ROADGOING TO RUIN?

A couple of threads in the 7Oaks on line forum have led to the perennial problem of speed event roadgoing regs. Space requirements dictate it needs to be expanded elsewhere! As predicted, we have another newcomer to speed events bemused to find some of the Marketing Machine “away day” events have no classes for the standard cars that run in other speed events.
   Steve M’s final feedback on leaving the MSC Hillclimb & Sprint Sub Committee was of progress at last towards national standardisation of vehicle categories to include roadgoing. Interwoven with that we have on-going comments to the effect that roadgoing cars should be driven to events and standard cars should be combined with modified roadgoing. On these last two points I beg to differ (no surprises there then…).Superimposed on it all we have opinions expressed in Acorn (not least by an Elan owner no stranger to the 7Oaks championship) that going to different tracks and finding you are in different classes and uncompetitive is all rather fun because you can compete against yourself in speed events.
   For some years, I competed in as many as 7 events in a season at one venue as well as working up to one day a week on track maintenance. One thing I did discover was that it takes very unusual weather for Britain for a hillclimb to remain consistent even from one Sunday to the next Saturday. Invariably something changes (so much for class bogey times).
    When I started competing in speed events, I was horrified to discover (1) different vehicle regs at events a few miles apart and (2) my road legal, taxed, insured, MoT’d and fairly ordinary rally car was not eligible for any roadgoing class (when in the South West in particular most roadgoing cars competing were far more highly modified than mine). Some only slightly less ordinary rally cars could not even compete in ModProd and were Sports Libre.
    Having driven my own rally car to and from International Rallies in Belgium and Holland (and halfway up the UK to and from the RAC Rally), it was a relief to move from the South East and have room to park a trailer. This however coincided with the revelation that a strong body of opinion felt all road cars should be driven to all speed events. This was a particular nonsense at one of my local venues, where the fastest car in the class “lived” a mile from the venue, but other entrants were travelling from Kent. Those trailering road cars also seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time carrying home the broken vehicles of the “drive it” masochists. I seemed to donate the spares I carried in my tow car to assist these same competitors 4 or 5 times more often than I used my own spares. There was the further point that many of the “drive it” brigade arrived with massed helpers in another vehicle.
    For the first time we now have regional roadgoing regs on most aspects of the car spec almost in line. There are still some differences between the 4 south easterly regions (+CCC) and the “north of Watford” regs (inner arches, heaters, what to do with Elises) but even in the south west, revised regs now bring road cars largely in line in mechanical spec, trim etc. Where the SW still differs is in capacity classes (1800cc & 2600cc not 2000cc) allowing any road tyre and not having standard car classes. Where they also differ is in just having effectively abolished modprod saloons and sports-but that is a separate issue.
    Some people remain confused because there are still “one off” venues they visit. In the South, Boscombe Down runs sports car-orientated classes and falsely judges any road tyre to be ”List 1a equivalent”. Gurston Down runs all but its one CCC and one ASWMC meeting without roadgoing classes (and despite being in the ACSMC region, shuns it). You will also find all road cars run with kit cars at places like Prescott (and you have to wear a blazer and tie too….).
    Almost inevitably (given the benevolent hijacking of the Sprint Leaders Championship by the Midlands mob and the resultant introduction of roadgoing classes), we are heading towards national roadgoing classes that combine standard cars with modified roadgoing. We probably need to face up to the fact that we can’t have 3 categories of saloons/sports nationally and must make do with 2 (to allow all those wretched racing car classes with noisy motorbike engines that sound as painful as the accents of their drivers).
    I see great advantage in standard car classes (not least for the wider image of the sport). Eligible cars can be defined  by listed power and weight (to exclude Elises, Exiges etc) along the lines Ritchie Gatt has suggested in the 7Oaks on line forum. (The same criteria I thought the MSC was supposed to be adopting for new national production and limited production categories). We either accept that over 2000 will be “chips with everything” or we limit standard cars to 1400 and 2000? (Or - wash my mouth out with strong disinfectant - we adopt the ASWMC modified roadgoing splits of 1400cc,1800cc and 2600cc, with or without an over 2600cc class).Keeping the standard category might satisfy the “drive it to the meeting” enthusiasts, leaving modified cars to be trailered if wished without constant sniping.
    2 categories? Yes, here is the heresy: I would combine modified roadgoing with modprod into something that would allow the average club rally car to compete on equal terms. This modified category would have to be road legal but NOT require tax and insurance (something that was fought long and hard for in single venue rallies so it is something of an insult to deny the same to road legal cars in speed events-particularly at a time so many competitors have suffered from the collapse of Independent Insurance). There seems to be a perverse willingness to spend unnecessarily in some areas of the speed world. How many people actually enter speed events in their true/sole means of daily transport, rather than their second or third cars? Tyres for this category? I would prefer List 1a, but slicks or rally-style moulded slicks are both likely to be cheaper overall than sticky” road” tyres as currently still allowed in the SW. Whether Nat B stage rallies should also go List 1a is a separate debate-god knows why the road rallies that first brought us these soft “road” tyres don’t too!
    Modprod is not some sacred category. It has effectively been dropped for all but kit cars in the South West. On the other hand, it is run mainly for non-kit cars in the South East? (modprod kit cars going into the “catch all ”class). Many people I know switch between modprod and roadgoing between events, as I have on occasion. It was reported to me by an exemplary midlands source that, when the current modprod regs were first put together for the 1991 season, the (then as now) Chairman of the MSC Hillclimb and Sprint Sub Committee seriously believed it would bring a category filled with “hot hatches”! It is an amalgam of racing Modsaloon and Prodsports regs , is it not, with Modsaloon regs containing some obscure restrictions in body and suspension mods that date from its origins as a place for displaced Group 2 cars to race after the BTCC went Group 1?
     Is the future of club motorsport in multi-disciplined, more localised championships -given fuel costs and road congestion? If so, lets concentrate on rationalising vehicle regs across disciplines, not trying to introduce new categories that seek to offer cheaper sport but really just complicate matters and add to the existing confusion?

Keith Lay

The Acorn : August Edition