Right then. A fortnight ago I outlined what I think – in an ideal (i.e. post Covid-19) world – our premium national motorsport championship should look like.
Last week I turned my focus to Tier 2. This week I cast a critical eye over so-called ‘Classic Racing.’
If you will remember, my cunning plan to get the crowds back to all our major championship-level (Tier 1 for want of a better way to describe them) meetings revolved around creating a bona fide summer Super Series, anchored by Toyota’s successful Castrol TRS single seater category but supplemented by some sort of premier SuperGT/GT3-style ‘closed roof’ sports category created by leaning on current factory drivers like Nick Cassidy (Toyota Gazoo Racing Super Formula and Super GT driver in Japan), Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley (Le Mans-winning works Porsche drivers), Mitch and Simon Evans (works Jaguar drivers in ABB Formula E series main game (Mitch) and E-Pace all-electric SUV support class (Simon), and Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon (works Ford GT driver for team boss Chip Ganassi’s Ford GT GT3 squad) etc.
The idea here is to mortgage off the international ‘star’ pulling power of these blokes as ‘house-hold’ names; both to draw people to see them racing ‘in the flesh,’ (the ‘stars’ bit) and to inject a little world-class premier marque exotica (the ‘cars!) into our lives.
Tier 1 – I believe – needs to be run as a multi-round series between Labour Weekend and Easter though I see three, possibly four high summer ‘Super (Duper) Series rounds between Dec 26 and Jan 31).
Tier 2 could also be run across multiple rounds, but what I think it really needs is a gala-style, multi-day ‘marquee’ event like (for want of a better example) the annual SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) Valvoline Run-offs.
For a country with just on 5 million inhabitants spread so sparingly across a land mass roughly the size of the UK (which for want of a direct comparison has a population of roughly 66 million) we have far too many categories. So, the idea of a user-pays multi-day amateur ‘Festival’ would quickly – I believe – sort the wheat from the chaff.
As well, of course, of providing a cool new money-making/profile-raising event for pro-active councils around the country to fight over. Think ‘Bathurst-big’ with links to allied car enthusiast events like Beach Hop, Americarna or Chrome, plus an associated music festival and you’re getting an idea of where I’d ultimately like to see this event heading.
Which just leaves what I loosely term ‘Classic meetings’ and – again – all the many and varied, ‘Classic’ classes.
Ironically, ‘Classic’ race meeting like the Taupo Historic Grand Prix one at Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park in late January, the Skope Classic at Christchurch’s Mike Pero Motorsport Park (Ruapuna) in early February and the newly re-named and focused George Begg Classic Superfest at Invercargill’s Teretonga Park, are some of the only major motor racing meetings that still draw decent crowds.
So, you could argue that they are fine as they are.
You could if organisers stuck by a set of hard ‘n fast rules as to what is defined as a classic.
Fortunately, I only have to go once every two years (when one of the classes I publicise, the SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival one, is invited).
Each time I do head down to Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon for The Sound MG Classic meeting, however, I am frankly appalled by the cavalier way the host club, the MG Car Club, treats (butchers is arguably a better word) the definition of a ‘classic’ racing car.
Last year, for instance, the club allowed a bunch of contemporary Suzuki Hayabusa-engined Jedi/Radical etc sports racing cars to ‘join-the-fun.’
They also saw fit to let some of the local Manawatu clubbies out in their MX5 Mazda series cars… which some smart-arse is going to tell me now qualify as ‘classics’ because the first ones are now 30 years old (or whatever the cut-off is). But even if that is the case, one was painted in a lurid contemporary shade of hot pink – fine for a club meeting at the place.
But at a classic meeting? I don’t think so.
And I could go on….and on….and on…
What I’d rather do, however, is draw a word picture of what I think a ‘classic’ car meeting should look and feel like. Actually, no, let me use this YouTube clip from last year’s Goodwood Revival meeting (featuring a cameo appearance by young Michael Lyons 0.38 t0 043 in Lindsay O’Donnell’s ex Arthur Kennard Chevrolet Corvette V8-engined Austin Healey #8).
Much as I hate looking to the UK for answers. Lord March has – in my humble opinion – absolutely nailed what a ‘classic’ race meeting should be with his Goodwood Revival and Goodwood Members meetings, a celebration of times past!
For a start the cars are all old (duh!) and look old despite many being either new or recent builds….
The reason, in effect is a strict reading and adherence to both the letter and ‘spirit’ of the FIA’s Appendix K regulations for Classic racing, sports and touring cars.
The silly thing is our own Classic motor racing meetings are run to these very same rules and regulations; albeit with a much looser definition of the way cars are built and – perhaps more importantly – presented.
In researching this column, I came upon a couple of key quotes from the UK’s Historic Sports Car Club’s website which are worth repeating. The first explains why the club was set up in the first place…. To whit.
“The HSCC was created in 1966 by a small group of enthusiasts…..(who were) frustrated by a lack of races for older sports cars, and wanted to stop them being modified inappropriately, beyond their original specification, or exported to the US.”
The second (quote) meanwhile outlines why the club has remained relevant. And – to a point – why classic racing and classic racing meetings remain so strong and draw the Lion’s share of the fans.
“As each generation of enthusiast turns to historic racing their choice of car usually reflects the racing they watched in their youth. In the sixties we ran grids of Healey Silverstones, Frazer Nash and D-Types.
“At today’s HSCC meetings you will continue to see fifties sports cars, but they have been joined by thriving new championships.
“Nowadays half of our races are for single seaters and half the cars were built after 1966.”
So, no surprises there. I was enthralled by the sheer boom and bombast of the Formula 5000 single seater that contested the Tasman Series when I was a kid. As obviously, were a lot of other blokes of a similar age – who now own and race the Lolas and McRaes you see contesting rounds of the SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series here, in Australia and – every second or third year – in the US or UK.
More recently I used to sit, glued to the TV, when in the early 1990s, works British Touring Car Championship Ford driver Paul Radisich took on the world – and twice won – the World Touring Car Championship in a Ford Mondeo, a car now based here and regularly driven in that other local classic scene success story, the Archibald’s Historic Touring Car Series.
With these two categories at its zenith you could say that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with classic racing here, despite the blurring of the lines by the – mainly marque-based – categories which exist in a sort of space ‘n time netherworld like the Pirelli Porsche championship, BMW Race Driver Series and Kumho Tyre Pre-65 championship.
In a lot of ways, in fact, the problem I have with events like The Sound MG Classic one is what my daughter Kate would derisively call a ‘first world problem….’
The annual Skope Classic, for instance, is arguably the biggest and no doubt one of the most lucrative on the Canterbury Car Club’s annual calendar, and though ultimate competitor numbers appear to ebb and flow, each time I go I always marvel at the breadth and diversity of cars on that turn up.
Add in the efforts by husband and wife Scott and Jocelyn O’Donnell to turn Invercargill’s annual Classic Speedfest from a simple local classic race meeting into a multi-day community-wide celebration and the future – even in the light of out current COVET-10 lockdown and the downstream effects it is going to have on our economy as a whole – looks very bright.
It’s just…it’s just… we are so close to having something even better I can’t help putting my ore in by suggesting the following changes to the way the ‘classic’ side of the sport is administered (by Motorsport NZ) and run (by member and a marque clubs).
1/ Pulling the Pre-65 category’s championship status, giving each racing member a copy of the Appendix K rule book and a period paint chart for their particular car, then sending them away with a free entry to whichever major ‘classic meeting’ is closest. These cars, after-all, are ‘classics’ so they should be raced at ‘classic meetings’ NOT contemporary ones – unless by invitation!
2/’Encouraging’ marque-based categories to set up ‘Classic’ categories-with-their categories’ to ‘free-up’ all those gorgeous old 911Ss, Es and Ts, and BMW E30 318i and 320i models to compete at ‘classic’ race meetings
3/ Get some dialogue going with all the many and varied ‘Muscle Car’ categories re where they see themselves in two, three, five years etc. While some of the good old boys would, no doubt, blanch at the thought of ‘losing the freedoms’ in terms of engine size and spec, brake rotor and caliper and wheel size and spec etc, a move from contemporary to a classic meeting-based programme would demand, I think others would jump at the chance.
4/ Put together a ‘nation-wide’ search with a sponsor like one of the insurance companies which offer ‘classic car cover,’ for all the ‘classic’ Kiwi race cars ‘missing in action.’ For a while there, for instance, there were always at least one or two of the gorgeous, locally conceived and built Fiat 125Ts and/or Kiwi-built Datsun 1200 SSSs running at the Skope Classic. There was one wee Datto at the latest meeting (earlier this year) but of the signature bright yellow Fiat 125Ts there was no sign. Which got me thinking.
5/ Given how successful they were, and how many were actually race-prepared and entered every year, how come someone hasn’t sought out, and put back on the track at one or other of our big ‘classic’ meetings one of the (get this!) 3-speed automatic transmission Chrysler Valiant 770s which dominated the Benson & Hedges 500 km endurance race at Pukekohe) here in the 1970s?
6/ Warming up to that theme, whatever happened to all the Ford Escort Sports, Ford Laser Sports and Ford Laser TX3is that ran in New Zealand’s first major manufacturer-backed one-make series in the late 1970s and early years of the 1980s? Even if most have rusted away surely there is the odd one for sale somewhere which someone could build a ‘tribute’ car around.
7/ And I could go on, bit once again I’ve got all carried away and exceeded my ideal column word length by half again. That concludes my three-column crystal balling of our local racing scene. Am I right? Wrong? Or somewhere in between?
Now it’s your turn?
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