In this day and age of safety and liability, I can't see why anyone would
use a 30 year old safety spec. I can't see why anyone would permit it.
No one uses 30 year old helmets. No one uses 30 year old lap belts. No one
uses 30 year old fuel tank/cell requirements.
So why use 30 year old roll bar specs?
I can see it as to permit an existing one, i.e., "grandfathering", but to
allow one built today to that spec implies the car is NOT an old car, and
hence is NOT grandfathered in.
In the '70s, most vintage racing had the purpose of saving old race cars and
to give you a place to run old race cars that couldn't or shouldn't run in
current series.
While I think SVRA's 1972 and before history requirement may be a bit too
restrictive (footnote 1), I think that to consider cars built in 1998 as
"vintage" to be idiotic. I also think any car that does not have a real
racing history of some sort (SCCA, IMSA, Cal Club, hillclimbs, solo, etc.)
can never be considered a vintage "racer" because it never raced. Maybe
the requirement should be "show proof of real series racing".
Today, vintage racing seems to have too many "create a vintage racer" cars
being built all the time. (How many Corvette Grand Sports are racing? they
only built 5.) There are lots of cars that their entire racing career is in
the '90s as a vintage car. They have never raced in any real series. Can't
find a vintage racer? What the heck, let's build one from scratch.
Am I the only one who thinks this doesn't quite click with the original
intent of vintage racing?
Mike
Footnote 1 - the reason is that prior to 1972, SCCA was too exclusive and
restrictive in how you got into it. You couldn't just walk in and join, a
member had to sponsor you. In the '70s, SCCA opened up to the public, and as
such, racing, and race cars, bloomed with a lot of race cars going out for
weekend battles.
----- Original Message -----
From: <JWoesvra@aol.com>
To: <shiples@home.com>
Cc: "Vintage list" <vintage-race@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: Race Spec Roll Bars in Street Cars with Convertible Tops
> In a message dated 07/08/2001 1:05:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> shiples@home.com writes:
>
> << a "roll bar specification" sheet that was based on the 1972 SCCA
> > GCR. It mainly deals with tube specifications and wall thickness
required
> for
> > various car weights. There are some recommended practices and brace
angles.
> > We still send this sheet to anyone who wants it.
> <snip>
> If this is in electronic form and easy to send, I'd love to have a
> copy.
> My next step in my "competition career" is a track day in my 65 Super 7.
> I had planned on building a hoop with two back braces that would bolt
> to the existing frame tubing.
>
> Thanks
> Steve Shipley
> >>
>
> Steve,
>
> Here is the sheet. It is hard to put a useful bolt-on bar into a Lotus 7.
The
> common "street bar" bolts on top of the spring towers with braces back to
the
> rear body support tubes. At the very least I would have a forward tube
that
> goes from the main hoop to the passenger foot well cross tube.
>
> jw
>
> [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which
had a name of SCCA Roll Bar Regs.doc]
|