Club column: Kevin Turner
A decline in some grid sizes and homogenised entries in some classes offer a snapshot of the growing challenge facing historic racing promoters
“THERE ARE TOO MANY RACES, PEOPLE ARE CHERRY-PICKING AND IT’S GETTING EXPENSIVE”
Events such as Silverstone Classic last month underline that while historic racing remains strong, things are not quite as positive as they once were. Aside from the usual tension of how much car development to allow in historic competition, two issues are apparent in 2018.
The first is some of the grid sizes at club level. While there are success stories such as Historic Formula Ford (an average of 38 qualifiers at each event so far) and Equipe GTS, there are also weaker tales elsewhere.
Historic Sports Car Club CEO Grahame White concedes that meeting entries are “not as good as they have been” and that “uncertainty” about the UK’S economic future has contributed to some competitors staying at home. Interestingly, White reports that the HSCC has the same number of members as last year, but that fewer of them are racing.
The perennial issues of a packed calendar and rising costs are also contributing factors. “there are too many races – people are cherry-picking – and it is getting expensive,” adds White. He believes that it’s not just track-hire costs that are rising: “Everything seems to be more expensive.”
Historic Racing Drivers Club founder Julius Thurgood agrees there are downward pressures on grids, but believes it’s part of the natural peaks and troughs that many industries face. “everyone’s house has gone down on Zoopla, so there is a perception that people have lost money,” says Thurgood, a long-established promoter on the UK scene. “we’re suffering from a malaise. There’s always an up and down. I’ve got no intention of stopping, it’s just finding ways of getting people out.”
There are several methods for this. Thurgood uses sponsorship to contain entry costs; the Classic Sports Car Club has combined broader rules and longer races, while adding more than one race per meeting and improving hospitality facilities are tactics used by many. Culling or combining weaker grids should happen more often, although that doesn’t always find favour with competitors.
The variety of historic motorsport has long been one of its appeals, but that has started to change in certain categories too. It is by no means across the board – Formula Junior continues to provide an unbelievable spectrum of makes and models – but Silverstone Classic provided a particularly strong example.
Of the 34 starters in the Under 2 Litre Touring Cars race for pre-1966 tin-tops, there were 15 Ford Lotus Cortinas and 14 Mini Coopers. They are the cars to have in their respective classes (eight of the top 10 overall were Cortinas and the only Class B runners were Minis), so it’s understandable that those wanting to win races gravitate towards them. But that doesn’t make for interestingly diverse or historically representative fields.
Notwithstanding Jake Hill’s fine Lotus Elan win at the Classic, there’s a similar story in pre-1966 GTS, with Jaguar E-types and AC or Shelby Cobras tending to dominate at the front. Inevitably, some cars for certain categories are better than the rest – or more available/cost-effective.
A move towards‘ single-make’ or‘ limited-make’ representation on certain grids blends into the development problem. With cars ostensibly the same, owners looking to win – and the importance of victory at some of the big events has become very high – have started to explore every possible avenue to gain an edge. There have been plenty of stories down the years of Cortinas or E-types in wind tunnels or running‘ trick’ bits. No doubt some of those are false, but it emphasises how serious – and costly – parts of historic racing are becoming.
So how to solve the problem? One of the issues – the incredibly high value of certain cars, such as the Ferrari 250 GTO that should take on the E-types and Cobras – is one that organisers can’t be expected to overcome. But there may be other opportunities.
Limiting the pace of the class-leading machines has some merit, but care must be taken with the way it is done because that could end up being far too close to performance balancing. That’s one of the scourges of contemporary motorsport and the lack of it in historics is surely one of its more appealing traits.
But reigning in some of the excesses would surely help, both from a cost and variety perspective. That would require some well-informed technical rules and scrutineering, plus bravery from event/club organisers to turn away those not complying. A tricky thing to do, particularly with the aforementioned grid-size issue.
One leading historic preparer and racer suggested to Autosport that championships could offer extra points for those entering unusual or exotic cars. It sounds fanciful, but it’s not so far away from the old principle of more starting money to cars or drivers organisers deemed attractive to spectators.
It’s hardly a crisis, but encouraging people not to follow the obvious routes could help boost grids and maintain the variety that is one of historic racing’s big appeals.