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Interesting thread to someone who runs two classic series in NZ, for European saloons, sports and GTs, pre 1977 and run ons.
We adopt a more pragmatic approach (that not everyone agrees with I might add) as we cover a wide range of cars of different ages and capacities. We currently have 105 paid up drivers (don't forget NZ only has a total population of 4m, and 3m of those in the North Island).
We allow a certain amount of modifications under national rules, but issues such as the Mustang block as above, can cause a lot of frustration, and potentially sideline nice cars.
Given that racing a Morgan V8 or an MG Midget for example, whether bog standard or otherwise, should mean that the Morgan will always win, out and out scratch racing for mixed classics has been approached from a different angle.
ALL our points scoring races are traditional handicaps, where the handicapper's (me!) objective is to get all cars to the finishing line at exactly the same time, then the technical issues and theoretical performance gains become less important, and the concentration moves to enjoying the cars, driving them within the car and driver's limits. Effectively, the series becomes a bit of a lottery as no series winner can be predicted in advance. The drivers love it. No bonnet lifting and no accusations. Its all very gentlemanly as we also enforce driving standards - dodgem car drivers get chucked out.
For those who advocate out and out scratch racing of classics, (and apparently, there are problems at the highest levels with over driving and 'cheating' in Europe), I understand the need to win, but with it comes with the baggage...
As a spectator, I want to see a variety of cars. As a racer, I just want the opportunity to race my car. Results don't matter and quite frankly, to quote one local ex-UK classic racer. "Hey, if it looks like a Mustang, it probably is a Mustang. What is the problem?"
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