Hey Cliff, thanks for that invite. I have been contemplating racing on the West coast circuits more often. Just leave a car out there. I believe that is what Archie Urcioli does and that is his Red GT40 in your picture (I think). He also has a Lola T70. Used to be chairman of Merril Lynch but has seen the error of his ways, retired and now vintage races a packed schedule. Chris Macallister races one as well. Jim Glick from Arizona still races his. The two cars from the Shelby Museum in Boulder no longer race after the death Of Larry Miller who owned the museum. I just never see any racing is what I should have said, other than Monterey.
Vintage racing has changed a lot over the past two decades. At the GT40 reunion at Road America in 1994 there were something like 30-40 original cars and the GT40 race was a full field. But now fast forward to the GT40 reunion race at Road America in 2009.
Only Archie and Chris were willing to race their cars. In other words, 90% of the field had dropped out of vintage racing their GT40s over the 15 years.
The President of Road America asked me to try and help them round up more entries and I called George Stauffer and asked him why he was not going to enter his Lemans winning MK II.
He explained to me that the cars are worth 10 times what they were worth 20 years ago, that they are 20 years older and would have to be totally gone through just to do one race, and also that the owners/drivers were 20 years older and not as apt to jump behind the wheel at a track like Road America and run the car to the limit. Also, the original drivers of the cars such as Redman, Bondurant, etc were 20 years older as well (if they were lucky). So, with 2 original entries, this thread was started:
http://www.gt40s.com/forum/worldwide-gt40-events/27101-gt40-45th-reunion-road-america.html
The reunion was the best it could be. There was a tent full of original cars on display and Group 11 was made up of a couple original cars and the rest were members of this forum out having a lot of fun in their replicas. Guess what? The only people that noticed the lack of original GT40s were the members of this forum or the guys in the race groups. The spectators, and there are thousands at this event, saw a bunch of GT40s going around the track. The forum members had a lot of fun I think as well.
Now here we are in 2011 and the problem is even worse. The economy has made it difficult to justify something like Vintage racing. Lots of these cars have gone overseas or to museums. Most of them are no longer raced.
This is why the inclusion of replicas in Vintage racing has come about, and it is at all levels. Gelscoe tubs are a lot better than a rusty original tub going into turn one...
Any GT40 that is built like an original could be made into a vintage race car and raced here East of the Mississippi( West is more stringent).
So, if you already have a GT40 that is built like an original car and wanted to race it, it would be a matter of spending the (substantial) time and money to turn it into a race car.
If you had no car and wanted to get one for vintage racing and track use, the Superformance GT40r is less money than buying an ERA and making a race car out of it, although the ERA can certainly race (I can attest). If you got a GT40r the first call to make would be to Dennis Olthoff.
If you wanted to drive your car on the street and do the occasional track day, the RCR car would be better than most as Fran has eliminated many of the flaws of the original car such as accomodation of a larger driver.
I am sure CAV and others fit in as well (I am not familiar with them).
I have only shared my opinions regarding vintage racing and there are a totally different set of considerstions if racing with NASA was the goal.
My point in making this post is that the majority of the racers in the paddock appreciate the inclusion of replicas when originals are no longer available to fill the grid.
