I think the concept is great but the implementation is going to get interesting.

In the UK there is already a market for pure replica Lotus 7 racing under the Caterham banner. Very close wheel to wheel stuff, sometimes too close! I am not sure if these cars would mix well with the other replicas you talk of. They normally get their own class at most events I do to keep them away from the other cars. Also there are millions of them!

Then there is the series that GTA races his GTD 40 in and plans to race his LMK 917 in later this year. In that series there are already Cobras, a GD Lola T70 Spyder and I think other replicas as well as E types and 911's. I am sure GTA will correct me if I am wrong here. Must make a great looking grid!

There is just starting a dedicated series for D type replica's. It seems the Jaguar crowd accept replics into their club more readily than any other marque I have heard of. Not discounting the Ivan Dutton Buggatti which the BOC accept very readily. But I feel they are a different level of replica to what we traditional refer to as a replica on this forum! I fancy a Buggatti GP car, but then again who wouldn't?

Therefore I think that what you have as a vision/ambition is partially in existance here in the UK already. This leads on to a drawback...

Rules....

In the series that GTA partakes in the rules have been pushed and pulled particularly regarding tyres allowable. The Cobras didn't want the 40's on wider rubber and the 40's were getting fed up of crashing as they had to run on insufficient grip etc etc. Put an over serious competitor in any car and he will try and win both on and off the track. It starts getting cheque book racing quicker than the cars can do 0-60! And bitchy.

You can all start off with the best intentions and within a season you have intense on and off track rivalries. I feel your description above was of a more good spirited nature! Certainly I would prefer to be in your series than an over serious one but you get sucked along and before you know it....

Within the GTD club we only orgainse hill climbs and sprints as these fall into the budgets of our regular members more easily than circuit racing. There is always the argument of whether it is "safer" to ciruit race or hill climb and sprint but I am not going into that one now. As a club I think we have managed to walk the fine line of keeping competition at a good level and developing the cars to the benefit of other owners, whilst having barrels of fun in the paddock between runs and at the places we invade for weekend events. One thing is a definite though. The orgainsers love our cars at their events (I turn down more events than I accept) as the general public love to see these big engined cars in action.

Changing track, wasn't there a stand at the Autosport show that got mentioned here on the forum about a GT40 replica going international racing at some daft price? People seemed a bit sceptical about that effort!

What I also think is worth trying to do is to get the historic racing fraternity to accept the better makes of GT40 replica for their racing. In due course the original cars are going to become more unavailable for racing so to keep the numbers up, if we can gain acceptance to the establishment as quality cars then that is another avenue to go racing. And in style.

Anyway I hope the above is of interest and I hope that even though I think this could be a hard one to pull off, I hope you succeed.

Malcolm