 My old friend Bobby Rahal said it quietly and clearly in his first 'Racing Life' column in the February issue of Motor Sport. Writing about this year's launch of Historic Motor Sport Productions, the organization he's founded with Zak Brown and Peter Stoneberg to promote three historic/vintage racing weekends, Bobby comments: "It's got to be better than sitting around wondering what's going to happen next."
With professional open-wheel and sports car racing in America descending in recent years to an all-time low in crowd draw and media coverage historic and vintage racing have emerged as the strongest, most stable forms of the sport. Crowds and competitors continue in almost undiminished numbers at most historic events and Rahal, Brown and Stoneberg have decided to convert their enthusiasm for historic racing into a business. It is, as Rahal says, a labor of love, but you can be sure Bobby and his partners see a potentially worthwhile return down the road.
"I think there's so much interest in historics right now," Bobby writes in the latest Motor Sport, "because people are disillusioned with the modern sport's preoccupation with 'spec' racing, where all the cars look and sound the same.... People like to see cars that were the idea and creation of one man, rather than cars built to a formula."
As any regular reader knows, I am entirely in Rahal's camp when it comes to loving historic racing and loathing spec cars.Read more (gordonkirby.com)
If you enjoy Gordon's articles, please check out his work in his following list of books, most recently 'Thanks' with Rick Mears. Also be sure to read his articles as the US Editor in Motorsport magazine, and blogs at http://www.motorsportmagazine.co.uk/
- The Art of Motor Racing with Emerson Fittipaldi, Nutmeg Productions, 1987
- Unser--An American Family Portrait, Anlon Press, 1988
- Bobby Rahal--The Graceful Champion, David Bull Publishing, 1999
- Greg Moore--A Legacy of Spirit (with Dan Proudfoot and Jim Taylor), Whitecap Books, 2000
- Mario Andretti: A Driving Passion, David Bull Publishing, 2001, winner of the 2002 Motor Press Guild Dean Batchelor award, and the 2002 Independent Publishers Book Award in the sports/recreation division
- A Winning Adventure, Honda's Ten Years in CART, co-authored with John Oreovicz, David Bull Publishing, 2003
- Rick Mears-Thanks' the story of Rick Mears and the Mears Gang published by Crash Media Group/Autocourse in May, 2008
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