Sorry this isn't a hard, factual message, but just couldn't keep
quiet about this...
Recently a friend mentioned how much he deplored the racing of
antique or classic cars. It was his opinion that these cars
should be cherished and stored for posterity and that the racers
were destroying the cars and depriving the future of some
priceless cultural heritage...
Wonderful sentiments, but wrong, dead wrong. It is the
enthusiasts who keep these little beauties alive, including (one
might argue *especially*) those who race them. Racers spend a lot
of money and hard work on their cars, and this contributes
mightily to a thriving marketplace of parts and services. A few
years ago I heard from several sources that there are more
Corvettes around than Chevy ever actually built!
Unlikely as this sounds it is actually possible, given a strong
base of hard-working, hard-driving (...hard-spending) owners. If
racing a car contributed to its extinction this would certainly
not be the case. (In fact, if racing a car contributed to its
extinction, why do you see plenty of raceworthy old sportsters
around and hardly any ancient family sedans?)
So here's to you! Don't want to go to a museum to see an A.C.,
I'd rather see it on the track and on the street. Once a car
gets relegated to the museums and exquisite private collections,
it effectively ceases to exist in the present and disappears into
history. None of us are anxious for those days to come, and the
only way to hold them off is to _drive_ the things...
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