Where Have All The Racing Cars Gone?

[Chunkychucky]

Dewi 2 said:

Tim Dodwell (a well known club racer, who still races his bought when new, 1966 grey/white Mini Cooper) started the Road Saloons racing series in 1983.

The concept was low cost racing, restricted by driving on the road to each event. Those circumstances required tuning limitations, because very highly tuned engines would not usually be very suitable for use on public roads.
The series became so successful, that the classes were split into two races for Budget Road Saloons and Super Road Saloons..

All went well for a number of years, but eventually the Super competitors wanted trailers to be allowed.
You can guess that greater spending began and the series gradually came to an end.

There was a revival of the low-cost saloon racing concept in 2003 named Highway Saloons, but by then times had changed and that race series ended in 2005.

After about 40 years, Tim's Mini Cooper has not gone. Now competing in the CTCRC Pre-1966 championship, his latest event was at Brands Hatch a week ago. As almost the only competitor in that series still driving to and from the circuit, what was once a consistently competitive mid-field runner, now requires wet races to avoid being a tail-ender, because the engine has not been further developed. Spend lots of money and all those old cars become faster. You might expect that when racing costs more, many cars would be gone, but at present the CTCRC grids seem to increasingly be well supported.

Yeah CTCRC do seem one of the better ones, the Historic Racing Saloons Register (run/organise the pre-66 touring cars that run with HSCC) also announced this year a group of separate classes for metal-panelled cars that can now run with them. Before this I was strongly considering the Pre-66 CTCRC series.

I'm tempted to go this route, as the HSCC package allows you to drive a nice variety of circuits and actually forms a series, where as people like HRDC tick neither of these boxes IMO.

[Chunkychucky]

Dewi 2 said:

Chunkychucky said:

Yeah CTCRC do seem one of the better ones, the Historic Racing Saloons Register (run/organise the pre-66 touring cars that run with HSCC) also announced this year a group of separate classes for metal-panelled cars that can now run with them. Before this I was strongly considering the Pre-66 CTCRC series.

I'm tempted to go this route, as the HSCC package allows you to drive a nice variety of circuits and actually forms a series, where as people like HRDC tick neither of these boxes IMO.

I might be wrong, but I tend to think of HSCC and HSCC as being the type of historic saloons that race in the Goodwood Revival.
In other words, expensive and extremely fast.

On occasions, visiting Mini Cooper S cars have come from other race series, to race in a CTCRC event and have easily achieved overall wins.

Interesting, I believe because HSCC (aka HRSR) traditionally cater for cars with fibreglass panels/non-Appendix K modifications then they wouldn't be the typical preserve of the St Marys Trophy crowd.

As the competing cars in that race are selected by Julius Thurgood (or used to be, at least) then you have to 'pay a tribute' in the form of doing particular track/test days at Goodwood and competing in the HRDC races he organises. It's a pain as it's a meeting i'd like to compete at, but just can't be fked jumping through the hoops of high entry fees and odd circuit choices (Lydden Hill for example ).

It appears i'd not be alone in this, as merely a couple of years ago HRDC were able to field an entire grid full of pre-60s touring cars and put on a decent spectacle of a race. Now their races seem to be amalgamations of all sorts of series and types of car, another reason why I wouldn't want to compete with them. Just my thoughts

[Chunkychucky]

ChevronB19 said:

HSCC HRSR (acronym hell!) has the fantastic advantage of being surrounded by other races with cars from all eras as well. So it’s great to spectate *and* race. Expensive tyres, yes, but they are *far* more fun to drive on M sections than on modern compounds. Unfortunately grids are low at the moment, but the metal panel class will hopefully help. Entry and membership fees are way cheaper than HRDC too.

Yeah I grew up going to HSCC meetings and loved the fact you could watch historic touring cars racing so closely (Chris Sanders' LUV12, Graham Dodd's Mk2 Jag, Simon Garrad's BMW 2000 and latterly Dan Cox's 105e etc.) whilst also being entertained by lovely historic F5000 cars and the eclectic roadsports series.

I've not tried my car on anything other than CR65s as yet but agreed they're great fun, and the lower costs in addition with that new 'Economy' class are what's steering me in the direction of competing with HSCC. Great variety of tracks too - Cadwell, Oulton, Croft, shame the HRSR are not invited to the Brands GP meeting too! Was hoping to get along to Cadwell this weekend to spectate but unfortunately unavoidably detained..

[Chunkychucky]

Oilchange said:

Someone else needs to make these type of tyres and charge £50 a corner.
If all the race cars turn up with non dunlop tyres, what are they going to do, disqualify all of them? No cars on the grid?
Clearly they have had their palms greased.

Someone else producing something similar would be great. Given someone like Julian Majzub, who is both owner of Blockley Tyres and a talented historic racer, I would have thought that they could easily produce a racing crossply tyre in sizes 10-15 inches for half the price Dunlop charges. It’s a shame no one has taken up the challenge, it’s not like the Dunlops are of exceeding quality - a race preparer I know has to send back >20% of the tyres he gets delivered because they’re that poor you can’t even balance them up once mounted to a rim. It speaks volumes that Dunlop accept them back for exchange with no quibbles… Just look at the amount of these historic racers with tonnes of wheel weights clinging to the rim, and 99% of the time this will be on recently produced wheels.

[Chunkychucky]

As it seems a rare thing to be done, I thought i'd sing the praises of the Classic Touring Car Racing Club's meeting that I attended @ Donington Park on the last weekend in March. The club managed to gather 30-ish pre-66 touring cars on the grid for 2 races over the weekend, along with a few other well-supported series, and it was a great spectacle to see; amidst the news that clubs like HSCC are struggling for entries to some of their series, it was heartening to see so many likeminded enthusiasts gathering to compete together, and the paddock atmosphere was genuinely friendly and approachable - something i've not experienced at even a historic club meeting for a number of years.

The club shared the venue for the weekend with some form of Britcar series, so at points there were modern GT3 cars in the pitlane with full on fuelling rigs etc, but it made a nice change to see such a number of historic racing saloons on the grid together at the same time - on the whole the racing was clean and closely fought too I also saw on YouTube there was a meeting at Donington Park a few weeks earlier with a miscellany of 60s sports cars and saloons, with Elan 26Rs and 'lightweight' E Types overtaking Jaguar Mk2 saloons - not sure of the appeal of competing in such a 'run what you brung' series, but it was well supported also and good to see so many cars competing there also