Speaking as the Race Director of one of those "national captioning vintage race
groups", whatever that means, you need to understand and appreciate that every
organization sets its own policies on car elegibility and preparation. There
is no equivalent of SCCA in vintage racing. There is an umbrella organization,
the Vintage Motorsports Coucil, but it is not a rules preparing body. It is a
forum for conversation among the member organizations. All of those you listed
are members of VMC. Certainly the issues of car mods and preparation rules
have been discussed frequently but long ago all agreed that they weren't likely
to give up their freedom to establish their own rules. Heck, most all even
have their own terminology for class/group designations and years of
elegibility in each of them.
So, the result is differences all over the country, in most all classes for a
variety of reasons. Some very simply make financial decisions to get more
entrants by allowing more non-period mods. Others try to hold the line to only
that which was available back in the time of the car's first use in club
racing. And everything in between.
And then come magazines that seek to have a nationwide audience. There is
certainly no claim that anything shown in articles or advertisements is assured
to be acceptable by any one driver's local organization. One needs to find out
what the sanctioning body(or bodies) they are going to race with will accept.
Interestingly enough, my TR3 still has a Triumph gearbox and it holds up for
4-5 years before a truly major rebuild. I can give you the name of my
engine/gearbox builder.
Also interestingly enough, my other race car is a Formula Vee and CVAR has some
rules that are more liberal than many other organization.
Mike Jackson
Race Director - VDCA
-----Original Message-----
>From: Bobby Whitehead <igofaster@charter.net>
>Sent: Feb 10, 2009 12:57 PM
>To: fot@autox.team.net
>Cc: fot-request@autox.team.net
>Subject: [Fot] SVRA allows 5 speed transmission conversion!
>
>Some of ya'll (I'm Texan) recall the trials and tribulations of my sweet Bob
>Davis GT6 with a T50 5 speed gearbox.
>CVAR has not allowed the 5 speed conversion... I just ran out of the
>library.. with my March 2009 Grassroots Motorsports Magazine. Our fellow
>FoT'er Tim Suddard and his race prepared TR3 have apparently been allowed to
>make the transmission swap to a Borg Warner T5 five speed conversion.
>Apparently SVRA stated that "any car that came with five forward speeds, like
>our over-drive equipped Triumphs-can make the transmission swap". Maybe this
>is a new rule, apparently it is. Not that I don't mind playing by the rules...
>I'm on my 4th transmission job...$3000.00 plus dollars and DNF's 50% of the
>last 6 events...
>I'm on the newest Triumph transmission from Quantumechanics... a custom GT6
>transmission with TR7 gears and a J type overdrive.. modifications to the
>frame to TRY to make it work.. AGAIN.....
>Needless to say, I'm going after CVAR, ONCE AGAIN, to see if there may be a
>chance I can put the T50 back in the car.. I could have sold the T50 for
>several thousand dollars with the drive shaft, conversion, and mod's to the
>car... but I haven't... hoping I can find a spot for it.
>Frankly, I'm upset... seems if a national captioning vintage race group allows
>the 5 speed conversion, other groups should come around and acknowledge the
>swap.
>thanks Tim Suddard for the article, maybe we can move forward to reliable
>racing.
>I quote Tim's article " it's more fun to run reliable at the back of the
>group-or not at all." I've said it before, I don't care if I start last and
>finish last, I just wanna race... after all... it's an $8.00 trophy at the end
>of the season.
>
>Bobby Whitehead
>#53 CVAR Triumph GT6+ Group II
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