I can't help but feel that the mild schizophrenia of the CSCRA regs and scene has come back to bite us (lightly) on the arse here.
On one hand we've always allowed whatever cutting edge chassis tech you can lay your hands on under bodyshells. It is after all 2014, my phone has more computing power than the entire grid at Le Mans 10 or 20 years ago (probably - and my 13 year old real car has more computing power than my first computer) and limiting ourselves to 1960s technology makes no sense.
On the other hand we then slap vintage-looking toy car bodies (often made in the past 12 months by robots in a Chinese factory following a process of CAD/CAM design aided by 3D rapid prototyping) on top of these laser cut chassis and kid ourselves that we are retro/vintage/classic racing in the spirit of the 1960s because the 2014 vintage chassis has a GT40 body hiding it rather than being the same car with a modern LMP on it.
(And often use electronic controllers to drive them as well).
Were the CSCRA regs being used for contemporary cars instead of "fake vintage" nobody would be getting their knickers in a twist about Richard Mack chassis.
This is not a rallying call to race modern cars under CSCRA rules (I've mentioned the possibility of doing this in the past, and the last Oaklands CSCRA meeting allowed for Group C(*) but I'm not sure the interest is there amongst the baby boomer demographic) just my thoughts that we have been having our cake and eating it. By accepting that the oily bits are not contemporary to the look of the cars, or to some glorified memories of people's youth we are always going to have the problem where the march of technology moves on.
We had this conversation about 5 years ago about Slot.It and NSR Classics and the motive behind that was the same - a worry that it would make traditional scratch-building skills obselete, a threat to vested interests of cars that were already being used, and/or that a scene of RTR-based racing would develop against the original intentions. We'll probably have it again in five years time.
Coop
(*) Only 21 years in the past...
On one hand we've always allowed whatever cutting edge chassis tech you can lay your hands on under bodyshells. It is after all 2014, my phone has more computing power than the entire grid at Le Mans 10 or 20 years ago (probably - and my 13 year old real car has more computing power than my first computer) and limiting ourselves to 1960s technology makes no sense.
On the other hand we then slap vintage-looking toy car bodies (often made in the past 12 months by robots in a Chinese factory following a process of CAD/CAM design aided by 3D rapid prototyping) on top of these laser cut chassis and kid ourselves that we are retro/vintage/classic racing in the spirit of the 1960s because the 2014 vintage chassis has a GT40 body hiding it rather than being the same car with a modern LMP on it.
(And often use electronic controllers to drive them as well).
Were the CSCRA regs being used for contemporary cars instead of "fake vintage" nobody would be getting their knickers in a twist about Richard Mack chassis.
This is not a rallying call to race modern cars under CSCRA rules (I've mentioned the possibility of doing this in the past, and the last Oaklands CSCRA meeting allowed for Group C(*) but I'm not sure the interest is there amongst the baby boomer demographic) just my thoughts that we have been having our cake and eating it. By accepting that the oily bits are not contemporary to the look of the cars, or to some glorified memories of people's youth we are always going to have the problem where the march of technology moves on.
We had this conversation about 5 years ago about Slot.It and NSR Classics and the motive behind that was the same - a worry that it would make traditional scratch-building skills obselete, a threat to vested interests of cars that were already being used, and/or that a scene of RTR-based racing would develop against the original intentions. We'll probably have it again in five years time.
Coop
(*) Only 21 years in the past...
