As you’ll see elsewhere in this month’s issue, 37 sophisticated Group C and GTP machines took part in a historic support race for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. This gathering was interesting for several reasons, not the least of which being that it may have provided an answer to a long debated question, “Will today’s racecars, ever become tomorrow’s historic racers?”
Spaceship-like cockpit of the Toyota-Eagle GTP car.
At least once of twice a year, for about as long as I care to remember, this question has made the rounds of post-race parties, race shop b.s. sessions and online chat rooms. “Will the electronics-filled, spaceship-like racecars of today ever see a historic race grid 20 years from now?” Even our own in-house pundits Pete Lyons and Mike Lawrence have weighed in on this issue several times each in recent years, usually lamenting the fact that today’s cars will likely be too technologically sophisticated to ever be viable historic racecars. While in my heart I have long feared that they may be right, I’ve recently been encouraged by a number of different indications that this may not be our pre-ordained fate.
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