[Al Weyman]

A natural lifecycle is one thing Meldrew (who are you by the way?) a deliberate hijack from within of a successful fledgling racing series is something entirely different especially as that series or organising club has done nothing wrong whatsoever just that someone could not get their own way on something so decided to take their ball away and try to stop the game however other balls can be bought as there are still players interested in the original game.

If Hometunes question is serious and not a windup Al (me) post then I will answer from my personal experiences with ModProds.

When we sat down with a blank sheet for the regs and Brian Sheridan's entrapereral zest for gaining sponsorship and getting publisity the championship (it was from day one a championship) kicked off very successfully. In mind at all times was a need to keep costs down but allow guys latitude to construct competitive cars that were fun to drive but within a set budget. That budget was indeed set with a buying plate.

Then unfortunately over the passage of time my original carefully prepared regulations slowly got hijacked and changed with naive people putting their oar in and not realising what difference an on the face of it, minor change could really effect the whole balance of the championship also the money boys crept in and campaigned (and got against my better judgement) the buying/selling plate rule dropped I mean who wants to risk an ex-BTTC Tourer or ex-Brock Tourer but the point is that’s not what this championship was about.

Another good example of this was freedom of wheel diameters which equated to massively oversized and unnecessary and expensive brakes (we were on list 1a tyres so these massive brakes were not worth the expense) also oversized tyres with Mk2 escorts turning up on massively wide 17/18" rims, it was starting to get silly. This and a series of other stupid railroaded decisions like letting in de-turboed Cossies (Cossies were not allowed in) and latterly after I left other things like Rose joints/Rod ends and allowing cars in like Evo M3's all stacked up to its eventual decline. Also organisations like Combe liked what we were doing after inviting us down there and virtually immediately started their own series Combe Saloons based on our regs to further water down the pool of drivers as did Lydden Hill. Local championships like this and DMN (not knocking them they are doing a great job for the racer who does not want to travel) now take their toll even more with petrol over £1 a litre and just getting to the circuit costing a fortune.

However saying all this the championship lasted what 15 years . I would personally call on the MSA to do its job and put a stop to this nonsense and give championships/series a chance to flourish before granting permissions for other start ups that are so similar to others already established.