1972 rules proposal addtional information

[Peter Steilberg]

for those of you who did not receive the email. Here is the text. Sans pics.


FIA Homologation Papers

For those interested, here is a link to all cars “previously homologated” by the FIA. Note that early rules recognized group one cars as “T” for “Touring,” rather than Group 1. You can see here how many cars were homologated in all groups between 1969 and 1972.

http://www.fia.com/resources/documents/1906603385__Historic_Pre_Hom...

We have access to most homologation papers.

SCCA 1972 Rules

We are also attaching a copy of the 1972 rules (above). Sorry, we tried to re-save it rotated clockwise 90 degrees but were unsuccessful. Go to “view” then “rotate.”

The 1972 rules did not “rock” the foundation of grass roots racing. Google Bob Sharp’s story about 240Z racing with Pete Brock during the 1970 and 1971 SCCA Championships. Does this look like the winged box flared car that we are supposed to fear?


Pictured Above: the BRE 240Z and its crew the 1970 and 1971 SCCA C Production Championships with the Datsun 240-Z. Pictured Left to Right: John Knepp, Kirk Allegro, Peter Brock (behind the car with ascot), Mac Tilton, John Caldwell & John Morton.

Here are some pictures of flares from 1972 and earlier. These are pictures from RAC events (not club events).

http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jong/Pages/1969%20Cars.html


Bevan Imp 1972



BMW 2800CS in 1972.


C
Capri 1972


GTAM 1972


GTA 1969 (we already had Codolini flares)



Escort 1968 (we already had flares)


BMW 1969 (we already had flares)


911 1969 (we already had flares)

By way of example, the rules pertaining to fender flares and spoilers are on page 7 of the pdf file which is pages 68 and 69 of the document. The 1969 rules are already on our site. With regard to flares, the 1969 Sedan rule 6.4 B-5 states:

In order to provide clearance for wheels and tires, the interior of fenders may be altered except for the removal wholly or partially of panels separating the wheel wells from the engine, passenger and/or luggage compartments. The exterior contour of fenders may be altered to provide for tire clearance as long as there is no modification to the wheel opening and appearance is kept as nearly standard as possible.

The 1972 rule states:

In order to provide clearance for wheels and tires, the interior of fenders may be altered but not substituted with an alternate material. The authorized modifications may not result in any additional openings between the wheel well and the engine, passenger or luggage compartments. The exterior contour of the fenders may be altered only to provide for tire clearance. Provided that the fender opening profile when viewed from the side of the automobile is not changed.

Please compare and contrast these rules before you decide. As far as flares, as you can see above, there was not much in the way of difference.

VMC member club eligibility

Lest we be accused (again) of not giving the “whole truth” here are the cut off’s for clubs in the VMC along with actual email texts from other clubs. We handed this information out at the Columbia River Classic.

This information was provided by the VMC president who can be contacted at http://www.v-m-c.org/

Club, cut-off date.

ASRA 1967
CHRA 1998
CSRG 1967
CVAR 1972
HMSA 1965
HSR 1974
HSR-West 1974
IC 1972
MR (Formula car club) 1979
NR 1976
PVGPA (no data available)
RMVR 1967 (1972 Large bore)
SF-SCCA 1983
SOVREN 1969
SVRA 1975
SWMS 1972
VARA 1972
VARAC 1972
VRCBC 1974
VRG 1972
VSCCA 1959
VSCDA 1972
VSCR 1972

The con statement states that the 1972 cut off has “consistently not worked with other clubs” the above should belie that statement. If not, consider the below:

Statements from other clubs

From; Doug Meis, Technical Director - VDCA

I'm not sure exactly sure when we moved the eligibility date to 1972. If I had to guess, it was about '02 or '03. Prior to that, we were informally allowing it to some extent. This changed primarily effected our production based classes since or Formula car rules have always been based on Monoposto Register rules.

In our case, moving the eligibility date to '72 was a recognition of the reality that most of the vintage racers in our geographic area raced with other groups that used 1972 as a cut-off date. It made sense for us to be in line with most of the sanctioning bodies in our area at least in that regard. While there was never a dramatic rise in entries, I am sure it had a positive effect on our entry numbers.

From a philosophical point of view, I am of the opinion that the 1972 cut-off is less arbitrary than 1969. The area of slick tires, gutted interiors, tube frame production cars, big fender flares and other modifications is mostly post-1972. This seems to be the point where both the rules and the technology turned to a new era and the end of what we like to refer to as the "golden age" of sports car racing. I am not an expert on the subject but I would also point to the SCCA GCR's and PCS's and the fact that there was very little difference in them comparing 1969 to 1972 whereas there are bigger differences comparing 1962 rules to 1969/72 or 69/72 to later years.

We have also expanded our sports racing group to include Sports 2000 racers up to 1986 as these cars (usually!) mix in well with the older sports racers and faster Formula cars. We have also expanded our FF group to include Club Fords ('73 to '81 per Monoposto rules)

Hope my ramblings are of some help to you! Feel free to write with any other questions.


From; Phill Cull, VSCDA

We have used 1972 GCR compliance as our threshold for historic production cars for more than 15 years (a bump from 1965 vintage production)

It did indeed increase our membership and race entries significantly and I suspect has had a positive influence relative spectator appeal as well.

We also, about the same time adopted the rules and regulations of Monoposto Racing for our Formula cars and subsequently bought the big, fast wings and slicks Formula cars from the late Sixties through 1979 into the fold when MR incorporated them.

Hope that helps, say HI to Starke Shelby for me.

P.S. we are currently doing a feasibility study relative the addition of newer cars.


From; Bob Girvin, VRG

Sorry to be so slow getting back to you. VRG was a new start up 4 years ago. When we developed our rules and regulations we were greatly influenced by SVRA and R&R since many of our members would want to run with SVRA also. We therefore adopted the 1972 cut off. It seems to work well for us here in the East.

If we were to use a 1969 cut off it would have a negative impact on our club. We have started to allow FF through 1981 provided the car has out board suspension on at least one end of the car and runs the same treaded tires as the pre 72 FF. We run them together and score them separately which seems to be working well.


From; Joe Lightfoot Eligibility Committee VARAC

I'm just about to leave on a short vacation so I will give you a short answer now. We moved to the 1972 year just before I joined VARAC in 1998, so I don't know the history. I haven't heard of any problems from that decision and we just changed our "Classic Sedans" from cut off from 1965 to 1972 and the certainly seems to have improved that field a lot, making it more interesting and gaining a lot of cars while not losing any.

Much Maligned Cars

Finally, we should mention that it is doubtful that anyone is going to build a Gremlin or a Pinto race car when there are so many other beautiful cars that appeared between 1969 and 1972 . However, to defend those much maligned cars mentioned in the con statement consider the following:

AMC Gremlin



On January 26, 2006, the #11 Levi’s Team Highball AMC Gremlin was placed in the museum of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame at the super speedway in Talladega, Alabama. The car is owned by Don Schmitz of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Dennis Shaw of Raleigh NC was the Driver for this Car. The car was placed in the gallery along side the cars of Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Harry Gant, Neil Bonnet, Fireball Roberts, Bobby Isaac, Bobby and Davey Allison, among other pioneers of professional racing in the United States.
RX2 RX3
The first rotary-engined Mazda to have real success in professional racing in America was an RX-2 campaigned by Car and Driver magazine in IMSA's (The International Motor Sport Association's) Baby Grand series in 1973.

In late 1972, editor Pat Bedard, had sold the magazine on the idea of going racing with the rotary and writing about it in the magazine. He and fellow editor, Don Sherman, had attended drivers schools and competed in showroom stock racing. They had also prepared a Pinto for IMSA but had not actually raced there. Both were former Chrysler engineers.

They got a budget (a slim one by Bedard's recollection, but perceived by the rest of the racing community as huge) and commissioned Kas Kastner and Roy Woods Racing in Gardena, California to prepare a new RX-2 for racing. Most of the actual prep was done by Ron Nash.
The RX-2 was the first Wankel-powered car to be widely raced - the original Cosmo competed in just a single race. The Car and Driver magazine and Racing Beat built an RX-2 race car in 1973 for the IMSA sedan series. With radically-enlarged ports (they were so large that a "bridge" of steel was required to keep the corner seals in place), the RX-2 produced 198 hp (148 kW) in racing trim.
The RX-2 took the pole in its first race, at Pocono, but did not finish the race due to a broken differential. Lime Rock was its third race, and the RX-2 claimed both the pole and the win. Another win came at Road Atlanta, even with a 300 lb (136 kg) lead weight handicap. The engine modifications were outlawed for 1974, but the RX-2 kept winning. Car and Driver lost interest in the car, but others continued to race it, and other RX-2 and RX-3 racers soon appeared.
References
Hege, John B. (2002). The Wankel Rotary Engine: A History pp. 123-124. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786411775
Yamaguchi, Jack K. (1985). The New Mazda RX-7 and Mazda Rotary Engine Sports Cars. St. Martin's Press, New York. ISBN 0-312-69456-3.
Jan P. Norbye (1973). "Watch out for Mazda!". Automobile Quarterly XI.1: 50-61.
Patrick Bedard (June 1993). "Wankel Winning, Wankel Whining". Car and Driver 38.12: 105.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_RX-2
http://www.mazdausa.com/MusaWeb/displayPage.action?pageParameter=ma...
Chevy Vega
You may have me here. We have heard that the Chevrolet did go racing with the Vega and that they raced succesfully in the US sedan touring classes. In fact they built just over 3500 Chevrolet Vega Cosworths in 1975/76 (obviously after 1972). They were homologated in Europe with amendments (see the FIA link above). There is not much history here though.
Dodge Dart
As far as the Dodge Dart is concerned, We have bad news: It is already legal under SOVREN’s rules, having been homologated under the FIA in 1963, 1964, and 1967.
Ford Pinto
The Ford Pinto, aside from supplying one of the most prolific racing motors in history, also raced in the Trans Am 2.5 Challenge. Here is an old Datsun Advertisement showing the pinto about to pass a GTV that is in a hopeless oversteer situation.

http://www.bsedan.com/hist25.html
Chevy Nova
The Nova, like the Dart, is a SOVREN legal car. The first Nova was built in 1962. None other than Davey Allison cut his teeth in a stock car based on a 1967 Chevrolet Nova.
http://www.havoline.com/racing/history/da.html
Toyota Celica
As far as the Celica is concerned, we can hardly deny its rally pedigree. The very first entry for Celica in the World Rally Championship was in 1972 RAC Rally when Ove Andersson drove TA22 1600GTV into the ninth place.


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://content.answers.com/m...
Finally, one could note that some of the cars above have more of a NASCAR history (e.g. Gremlin). Don’t forget the cars with NASCAR history that already race with us, and don’t forget drivers like Gurney, Parnelli, Andretti, and others – who raced NASCAR.
Conclusion
Stark and Bill all but admit in their position statements that they foresee later cars racing with SOVREN.
Stark states that he only objects to the rule change because it is not well thought out in terms of how these cars will affect our grids. We have made no representations regarding how the 1972 cars should be gridded for a reason. Look at the FIA link above. There are hundreds of cars that appeared between 1969 and the end of 1972. We cannot make a plan about gridding until we know what cars appear. We would leave this to the competition committee and we would suggest that it would depend on how many of these cars appear and how compatible they are with the rest of our grids. For example, having a 1972 Austin De Luxe 1300 will not present much of an issue as far as gridding. Having a 1972 Corvette may present an issue. Perhaps that car should be gridded in the Exhibition Class until we see how it races. For right now, we want to be able to send a message that it is ok to prepare your cars. What we would oppose is placing a 240Z that turns a 1:49 at PR in exhibition just because it was built in 1972.
Bill states that he doesn’t want to see an 800 hp Corvette and a run what ya brung attitude. We don’t either. There is nothing in the 1972 rules that states run what ya brung. Since when has 1969 been the cut off for cheaters? This is not an issue relating to a cut off year but rather enforcement. We in favor of the 1972 rule have also been proponents of the SOVREN heritage certificate and crackdowns on illegal cars. Nothing could be further from our intentions. We support enforcement proposals.
On a final note, SOVREN is considering a NASCAR class (purportedly including cars from the 80s and 90s) for next year’s historic races. This was discussed at the last board meeting. Judy Buckingham noted specifically that the NASCAR grid would bring in more spectators and more money to the club. Look at the latest issue of Vintage Drift pages 36 and 45. Ask yourself why we should not allow a 1972 cut off when we already allow cars late model Corvettes and Porsches in our races and when we are considering a grid including late model outdated NASCAR racers.
We should not fear change that happened nearly 30 years ago. We need more cars out there to race against. Remember, racing is like good luvin, you need a trustworthy partner with comparable skills right next to you. Racing without a partner, well that’s just like . . .

[rdauenhauer]

Very thorough and well researched argument. No replies? Has this already come up for vote?
Passed/voted down?

[Peter Steilberg]

voted down

[rdauenhauer]

I appologize for not participating myself but can you elaborate? Vote count? No way in hell or failed by a whisker?
Any sentiment of why this proposal (continues to) fails ?

[Peter Steilberg]

it was something like 100-40. Next year we will try again. Pete

[David]

I have a 240Z that was run in SCCA and would like to know if I can run with SOVREN?

[Peter Steilberg]

Not yet. Pete