This is an open letter to all the members, management, and boards of SOVREN, CSRG, VARA, HSR-West, and VSCCA:
I am aware that with the economic malaise and the small grid counts, many vintage and historic racing clubs are considering increasing their eligiblilty cutoff dates. This makes good sense as there must be hundreds of 30 year old SCCA cars sitting in garages which are no longer class competitive that would love a place to spend their time and money. But before that happens, how about a great big joint event for all the Southwest and Northwest vintage clubs to get together, drop the politics, do some racing, and have a beer and bar-b-que? The West Coast Vintage Revival of 2012!!! No points, no trophies, just good old fashioned racetrack comraderie. The “bubble” would be respected, and a “touch” sends you home. A historic location like Laguna Seca would be epic for such an occasion. I envision a three day event with a 8-10 groups and five run sessions per group (20 minute warm-up, 20 min. timed practice, 25 min. Qualifying race, 15 min. warm-up, and a 30 min. Flag race). Keep the cars pre-EFI and pick a cutoff date that would include all the clubs vintage cars, say 1972 (ed.). I understand the need for events that have TV coverage, $100 gate fees, and $1000 entry fees, but this would be a Club Racer event. You know, $300 entry fees, a $10 pitpass for the wknd, and lots of cheap-beer-induced bench racing!
Well if this idea hits the spot for any of you like-minded racers, drop me a note, drop your club a note, and volunteer a little time to make this event happen in 2012. If it draws a big crowd, maybe we can do it once a year and have the event rotate around to each region. Wow, maybe now I’m dreamin’…
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So Troy there is a push for a big event in Southern California, with many of the Datsun Racers from all over the country. The Riverside International Auto Museum in conjuction with HSR-West is celebrating Datsun Herritage and running a track event and gathering of Datsun drivers.
Stay tuned for more details.
Great Idea! HSR-West and SCCA did a joint venture last year. Unfortunately I am not a fan of cars much newer than about 1970 as the speed jumped up so much then, and the newer cars for whatever reason tend to be a crash fest, IE like the SCCA letting in a board member with a newer BMW that crashed my car off in practice. Not only did I end up throwing the shell away due to the extent of the damage, his excuse was that he has totaled three race cars, tough, and the SCCA did not even exclude him from the rest of the event, so no penalty for contact. Then there was the collection of the New Plastic “old cobras” that had multiple contacts during the weekend. Just saying I agree strongly with the concept of no contact that seems to be overlooked when contact happens. HSR and VARA are trying a joint venture coming up as I have heard, so that is along the lines of your proposal, so some clubs are trying. Many of the So Cal Clubs have a class for the “newer cars” or over prepared for era cars. I love the concept of them being able to run, as long as it is not at the peril of the pre ’70 cars being damaged. Sorry that is my soap box, but back to the idea, great idea if the clubs can coordinate, and with multiple clubs maybe they would not have to let in newer SCCA/ NASA crashers cars to fill the grids.
Good points Ron. Policing the entry list would indeed be an important job. Also I think some of the crash-fest issue would be tempered by allowing vintage cars only, no late-model cars to fill the grid. Troy
Troy,
Great idea in theory, difficult in practicality. Although I think you would get a high car count at such an event, I also think that a number of racers would refrain from an event like this because there are different kinds of racers, within different groups and it would be difficult to manage. Similar to what happened last year at Laguna with the SCCA and HSR- West.
Racers excluded from one group or the other could sign up with the other group and run this event. This allowed several racers who should not be on the track access to this event and there was a very high percentage of racing related incidents from this weekend.
Find a way to manage this aspect and I think you will have a better chance of getting a good collection of popular race cars at this event. Let this go, and you’ll have all the potentials for crash fest.