cc and over, which included racing and road cars. Saloons 0-1500cc and 1501cc and over, which like the sportscars included everything modified and stock.
So, why can't historic racing be run like that, but probably split not by capacity, but by lap times. Makes perfect sense to me, and when is the first meeting?

[AMCO72]

Pallmall, there is never going to be a fair way of doing this. Motoracing has never been fair. Doesn't matter what you come up with, someone is going to be unhappy. I had a good talk with Michael Sexton, one of the organisers, after the Bruce McLaren festival where I asked him why they decided on grouping cars by decades rather than lap times. I pointed out that most of the spectators wouldn't have had a clue whether a car was a 1967 or a 1974 model, and frankly they couldn't have cared less. What they wanted to see, I think, was cars of SIMILAR performance in the same race. As it turned out the Amco Mini and the Sidchrome Imp got lapped. Now if there is one thing I dont like, and that is being lapped. I will quote you his reply to me here........Speed Groups vs Period Groups...."I agree with your comments. We did debate many options at length, including speed groups, prior to deciding on period groups. In hind sight speed groups would have worked better. However, in fairness we had no idea of the types of cars that would enter, or the speed differentials that we would need to deal with. We had resolved that we would not entertain the complexity of running handicap races and so thought we would be able to manage the speed differentials in the two groups. Truth is we didn't expect the 20+ sec per lap difference that we had. I think our group, 70's saloons, managed this quite well and I didnt see any silly passing, not that I saw much from my position....end quote. Of course rain is a great leveler, but we dont want it to rain, do we. I dont think we are straying too far from Oldfarts thread here because I fear that this is going to rear it's ugly head in his propossed class. Would be nice to think that we will all go out and have races within races, and when this happens is often more entertaining than the hot-shots out the front going for the chequered flag.I can see merit Pallmall in your idea, but I can hear a powerful lobby saying...like it or lump it. Talking about being lapped. In one race, one of the competitors was Ray Williams, an enormously experienced and capable driver. I took Ray to one side before the race and told him that I would keep a sharp eye out for him when he inevitably lapped me on about the 5th lap....that I would maintain my line and for him to pick which ever side suited him. Common sense you would think, but not to some turkeys, and I trusted Ray to do that which was very comforting, especially with speed difference between the two cars.

[kiwi285]

How about one of these to get everyone fired up.

[Oldfart]

Look good don't they. It would not fit the proposed rules with those wheels and tyres though. Note that this is an Nb car from Aus. Na is the closer rule.

[Steve Holmes]

OK, re having too many classes, I'm just thinking out loud here:

1. Pre-1960 Saloons (as per Oldfarts VCC category)

2. Pre-1973 Historic Saloons. This category is for the actual cars that raced in NZ (or other countries) prior to December 31 1973, and presented as they raced during this period. No slick tyres! This would include Allcomers, Group 2, Group 5, Castrol GTX, B&H 500 cars etc.

3. Pre-1977 under 3000cc, to Historic T&C rules. This is already beginning to take shape I believe, although I'm not sure how close they are to T&C rules.

4. Pre-1977 over 3,000cc, to T&C Historic Muscle Cars rules. This class debutes at the 2012 BMW Festival.

5. Post 1977 Saloons.

6. Post 1973 Historic Saloons. This would be for OSCA, Shellsport, BNSW, Sports Sedans etc.

So there are 6 classes. Like I say, just brain-storming, although brain-farting may be closer to reality.

[Oldfart]

Sounds pretty close to the mark to me, a place for everybody with an historic interest.