Frequent and long standing TNF contributor, Ray Bell, has a column on Historics in Australian weekly motor racing mag, Auto Action. His topic this week was "Get them out" referring to large numbers of older racing cars decaying in sheds as their owners are unwilling or unable to race them any longer but are desirous or retaining ownership. Many will agree with his sentiments but the solutions are not as simple as they may appear.
Australia is not Goodwood where wealthy owners engage superstar drivers to drive their cars to the absolute limit, and not to worry if it blows up or crashes. Unfortunately most of the Australian owners of old racing cars are not mega wealthy, they are not poor either but probably financially comfortable. As such they are unable to afford expensive repairs required by someone elses indulgence.
Assuming they were to engage a driver who would they have ? Racing a Historic car never led, to my knowledge, to a drive in F1 or Australian V8 Supercars so a younger person would not be attracted. As there is no sponsorship in Historics how would they fund a drive even if they were interested. So probably the only opening is for a younger hopeful to find a benefactor willing to put them in the car and pay tfor heir expenses, crashes, blow ups etc but for reasons outlined above I am doubtful there are many such benefactors to be found.
A usual situation too is that the family/children of our typical Australian old racing car owner aren't really interested in Dad's passion or are too wound up in their own families and interests to become suitable candidates to take over looking after and driving his 1949 Blattmobile F1 car.
While I am sympathetic to Ray's quest I am not sure what the answer is, what do others think ?