I'm just laying out the record. If you choose to think the Tiger was a
great competition car, cool. If not, I understand. The Tiger never won a
major rally but the Imp did.
Plus many class wins and a rally championship.
Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Theo Smit" <theo.smit@dynastream.com>
To: <jxnichols@sbcglobal.net>; <tigers@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: Impressive racing history? yes or no? You make the call.
> ... so, in regional races, the Tiger campaigned by Doane Spencer and Jim
> Adams managed some overall wins, but that's not impressive, since they
only
> came in third in their region at the end of the season. Nevermind they sat
> out a good part of that season due to Jim's broken leg (and Doane's
> reluctance to let someone else drive a 'production' Tiger with a
> non-homologated quick-ratio steering box). Also nevermind that they were
> running B production, and getting an overall win required beating the A
> production cars. I suppose all the A production racers in the California
> region were just a bunch of hacks. Ron Dykes also did very well even
though
> he had even less factory support than Doane and Jim.
>
> Then in European rally competition they won more than half the rallys they
> entered, but since they were only class wins and not overall, that's not
> impressive either. When the Tiger didn't win its class, did the winner of
> the over-2500CC class win overall?
>
> Jeff, I don't see exactly what you're trying to argue here. Ron Dykes'
> performance in the ex-Doane Spencer car is probably overshadowed by Doane
> and Jim's because Doane built the car to begin with, and the change from
the
> Tiger's 1964 competition performance to that of the 1965 season was much
> greater than the change from 1965 to 1966. However, I would expect that
Bill
> Martin's upcoming book will relate Ron Dykes' 1966 season in a lot more
> detail than it's been previously written up, and he won't just be a
footnote
> in the Hollywood Sports Car's Tiger history anymore.
>
> Look at it this way: Racing is done using cars with numbers on the doors.
> Any car on a race track with numbers on the doors is a race car.
Conversely,
> if your car doesn't have numbers on the door, then it's not a race car.
> Whether or not it would be a good race car IF you put numbers on, depends
on
> how much other stuff you do to help it get from the green flag to the
> checkered flag.
>
> Best regards,
> Theo
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