Pre War Racing today

[zefarelly]

I'm heartened reading this thread as I thought you pre war racers were all honourable gentlmen and no one ever considered cheating

Silly old me thought it was the preserve of 60's onwards racers.

If anythjing it would appear the modern materials and engineering standards used make matters worse/more obvious the older a car is ?

EG . . .I reverse engineered an atmospheric inlet valve assembly for a DeDion Bouton a few years ago, the owners not used his spare original since, apparently they where notoriously weak and you didn't dare go out without a spare, certainly not the London to Brighton anyway.

I remade it exactly as the original, but with modern steels, its obviously considerably more durable

[jamesholland]

Out of curiosity what do our debatees feel about the use of the aluminium cylinder heads and blocks currently being produced for Roesch Talbots? Presumably there's a considerable weight saving...

[terence]

In actual fact Aluminium was used by the factory! John will not use the head/block because of doughts about them working properly.ALL of John,s Engines are cast iron,he was kind enough to give me a tour yesterday,no,it was not an excersize in getting some one else on his side.

[jamesholland]

I'm aware of that but it was only for a few works "specials" and none of the originals are useable or extant to the best of my knowledge. I'm just being cynical as I could envisage a situation where all racing Talbots end up using them. In the same vein nearly all the Lagonda Rapiers racing are 1500cc which they NEVER were until some Vandervell employees experimented with one in the 1950s. K type MGs are another example - how many are still 1100cc? They seem to come in all sorts or capacities from 1300 to 1800cc nowadays.
Attempting to be constructive, it might be a good idea to run races with the traditional capacity classes. That way we might see an 1100cc ERA again!
To the VSCC's credit all their big scratch races have a handicap award which a "standard" car can win as easily as any other.

[john ruston]

The works Talbot 105's used ally engines in 1931.( GO Cars) only.ISP has an original engine
BGH23 gave 195bhp in 1938-same time as it did 130mph lap at Brooklands
I find it difficult to believe that any of the remaining works cars will use ally engines but it will be necessary to make new cast iron blocks and heads in the long term as has been done with Astons
MG's and Bentleys etc.The original Talbot blocks can only be 3 or 3.3 litres with original blocks
I agree with James that classes based on real capacitys,but also weights.wings and with road cars using pump gas
Yes Zef The rule bending starts with the London Brighton lot up to F1
We got excited years ago racing against 1430cc MG.s
Should be an interesting week in the Alps and hope we all have enough power to climb those mountains

[Jules 123]

Very tricky subject James!
It is not only Talbot owners who claim that the works used special ally heads and blocks and this is where we start to get into a very difficult area.
In my opinion.
IF the works of any make used special bits on whatever car then THAT car and ONLY that car should be eligible to use these parts, be them replica parts (read exact copies in material and design) or original parts.
The right should not go out to every similar car with similar engine.
Or do we allow everyone with a 4.5 litre Bentley to have a blower?
As I insinuated in one of my earlier posts,
I think that when someone claims information on special parts used by the works etc, these parts should only be allowed when substantiated by the person who made the original parts, and backed up by documentary evidence, if he or she is dead then bad luck, you can't use them!
A lifetime is usually long enough for the original designer or works supremo to remember that he made a special 1500cc block for say a Lagonda Rapier, funny how no one ever remembers until the designers are dead!
Call me a cynic.
My opinion only.

P.S.
You can stretch a standard 1100cc Rapier engine to 1500cc but it is very hard work.

Jules.

[john ruston]

Jules I agree-Talbot heads were iron,only blocks for GO cars ally(Note.I am not aware that any of these cars now have ally engines)end of Talbot ramble,
Monzas now have very good Jim Stokes engines.I remember the Terry Cohn Lagonda had a new Meadows engines etc,etc Thats the way it is.
Enough of this, the reason for the thread was to see if anyone could come up with a set of basic rules that make sense.Whats the answer?
You have had my ideas .Under the new rules with papers you can incorporate any feature incorporated in that particular model egA Chevron B6/8 can have fuel injection because one did in period.Easier to use a Post War eg as it would only cause more discussions if a pre war type used.This type of thing leads to the present situation.The one thing I am sure we all agree with is that cars did not have 6 speed gearboxes used on some VSCC race cars!
Over to you

[Jules 123]

Hi John,
When are you going to go on your rally?

Was not meant to be a poke at Talbots,
Although you are 0.3mph too fast in your 130mph quote


Not sure what the answer is apart from to say that certainly in pre-war circles the problem does not seem to be too bad at the moment, most of us police each other, we all know a little about each others subject and serious cheats will get pulled up pretty quickly.

I would suggest two different camps.

One for VSCC type events with races for historic vehicles kept as close to their last pre-war spec as is sensibly possible. (including accurate replicas)
And specials / modifieds races for everything else. Main rule for this class is that they look period, have only mods that were possible in period and done in such a way as to look and "feel" correct. Use of original material types, ie, iron for iron, ally for ally, steel for steel etc.

Two, Only for historic vehicles with racing pedigree kept as accurate as possible, engines, wings and lights (where applicable) sensibly accurate weights, accurate wheel and tyre sizes etc etc. (accurate replicas but with a weight handicap)

A sensible eligibility scrutineer with enough balls to say and ask questions when needed. And enough flexibility not to ruin the events for the competitors.
Apart from the stupid Cooper Bristol fiasco and the BRM saga, the HGPCA seems to have done this very well indeed. Especially in more recent years.

Not an easy task and one that will get the scrutineer very few mates. But a hell of a lot of respect from the right sort of people.

Jules.

[zefarelly]

Originally Posted by Jules 123

I think that when someone claims information on special parts used by the works etc, these parts should only be allowed when substantiated by the person who made the original parts, and backed up by documentary evidence, if he or she is dead then bad luck, you can't use them!.

exactly my point re pre66 saloons if not to App K, and I was amazed how many people ran away from the debate when I made it !

[zefarelly]

Originally Posted by Jules 123

A sensible eligibility scrutineer with enough balls to say and ask questions when needed. And enough flexibility not to ruin the events for the competitors.
Apart from the stupid Cooper Bristol fiasco and the BRM saga, the HGPCA seems to have done this very well indeed. Especially in more recent years.

Not an easy task and one that will get the scrutineer very few mates. But a hell of a lot of respect from the right sort of people.
Jules.

well said, this applies to all series, the problem is many competitors wil throw wobblers, go home, and not come out to play, this doesn't go down well with organisers as they want entry fees, and as many as they can get

[johnh875]

Jules what was the Cooper Bristol saga? I don't know much about those cars, just read in Jack Brabham's autobiography that he wished he took his self-developed car with him when he went to the UK

[john ruston]

Jules-I agree with all your ideas and it answers the question
It should start with capacity and weight
Will any thing change as a bloke is building a Bristol engined BMW 328 for next year,Had to do something with those 2.2 litre engines.
129.7222 mph at Brooklands with Couper
If the Wiltshire Pre War series adopt the above rules totally could he fill the grid?It is in partial operation but he cannot lose money.In Dijon the grid was 10 cars short but we did have a 3/4.5 (5.4) Bentley and wingless French Pre Wars
The next question is how to get 185 bph out of Alta as Alta says it had it.We cannot find it.Over to you Jules
We agree The Dutch always get there in the end
Taking this machine with us as would not want to miss the next idea(and answer with some smart a... comment)

[Jules 123]

Think the answer is starting to become clearer,

INVITATION ONLY

ie.
You send in your entry and the organisers invite you if they want you and your car, If you have built a Bristol engine for your 328 then you only get an invite if, A. the grid is not full, B. It goes into a class for "out of spec but desirable to the series" cars.
If you are one of the guys that always goes to all of the events and is an ardent supporter to the series then of course your entry should be looked at with favour, but that is nothing other than common self preservation on behalf of the organiser.
In general if an organiser asks a competitor to change something on their car that the organiser feels is out of sync with the club policy then if done with diplomacy the competitor has no problem with complying to those wishes. If they don't then they don't get invited. You will always get some people who think they are too high and mighty to be under someones control and then the strength of the committee to show their backbone and back up the eligibility scrutineer comes into play. If people in charge are made of the right stuff, then problems get solved and respect is generated.

We had a few problems in about 2000 with the ERA engined Brooke Special.
It was running a 2 litre ERA engine and was very fast.
(It is a very good example here as it ran in period with about 5 totally different engines depending on the race or what was broken etc.)
We have records with all sorts of displacements and we are not 100% sure what cc the ERA engine was, as we can show entries with both 1500 and 2 litre but only one week apart some times and we know Brooke only had one engine at the time and it was from a 1500cc ERA.
The HGPCA secretary, Martin Grant Peterkin, who is one of the worlds Gentlemen and a man who deserves real respect, came and asked us to change it to 1500cc, This was not taken lightly as it was a very expensive exercise, but we felt that although we were being singled out a bit, the request was justified.
We converted it to 1500cc and over a period (very expensive one) of one season developed it (totally within the rules) to give the same power as our 2 litre, (but a lot less torque)
During that season we were running an ally radiator, Martin also during a pleasant chat remarked on it (nothing more) and so at the end of that season when I had more time, we built a new Brass rad and fitted that.
It is now just as fast but not as reliable, but rules are rules and we respect the club for the way they handled it.

Sensible Rules work if handled by both sides with respect and diplomacy.
But you need a hard man at the top!

We all get problems when a group of (usually wealthy) shall we call them "racers" with big name expensive cars but usually less talent, get regularly beaten by say a well developed Cooper Bristol with a top driver like Flavian Marcais (only for example)
Then they claim, unfair modifications and cheating and all shouldn't be allowed, and because they scream very loudly and on occasion are on the board of directors, their mods to their cars (all with in the gist of the rules I may add) are forgotten and the mods to the cars in question (also within the rules) are all banned.
Ruins the racing for a lot of people, the people who complain still don't win and and quite often take their toys home, and the clubs are the worse for the whole affair.
This usually happens very rarely as the clubs learn fast and hard that it hurts grids and respect very badly, and usually the foot stampers move to other pastures.

Jules,

John,
It was 129.722258966
Only joking

Bloody fast though!
Although with a little less bodywork than it has now.
Wonder how many lives Brooklands would have claimed had it still been open to this day?

[john ruston]

Spot on-The cooper Bristol thing with Flav(at the ring?) was stupid as he and other Coopers beat the 250F's etc.If the drivers had been interchanged and Flav had been in 250's the result would have been the 250.s winning.At Dijon last week we had two experienced drivers sharing a car 8 sec,s difference in Lap times in a 2min lap.Same thing happened at Silverstone GP circuit,two well known drivers 14secs difference.The good drivers in Historics (there are only a handful)are so much better than the others.It does not matter with any of them as Ron is not going to be waiting in the Pit lane asking any of them to replace Alonso next year.Cheapest way to go faster is to change the driver then buy a new set of tyres,only then do all the other things we have discussed.and which cause the trouble.Problem is even the slowest of drivers think they are good and then blame there others for bending the rules
328's are 2Litre nothing else
Talbot line-only wings extra-anyway that car was one of mine
See you all at Silverstone in Old Crocks paddock with that car and it fancy bodywork.Mr Bronson in Talbot who is very very good and the same size as me so there is hope!

[Jules 123]

Will come and see both of you at Silverstone,
How is the rally going?

Jules.

[PBE]

John - would love to know the name of 'some bloke' who is building a 'Bristol engine' (and by inference 2.2) for his 328 BMW! Surely this would be against the rules. I would find it particularly annoying if this were allowed as we are building a 'within the rules' 1991 cc BMW 328 race engine for Andrew Bakers car for next year.

All the best. Patrick.

[Jules 123]

Hi Patrick,
I think 328s are always going to be a difficult one to police as the link to Bristol is so close and the BMW engine is such a good base for tuning, (ie, good initial design but poorly developed, leaving massive scope for improvements)
Whenever someone goes that little bit too fast the fingers are going to be pointing,
Look at Thomas Feierabend with his blown car, no one believed him that it was original, but it is!
Capacities are always going to be stretched and although easy to measure it is rather boring if every car needs a capacity check etc after each race.
The key here I think is just how far are the rules allowed to be stretched!
I would suggest that in a fun series like Duncan's, any car that wins more than twice should have a quick check over, ie. CC, weight, slippy diffs etc.
Arguments and accusations over!
No one cares about 2nd or 3rd do they?

Jules.

[john ruston]

Good Rally-Interesting cars.We liked the TR 2 with Ventilated discs-The cars are something special.Superb Bentley specials.The Talbots and that red Lagonda stood out.Snow and rain!Another thread on the continuation of running rally sections with oncomming traffic,its daft! The 328 is German prepared not from heart of England and the error of their decision has been pointed out to them.Andrews cars spot on so dont panic ,you missed the interesting discussion the other Saturday,me at my diplomatic best.
Good idea to check winning cars.The majority of the cars at Dijon were OK including the winner,the regulars are in order and all the other performers know the iffy ones.