There has been not much interest in the Economy class in the last couple of years, anyone got any plans for 2014 in this class?
Pete Sparrow and Rupert Potts made a great video about how a road 2cv with a bmw 2 cylinder bike engine can make quite an impact at the Bugatti Owners Club hillclimb
http://vimeo.com/74465440 (http://vimeo.com/74465440)
No suggestion by them of adding as a class to the race series but it has come up from time to time whether there could be another class to the championship.
Reasoned views posted here as to whether we should consider a different class, replace the economy class with another, do nothing etc- the Sparrow car in this video for instance would be very similar to one of the Euro classes which run in Belgium.
How about a Pro class for teams that have historically dominated the championship and a pro-am class for the other teams? To be classed as pro-am, a driver must not have won a race or be sharing a race winning car. It gives the guys in pro-am something to aim for and might help grid numbers. There would still be an overall championship, but with two classes and no need to tweak tech regs.
The classes would be dictated by the results of last year. The winning cars and drivers would not be eligible for the pro-am championship.
Success Ballast Class ;D
yeah I was planning an outing in economy class :-\
who fancies a weekend bear hunting?
naughtybear is off on a 'crash' diet so will be harder to catch lol
Some thoughts.
I have occasionaly proposed to the Club that members be encouraged to enter the 'La Vie En Bleu' hillclimb event at Prescott. It is a great day out and if we got 6+ entries, we could have our own class. It is an 'everything French' day and they make 2CV's very welcome - we kind of balance out the rather more expensive Bugattis. Every car gets two practice runs in the morning and two race runs in the afternoon. Entry is around £100 per driver and cars can have two drivers.
As for our normal racing, I have often thought that a College Cup would be a good idea. Any college running a motor or race engineering course could buy a car, engines and some sets of race overalls for around £7000. They could use that kit each year to get the students face-to-face with the realities of running a race car. Look how much fun the guys at BCOT have with their car each year.
And to appeal to the more mature racer, we could have a SAGA class, for cars driven by the over 50's.
I can see some merit in having a faster spec of car for a different class, but I think the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages. To have all the cars in the pit lane running to exactly the same spec (ha, ha, do I hear?) keeps our series loyal to the true spirit of low cost racing.
Prescott: does a 2CV require track-style mods or can it run in road-going trim, perhaps with a few minor tweaks? If the last I'd be interested in entering my new toy...
Frank:
That's a bit of a moot point. Lots of the classic cars like Bugattis there have the driver sitting on the top, with only a crash helmet for company.
Other more recent cars are to full race safety spec.
Pete was allowed to run with no roll cage and just a road-going seat belt. I guess that their view is that as you are on the hill on your own and you've signed your rights away, it's largely up to you. But don't forget to lift a bit as you enter the big and awesome final right hander!
I'm not sure what class Pete ran in. We ran in pre-'72 saloons up to 1600cc. And the gap to the other cars in the class, mainly Renault Gordinis with big fat tyres in touring car trim, was not that great. No-one really cares what times you do apart from you and your peers. Mind you, your whole weekend of motor sport lasts less than 8 minutes - but you are not thinking about much else during that time! Something familiar to us more mature drivers, maybe.
Martin
Well you can count me in if the BOC will have me...