Quote Originally Posted by Murray Maunder View Post
Dale tells me that six Aussies are planning to bring their cars over for the first big go at HD. With the Kiwis who look like they will be starters plus the 0-3000 class it should be a great grid - maybe 32 - 35.

Of course it would be great to have 25-30 musclecars but what was a good grid of big-bangers in the 70s anyway? Even when Beechey, Moffatt and Geoghegen came over I don't reckon the number often reached double figures and a grid would be strongly represented by Escorts, Coopers and Imps.
Yep, you're right there Murray. In fact, other than the Trans-Am series, wherever there were V8 tin tops being raced anywhere in the world, there were only usually 6-8 V8 cars at best, with the rest of the field being made up with smaller capacity machines. Take the final year of the Improved Production category in Australia as an example, 1972. There was Bob Janes Camaro, Allan Moffat Mustang, and Pete Geoghegans GTHO Falcon. Norm Beechey ran most events with his HT Monaro, but this car was geting long in the tooth and was really no longer competitive. John Harvey ran a couple of races in Bob Janes new HQ Monaro, plus Malcolm Ramsey had an F5000 powered HQ Kingswood. And that was it for the big bangers. The rest of the fields were put together with small capacity cars and Series Production cars.

So in a way we're spoiled with modern historic racing as there have been so many cars built for this, much more so than there ever was in period.