The title says it all but maybe it should be a question rather than a statement.
It wasn’t a question that former FIA president Max Mosley put to Motorsport Magazine writer Simon Taylor in 2006 (June 2006 issue), but rather he said that ‘…owners of genuine cars should be dissuaded from racing them at all.’
His argument is that if all these cars are raced, how many of them will be around in 100 years time? That we have a duty to preserve works of art for future generations.
He makes a good point! But the immediate reaction to this is the thought of these cars just becoming museum pieces.
Mosley argues that they should be demonstrated in public but are too precious to maintain and risk damaging or destroying and being lost forever. He backs this up with the question ‘Does it matter if a car is scrapped?’ If it doesn’t then fine but his personal point of view that it would be a genuine loss to posterity then it should not be raced?
What if we applied this philosophy to our Kiwi heritage?
Should we dissuade Peter Sturgeon from allowing Jim Richards to compete in his stunning Group C BMW 635i (#31) in the Archibalds Historic Touring Car Series?
With any racing we know the risks involved, that at any time a car has the potential to be damaged or even written off? Is Peter Sturgeon’s BMW too valuable to take that risk? What about the rest of the historic touring car field, or the F5000 cars we love to watch in the NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series?
So what is the solution?
Mosley puts forward the argument that genuine race cars that are too valuable to risk should be replaced on the track with an exact copy.
At the end of the day it really comes down to the owner of each car and the risk they want to take. Maybe the question each should consider is, “Am I the owner or the caretaker of this slice of motorsport history?’
Just last week while sitting in the waiting room at the bone clinic as a result of falling off my mountain bike and breaking my arm, I inquired of the lady next to me what she had done to her ankle. To which she replied that she had slipped on her driveway. She added that she had given up skiing some years ago as she didn’t want to risk falling over!
Both of us took different risk and and ended up with the same outcome. It is ironic that we may take steps to avoid risk but not consider that in life, anything can happen and accidents occur both on and off the track.
It is not clear cut what the answer is for our genuine historic race cars. Mosley does put up a good case for discussion.
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