Quote:
Originally Posted by mountainstar
From what I have seen in motorsport series worldwide once you go class crazy with well we gotta have a class for this and a class for that, the spectators don't give a damn and neither do the competitors at some point. Anytime I see a multi class field I see a weak field. Obviously there will be some rules or framework that has to exist. But have one touring car class and that is it.
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Go back to the pre-war Brooklands/Donington days, Le Mans, British Touring cars of the 1960's, World sports car championship, Bathurst of the 1980's etc. and deny that wasn't better racing than what we have now?
They all had classes and generally, it was by engine capacity - and guess what? The racing was fantastic (not too sure about Brooklands, but at least the crowds were huge!) as we got the occasional David v Goliath battles, and cars that were fantastically economical on fuel able to make up ground as the giants made their fuel stops.
Multiple classes on different grids as you are describing is not the same thing at all. It is what we have now anyway and what has effectively killed the spectator interest. It certainly killed mine. A Tier 1 meeting not so long ago at Taupo, with just 67 cars entered was going to attract the spectators, when a gentlemanly 'after you Claude' classic meeting had over 200 cars? No contest. Some spectators from the former migrated to the latter during the day as one or two came to chat and tell me so!
Classic and historic motorsport might seem to you to be 'after you Claude', but it isn't dodgem car racing either, with drivers showing due respect to other cars, which sadly, is what has marked down some of the one class racing.
Look at the horrendous panel damage in the Aussie V8s, week after week, most of it caused, not by a driver simply going too fast, but a driver trying to barge his way through. When I grew up we had a specific term for that. Stock car racing.