Don’t look now, but it’s starting. The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, often called the “Monterey Historics” by those in the know and simply “Monterey” by people who maintain a sort of willful, deliberate ignorance of anything else happening at Laguna Seca for the rest of the year, will be casting its usual ghoulish pall over the world of automotive enthusiasm this weekend.
Founded by Steve Earle (the non-famous Steve Earle, mind you, not the fellow who once said that thing about Townes and Dylan) four decades ago, the event was quasi-hijacked away from its founder a few years back and now exists primarily as a way for rich guys to show off their cars and for mass-market manufacturers like Cadillac to spend money blathering about their heritage to a bunch of people who hold them in utter and complete contempt.
Neither a race nor a car show, the Historics offer fans of vintage race cars a chance to see them prancing around a racetrack in the hands of their incompetent owners and/or some arrive-and-drive pros who are desperately hungry for meal money, sponsorship opportunities, or whatever distant echoes of former adulation they can coax from the aging crowd. In this sense, the event is utterly harmless and probably even interesting, the same way that the Ault Park Concours or Pebble Beach can be interesting. With that said, the effect that the Monterey Historics and events like it have on modern-day racing is far from harmless. For that reason alone, it’s time to call time on this annual exhumation, this dumb show of days best left to rest, this sad parade of vehicles that often amount to little more than George Washington’s axe with wheels.
What’s wrong with historic “racing”? What’s the problem with bringing the old cars out, keeping them running, giving people a chance to see them on the move instead of gathering dust in a museum? How could even the bitterest misanthrope complain about an event that makes so many people happy? On the surface, nothing. But consider this: all of that energy, all of that effort, all of that near-infinite funding put into vintage cars and vintage racing has to come from somewhere. It cannot have escaped the intelligent reader’s attention that modern racing has suffered a cliff-face decline even as historic and vintage “racing” has gone from strength to well-sponsored strength.
The above state of affairs is no accident. Time and again, I’ve heard enthusiasts perorating on the superiority of vintage racers to their modern-day counterparts. “You could see the drivers working behind the wheel!” Or, “Back then, computers didn’t drive the car!” Perhaps the most valid criticism: “Nobody was afraid of innovation! Instead of a bunch of spec series, you had everybody trying everything, from six-wheel F1 cars to the turbocharged 917!” You know what? They’re right. About all of it. A few months ago, I had the chance to be in a workshop with one of the original 917K racers, and I was struck quite speechless by it. Compared to the modern LeMans hybrids or the various spec-ish prototypes out there, the 917K (or, indeed, any of its contemporaries) has authentic and everlasting star power. This was the car that was in LeMans. It was one of the cars that ran down an unfettered Mulsanne Straight limited only by the laws of physics and Porsche’s ingenuity in bending those laws. Who wouldn’t want to see it driving around?
![1970 Porsche 917K Gulf livery, Image: Brian Snelson (originally posted to Flickr as 1970 Porsche 917K) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/1970Porsche917KGulf.jpg)
Yet this perceived superiority of vintage racing to modern competition is a self-fulfilling prophecy if we continue to put our attention, time, and money in the past. The men who built and campaigned the 917K didn’t spend their time mooning over the bad-ass prewar Benzes. Their minds were focused on victory in the present day. Just as importantly, the minds of the enthusiast public were right there with them. There wasn’t any historic racing of any consequence back then. People would have laughed at you, were you to bring the idea up in public. Vintage racing? Might as well get the guys from the 1924 Olympics out and make ’em run around the track! In 1970, everybody was 100-percent focused on racing in 1970.
The problem is that in 2016, we still seem to be obsessed with 1970. Or 1950, or 1986, or whenever. And this particular affectation seems to primarily afflict sports-car racing. NASCAR fans and (to a lesser degree) F1 fans are perfectly content to focus on the current day. They might talk about “Big E” or Senna vs. Prost from time to time, but it’s Dale Jr. or Rosberg vs. Hamilton that has their attention in the current day. The sports-car crowd, by contrast, arrives in standing-room-only droves for Monterey but then can’t be bothered to turn out for an IMSA race.
Listen, if any human being in their world is aware of the megawatt power of sentimentality, it’s me. I was one of the early participants in the vintage bicycle motocross scene 15 years ago, even as I was trying to wrap up a career racing the modern bikes of the time. I know how safe, how comforting, it is to live in the past. I know the seductive appeal of idolizing the pay drivers and no-hopers of the past (not to mention any names) while being thoroughly dismissive of their modern-day counterparts. I know how disappointing modern races can be, how stupid the sanctioning bodies and rulemakers can be, how tempting it is to voluntarily exist in a world where the manufacturers didn’t feel the need to worship the golden calves of hybrid tech or diesel power or push-to-pass or DRS or venturi restrictors or SAFER barriers.
Still, we’ll never make modern-day racing better if we can’t stop looking behind. There are stories in modern-day racing waiting to be discovered, stories just as thrilling as anything in the old books and magazines. But we won’t find them if we don’t look for them, and we won’t look for them if our noses are buried up the dusty chuff of history. Leave history to the historians; let’s all get together and make, or witness, a new history of our very own.
[Image: Tim Hill via Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Brian Snelson (originally posted to Flickr as 1970 Porsche 917K) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons]
No.
The Monterrey Historics in no way threaten the future of motorsports. And histrionic hyperbole in no way diminishes the great opportunity to see rare vintage racers out for a run.
Hot take received and subsequently dismissed.
It should be simple economics, because I’ve heard this from FEMA spokesmen of all political stripes – being reminded of another human tragedy in Louisiana:
Just break all the windows in your current sports cars.
The subsequent economic activity will be a huge boon for modern racing.
Fred Bastiat would be proud of you MrGreenMan.
Bastiat and the Austrian School wouldn’t be proud but proponents of alternate analysis of the broken window example would be. Those proponents would view the store of wealth represented by the window as unproductive capital that does not circulate to create new wealth using the velocity of money. To those proponents, the broken window is accelerated depreciation, allowing the wealth to re-enter circulation.
There’s a joke that illustrates the effect of the velocity of money circulating to create new wealth. A German tourist arrives at a Greek hotel wishing to rent a room, but it must be acceptable and he wishes to inspect it first. The hotel clerk demands a 100 Euro deposit, refundable if the room is unacceptable.
As soon as the German puts the 100 Euro bill on the front desk and goes to inspect the room, the clerk takes the bill and rushes to pay off the carpenter who installed new shelving in the kitchen.
The carpenter rushes with the bill to the lumber yard to pay off his bill, and the lumberyard owner rushes with the bill to pay off the sawmill that supplies his lumberyard.
The sawmill owner rushes with the 100 Euro bill to the lumberjack who cut down the tree that was sawn into lumber, and the lumberjack takes the bill to the property owner who sold the right to cut down the tree on his property.
The property owner rushes to pay off the hooker who entertained him after he sold the tree, and the hooker rushes to the hotel to pay for the room she used to entertain the property owner, and the 100 Euro bill is returned to the front desk.
The German tourist then returns, announces the room is unacceptable, grabs his 100 Euro bill and leaves. No money was spent, but the 100 Euro bill was in effect loaned out for a short term interest free, and 700 Euros in debt has been discharged. That’s the velocity of money, creating new wealth by being circulated.
Bastiat never considered that.
Nice corn.
What a rant@!!! Now get yourself to Goodwood.
I recently attended Oshkosh and, while the flybys of vintage aircraft aren’t really my thing, I appreciate what those folks bring to aviation. So it is with *any* motorsport or display event. Both pursuits are expensive, any new participants who are initially attracted by these displays are welcome.
Historical racing blends in nicely with a Concour d’Elegance the same week end.
Old race cars from pre extensive TV coverage of racing still captures the imagination of many folks.
Back in the day they were just another race car, and treated as such a machine to win races. Today they capture the imagination. Will Can-Am racing ever come back probably not…but it sure is interesting to see and hear a McLaren with a big block Chevy from almost 50 years ago.
Good point, if NASCAR would hold an historical race it would not only be interesting, but also attract a ton of fans. It would be fascinating to see Childress pull out an old # 3 with Junior driving. The Wood Brothers with # 21, Petty with # 43.
When you can show me a modern road-race series as fun to watch as NZ Touring Car Masters or the St. Mary’s Trophy, I’ll watch it.
I’ll buy you a beer at VIR next weekend.
I checked the calendar and it looks like a good weekend of NASA racing and bikes; don’t tempt me.
That said, my words were to watch, not to participate in. NASA/SCCA is the kind of thing I could see myself doing when I’ve had a bit more experience and the funny fund is a bit bigger than it is now. I actually have watched some SCCA racing live at Summit Point, track day serendipity. Multi-class but the Trans-Am (IIRC) cars got me all hot and bothered going through 7-8-9. Even so, I don’t know that I’d watch it on TV, nor do I think I could ever be qualified to do what I do like to see.
It really must come down to taste. I like watching obviously nutsy, aggressive driving and big slip angles more than the monster-of-downforce science experiments driven surgically at the top levels of racing today, regardless of absolute speed. That’s where taste comes in, because, being far below the upper crust of skill, I find it more easily conceivable that one could drive within the limits of an extraordinarily capable car than find the bravery to so far exceed lower limits with likely greater consequences considering lesser safety equipment.
If people like vintage racing more than modern racing, then it’s the fault of modern racing.
Yeah, kinda need to give the people what they want.
But the people aren’t paying for the team :).
Yeeeeep.
Yep there ya go. Also aging demographic may be a part of it. I’m not that interested in either generally so meh. But I think I would have more fun at a classic event then any of the modern races I’ve been too.
Them newfangled Indycars are ugly like two upside-down wheelbarrows strapped together. Besides they go by way too fast…
Where is the funding coming from?
In my experience, the yacht fund. Or maybe foregoing that million dollar kitchen reno for a year. Or a few horses.
I guess some of it could have funded some small-scale hostile takeovers, but not really. This is play money, the fact that old race cars have retained their value over the past few years is just a bonus.
I don’t think that any significant part of the money spent on vintage racing would have gone to the beer tent at an IMSA race, if that’s what you are implying.
Yeah it’s not a choice between classic racing or modern racing but between classic racing and trading in your Westport 112 for a Westport 130.
“Still, we’ll never make modern-day racing better if we can’t stop looking behind.”
Then modern-day racing as a whole needs to stop making looking behind so appealing. Isn’t voting with our eyes and dollars the best way to make the current situation better?
That’s an interesting statement by Steve Earle. Myself, I’d go with Joni Mitchell as being the best songwriter, but I do love Townes’s stuff as well.
Steve Earle is probably better known for his comment about two other musicians than he is for his own music.
The money in modern racing has been largely localized to a few series because it costs so freaking much to get out there an actually competitively race in the top series. Back in the 1970s, CFD and computer control was just starting to hit the ground in lab environments. Everyone was on a levelish playing field as far as tech availability. Now, if you want to race in one of the big series, you have no choice but to move toward using expensive technology to stay competitive rather than assembling a team of intuitive and experienced guys in your team garage. The top level racing costs have skyrocketed and that left a void in the middle. The spec races are for the pay-your-own-way drivers. The historic races have filled the middle spot where you still spend a decent amount of money but you are effectively providing a pretty parade with nice sounds. People enjoy watching it, hearing the noises, smelling the unburned fuel, and the nostalgia so it still provides an entertainment element at a lower cost. If these guys decided to start spending their money on top level races, they’d just crowd the field without adding much entertainment factor other than the ensuing wrecks caused by the delta in speed between them and the big money frontrunners when the medium dollar guys get lapped.
He is the father you will never quite manage to kill. The Oedipal situation in the Zone these days is terrible. There is no dignity. The mothers have been masculinized to old worn moneybags of no sexual interest to anyone, and yet here are their sons, still trapped inside intertias of lust that are 40 years out of date. The fathers have no power today and never did, but because 40 years ago we could not kill them, we are condemned now to the same passivity, the same masochist fantasies they cherished in secret, and worse, we are condemned in our weakness to impersonate men of power our own infant children must hate, and wish to usurp the place of, and fail. . . . So generation after generation of men in love with pain and passivity serve out their time in the Zone, silent, redolent of faded sperm, terrified of dying, desperately addicted to the comforts others sell them, however useless, ugly or shallow, willing to have life defined for them by men whose only talent is for death.
Psychobabble!
CATCH
Yeah, hopelessly bleak yet nebulous and ultimately goofy.
Like how can there be “faded sperm” when everybody knows they’re already white?
I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!
I KNEW this was a snippet of some actual published work from a social stratum I despised :-D
Back in the mid-’70s every viciously suppressed young misogynist with an IQ over 130 was into Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.
I never read it as I was not a conflicted, Oedipal, professional’s kid. But the wafting ordure from the minds of the guys I knew who adored it is still recognizable.
*sigh* Memories…
I think anyone who thinks the sports car racing of today is not as good as it was 40 years ago is looking at the past with nostalgia rather than reality. The first 24 Hours of Daytona I went to was in 1973, and back then the margin of victory was always a number of laps. Back then those truly were endurance races; the whole point was to get close to the finish with an almost intact car, and attrition was high. Now, it’s more like a 24 hour sprint race, the cars are much better and they’re able to race the entire distance.
Petit LeMans, anyone?
Actually I think having the competition so close is kind of the problem. Back in the days stars could shine and as long as some one could change up the top positions once in a while(but not to much) it was more accessible to the fans.
Yup. This year’s 24 Hours of Daytona was mesmerizing and dramatic, as was LeMans. And now that IMSA and FIA races are routinely streamed online, many more people can watch these battles.
I suppose costs have escalated to the point where factory support is necessary; we’re unlikely to see too many more sports racing cars built from the ground up the way Devins, Cheetahs, or Panoz Roadsters were. But factory support and big-manufacturer technology was always decisive in determining winners and losers, even in the days when mustaches were grown without irony.
A 2016 F1 race is a miserable experience. Modern car racing, for the most part, has focused too much on the tech at the expense of the show. They need to cut all the regs out that don’t add to the sport or help with safety.
Great example of success in this vein is MotoGP… a lot of tech, but ultimately a bunch of guys riding motorcycles around a track. No walkie talkies, no fuel driven sandbagging, no team orders, no DRS, no BS. And the bulk of the rule changes they’ve made over the last decade or so have done nothing but make the sport safer or help with competitiveness and affordability of entry. There will be 6 factories on the grid next year…. 4 of them will have a shot at winning races, and 3 will have a shot at the title. Races are close and you don’t need a comp sci degree to follow the action. Everyone should watch MotoGP.
Modern racing has finally succeeded in turning me off. It’s just one more arena dictated by people who are unfit to have any influence over their betters whatsoever. F1 fans don’t look back constantly? Maybe take a look at an F1 forum. F1 has been in decline since whatever day the fan started watching it. NASCAR? Brian France has killed the golden goose, they just don’t report attendance anymore so not everyone knows. Sports cars? Races have been won by lobbyists for decades. Ford’s latest victories are 100% the result of gamesmanship in meetings with half-witted bureaucrats. Audi mostly beat Audi while driving interest out of a sport that barely merited it. Managed competition is too much like social justice. The second word loses all of its meaning.
My late father (1938-2003) was a car guy, but he had no time for the local car cruises. He always said that these events only reminded him of how unreliable, unsafe, and demanding the old cars were to own. He would have loved to see the fleet I’ve had since he passed, including a hybrid and an EV.
But since the oldest car I’ve ever owned is a 1971, I haven’t suffered with cars quite like he did. So I enjoy the car cruises and events like the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. [But I cringe that the owners of these vehicles are willing to risk their destruction in a race.]
But I agree with Fred above ^^, if modern racing loses out to vintage racing, then modern racing should look in the mirror.
By the way, the 917 is the hot one-night stand that evokes fond memories, but it was too dangerous to be the marrying type.
I went three years ago, and it was cheap and BYOB. A buddy and I parked lawn chairs and a cooler in the shade of the Corkscrew, and watched decades of beautiful race cars in real life color and volume. The paddock was full access and laid back, and you could poke your head under any hood as long as you weren’t in the way. I didn’t see any boater hats, and the corporate display didn’t hurt my feelings. In fact, most people like me got to see their first then-new C7 Corvette in person.
It wasn’t a Formula1-like prison of $10 waters and sight line barriers to prevent general admission from getting the same view as the VIP seats. Even a lot of pro touring mini “autocrosses” and amateur drift events charge money to watch the motorsports equivalent of the county fair.
The problem is the property surrounding Laguna Seca: the state of California. The scale of money and traffic in the coastal region is eye-rolling, and I couldn’t stand to live there, even if I had the means. However, inside the track, it’s a genuinely delightful Saturday with cars free of sore rants, Jalop bait, gentlemanly car-lifestyle blogs, Instagram filters, and all the other things that make analog interaction with neat classics less fun.
Eh – coming from a guy who idolizes a 72 year old rock guitarist, I’m not convinced.
This article has gotta be clickbait .
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I went to the Historic Races in…..1982 (?) , I no longer remember , it was the first time Porsche was the featured marque .
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It was fun , we all enjoyed watching the vintage tin putter and wheeze around the track .
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FAR less fencing then ! .
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I got a nice ride up to the corkscrew in a WWII surplus VW Kubelwagon .
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No way it could possibly effect modern racing for good nor bad .
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-Nate
Big meh Jack!
Modern racing sucks, I had attended and watched on TV Nascar, Indycar, CART and F1 for over 50 years. Cancelled my cable subscription and quit watching this year.
Go to your local Cars and Coffee or any car show and the folks will not be gathering around the latest toy some rich guy just had delivered. It will be that 50s Ferrari, Jaguar or 30s Bentley. You can usually get up close and see all the mechanical stuff, my 3 year old grandson can’t get enough of this.
I was in Monterey in 98 they had the pre war Auto Union cars running round the track. I was 10 feet from one when they fired up the motor.
New race cars are ugly as hell with all the wings, winglets, strange proportions, etc. that are aerodynamic and provide downforce, but are so ugly compared to the Indy, F1, and sports cars from the 1930s to 1960s. Old race cars also slide around while the new ones are so sucked to the ground they offer no drama or displays of driver skill in steering with the throttle. Old race cars also offer a far greater variety of interesting sounds from pushrod 4s, to desmo valve straight 8s, to DOHC V-12s. Old style tires were also long-wearing so the track doesn’t become littered with rubber chunks and make it impossible to pass because there is only one clear line. The closest to “old style” racing is NASCAR, but they have become less appealing because they no longer share anything stock – and hence look like cartoon cars. Give me a series with rock hard skinny tires, no aerodynamic aids, and big powerful motors and I will start watching “modern” racing again.
Why not both? Is there not room for vintage and modern racing in our hearts and minds?
If anything, modern racing is killing itself with sanctioning bodies over-regulating. Spec series have their place, but I’d like top rung high budget series to push the limits at any cost. NASCAR and F1 have stagnated for 20 years.
“the Ault Park Concours”
That’s interesting because there’s lots of varied stuff to see, and the owners are usually right there. You can chat about all the nerd car stuff to your heart’s content.
It is a mistake to think that if these guys aren’t spending their bucks on vintage racing they will shunt it to current racing.
They are spending the money on what they love. They do not love current racing-they would just find a different outlet they love.
To the current racing leagues-if folks are not buying your product it is the fault of your product, not the customer.
As an engineer I really miss the crazy stuff, Tyrrell P34, half the stuff Chapman and Hall tried etc. It was fun.
Bunter
Indeed, there are many economic fallacies underlying this post.
Suffice to say a bunch of rich guys playing with their vintage toys on a track at their own expense doesn’t detract from anyone else, least of all modern motorsports.
Maybe you think their money would be better spent feeding the hungry, subsidizing hair extensions or weaves in the ghetto or funding motorsports or whatever. It doesn’t matter because it isn’t your money.
You can spend your money on whatever you want just as they spend some of theirs on vintage cars doing some hot laps.
If someone was smart they would pair a historical display like this WITH a modern race series. Given how much the IRL struggles I’m surprised they haven’t jumped on it. My experience is race fans will watch pretty much anything that goes fast if you put it in front of them. The hard part is getting them to invest in watching a full season of it or actually putting up the money to go to a live event.
FYI – my wife, my brother and me went to the St Petersburgh Indy GP this year and had a great time. I’ve been to several Indy events (Homestead and Atlanta) and found them very fan friendly. I also went to the Daytona 500 with my brother and father this year – and it was OK but the IRL puts on a better show because you can get closer to the driver and cars, plus the support series races were great. My wife loved the stadium trucks!
That’s a very good idea. SVRA was running support pre-races for modern sports car races a few years back, but that seems to have dropped off the schedule. Not sure why.
I’m going to respond in a meme, because #millenials or whatever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgk-lA12FBk
But seriously, why not let both have their fun?
As others have noted, modern racing needs to get its own house in order before it can take some of the funding back from vintage racing. But still, in order to understand the present-day and future, sometimes a look to the past is OK.
At least they’re using them, for Pete’s sake. The Monterey event I’ll openly mock is Pebble Beach, not Historics. (Shoot, that’s exactly what we’re doing with the Concours d’LeMons, to some extent. The regs for the LeMons Rally specifically encouraged cars that would offend Pebble Beach types.)
You’ll rarely see the next great driver show up to run historic cars, but most vintage events at least let you wander around and get up close to the cars, and their drivers. Try pulling that at F1. You can’t.
Part of what’s killing modern racing is the cars today, for sure. Now we’re seeing cars that come off the showroom with so many electrical nannies and complications that it’s almost impossible to modify them for racing. I think that’s part of the reason why CTSCC is lagging behind PWC, where it’s currently A-OK to buy a purpose-built GT4 racer and call it a day. That’s sad. I like seeing cars plucked from a showroom floor and modified for racing, but when your race car starts firing off a car alarm because something’s proven extremely hard to disable, WELP. (I think that’s why they’re moving to GT4 there and considering TCR.)
And the racing–oh, the racing. I love modern racing with a passion, but it’s mostly sportscars, of all things. You know, the same crowd that oohs and aahs at meeting their heroes in the form of a 917K. I will sit and watch all 6+ hours of a WEC race because I know it’ll be competitive and a total roller coaster ride. F1, on the other hand, has become a chore. I’m watching it because I have to for work. Too few teams are able to bear the costs of competition there.
I want to see innovation–IndyCar’s spec racers as a solution isn’t good, either, and makes that feel like a second-rate series–but there has to be a way to control costs, get more competitive teams involved, and make the show better. Allow fewer aerodynamic tricks so cars can get close to each other again without needing DRS, for example. Explaining DRS to non-F1 people gets blank stares and “they make it easier to pass?” Yeah, kill it with fire.
It’s also hard to get folks to pay attention to a lot of the modern-day drama. You won’t see insane stories of one dude iron-manning through many, many hours of a race after his teammates fall ill or get hurt–we’ve largely come to our senses and realized that’s hella butt dangerous to let folks drive like that. Same goes with the guy who used to down whiskey before his stint.
Racing doesn’t do enough to promote its own stars now, too. Sorry, BOP drama is about as interesting as a Camry Park-a-Thon to most people. As is strategy group bickering, or any other behind-closed-doors stuff. Drivers need to be allowed to let their personalities through more often. No one will watch interviews that are full of dry shout-outs to their sponsors. I’d much rather see Jordan Taylor talk about his poopsocks, or Ricciardo let loose his DGAF attitude on a paddock walk. We have few real heroes to follow beyond the handful of dudes who can let loose to the media. That’s the problem—-not that vintage racing gets funding, but that modern racing isn’t interesting enough.
Quite frankly, I’m surprised the vintage stuff gets as much cash as it does. I have a bad feeling it’ll go away once the current generation of racing fans passes. Their heyday was the 70s, so of course, they’re reliving their youth. Too few are trying to get this generation to pay enough attention.
Watching the movie Rush was an incredible and enlightening experience, because it showed just how dangerous 70s F1 was and how awesome at driving you had to be to be competitive.
Also, I think NASCAR was cooler in the 80s and 90s. The cars certainly had more interesting color schemes, which made for great toy cars for lil ol’ me to play with. Nobody would ever do a car with Ricky Rudd’s Tide colors or old-school Jeff Gordon colors now.
Peter M. De Lorenzo had a good take this week on the Monterey Week in general, and its over-corporatization:
http://www.autoextremist.com/current/2016/8/16/the-overhyped-the-overblown-and-the-overrated.html
I just read this as a clever satire about economic protectionism.
Something reminiscent of http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
I’d like to think it’s a satire as you suggest, but these types of economic fallacies show up as themes in Baruth writing quite often.
I honestly don’t know if it’s deliberate or not. Perhaps he writes this way knowing these fallacies are widely believed by his readers.
I raced SCCA cars in the 70s. I think the inflection point was when Paul Newman showed up with an 18 wheel semi rig and fabulous Bob Sharp built Datsun 510s and 240zs. It seemed like the dollars just escalated from there taking it out of the realm of the average guy.
The past always has value. How much value, one may ask? Only as much value as one desires.
Not saying that it applies to you, Jack, because you explicitly acknowledge your own attachment to history. But one thing that really annoys me about ‘Murica is that people think the past is just emotional baggage. This is a symptom of a land that looks down upon culture, tradition and, ultimately, decorum.
In the rest of the world, the past is something to be studied and learned from. I for one am glad that people are willing to blow money on maintaining and displaying these timeless works of science and art.
The only thing which will change the boring world of modern racing is if spectators and sponsors walk away. The interest in vintage racing and LeMons racing is because modern racing has become dull.
It isn’t the alternative forms of racing which have screwed up modern racing, the team owners and other money-extractors have done that all on their own.
Historics and LeMons are interesting and fun. Most modern racing isn’t.
Don’t blame the competing attractions for being good, blame the lame ones for being lame.
Jack, I am disappointed. Your rant is simple click bait. Do you dis automobile museums? While I like looking at restored vintage cars in collections, nothing beats seeing them and hearing them run.
Locally we have an annual event call The Legends – historic racing with cars from the 30’s including some ancient formula one cars. More modern Can Am cars – and F1 cars from the 12 cylinder era, not to mention Trans-Am cars!
I love the sound of Porsche Flat 8s (908 910 etc) – way better than seeing a static display in a museum.
Watch MG A’s and Bs racing against Triumph TR 3s and 4s – reminds me of my dad took me to races when I was a kid. Love live historic racing!
re: “…It cannot have escaped the intelligent reader’s attention that modern racing has suffered a cliff-face decline even as historic and vintage “racing” has gone from strength to well-sponsored strength.”
i don’t blame ‘modern racing’ nearly as much as i think this is more likely a situation wherein baby-boomers are apparently spending more of their time, energy and money, looking back and reflecting on/reliving their collective lives. this is simply one enjoyable way of doing that.
“It was one of the cars that ran down an unfettered Mulsanne Straight limited only by the laws of physics and Porsche’s ingenuity in bending those laws.”
And the size of the driver’s, err, attachments — especially in the case of the 917. Read Brian Redman’s comments on driving it.
But regarding the theory that historic racing sucks funding away from current racing, I’m unconvinced. Where’s the evidence for that? Sure, there may be some crossover, but mostly it’s a different market and a different audience.
Here’s the thing. You can watch today’s races on YouTube or elsewhere on the internet, so why bother going to them? However, if you want to actually see something rare with your own eyes, you have to go to the event where the rare stuff is. I don’t go to SeaTac to see a B-29. But I went to Maranello to see Schumi’s winningest F1 car of all time. And I love the sound of cars from my childhood.
That’s it. It’s not a racing event. It’s a nostalgia event, with the sights and sounds and smells of those old cars.
I pulled into the garage today in my old C4 and could smell the hot engine and tires, and I thought, “Ahh, there’s that smell I’ve loved for so many years.” You can’t get that today.
Remember the old dirt bike races, the ones where you could walk around on the track, and you smelled that Klotz 2-stroke oil all over? When was the last time you smelled that stuff? Ages, man. But it brings back waves of memories. That’s what it’s all about. Get another 10 years behind you and maybe you’ll see it differently.
Maybe I’m too old to give a damn about the nostalgia of 2046, so I don’t go to today’s races. Who can afford the tickets anyway?
But you can afford to take the kids to a vintage race at someplace like Road America and they have decent races and you get to walk through the pits and talk to the drivers and see the cars up close. The kids don’t like the circle track races but enjoy these. They may like a Trans-Am or SCCA but you don’t have the access and the prices are higher. Plus, I think the guys that run Trans Am are idiots.