Cars by Class

At any given vintage racing event, there can +/- 15 to 20 distinct classifications of cars, based on a range of criteria that is established by the organization that sanctions the event. The rules that govern which type of car fits into which specific competition class are generally published on the organization’s website, usually titled “Car Classifications” (or similar reference).

An abbreviated sample of a vintage racing club’s Car Classifications chart is located within this website. It can be located on the drop-down menu for Race Classes section. Important: this Car Classification information is just a sample, based upon known vintage auto racing organizations’ published specifications. For your car, please be sure to consult the direct source of the race club you will be most often racing with.

Although not all vintage auto racing clubs and organizations classify cars in precisely the same way, there are similarity parallels that guide a given type of car, such that the owner/driver can compete in different organizations that serve defined regions and stage events at designated tracks within those geographical areas.

For example, a BMW 2002 with a 2.0 liter engine generally races in the “B-Sedan” class in VARA (Vintage Auto Racing Association) which holds racing events in southern California, just as it does in VSCDA (Vintage Sports Car Driver’s Association), which stages races in Wisconsin and adjoining Midwestern states. Yet this same car, while classified essentially the same in SVRA (Sports Car Vintage Racing Association, a USA national organization), most commonly races in the “8B group,” which is a consortium of 3 to 5 classes of cars that are raced in a “run group” that encompasses more than one class.

There are exceptions to the above-noted common car class guidelines, of course,  such as:

• Mazda Miata and Club Racer. Because the Mazda Miata is now over 25-years old, some vintage racing organizations are now designating Mazdas of 25-years or older as “vintage” cars. And due to the Miata’s longstanding credibility as a “production class” racecar, Miatas are increasingly seen at vintage racing events, most often as Miata-only class and run group.
• Cars that fall into the “Club Racer” class are generally street sports cars of various types, such as BMWs, Porsches, Corvettes, Mitsubishi Evos, Honda S-2000s, Subaru WRX’s and other high performance street cars that can pass the governing race club’s Tech Inspection and whose drivers have competition licenses from recognized racing organizations. These are not necessarily “vintage” cars and generally do not race for seasonal points, however given conditional acceptance of these cars on a club-by-club basis, their run groups are becoming increasingly popular and in many cases act as ramps en route to their owners’ transition into the vintage car ranks.

The reason for the above-described “run group” system of race class consolidation is basically available daylight time. Since there are only X amount of hours in a given race day, in order to give all drivers and all cars a practice session and a full 20-30 minute race each day, car classes must be clustered into roughly 6-8 groups, such that all races can be run within contracted track hours and before dark. For the organizers, this is readily accomplished at an event with 100 or fewer entrants. But with 125, 150, 175, 200 entrants and above, time management for racing activities is daunting, and must be precise.

But bottom line, race classes are predominantly designed on the basis of three key fundamentals:

• Aligning the cars as closely as possible to what they were in “the day,” i.e. their historical period of racing.
• Pitting “like” cars against each other. For example, Ford Mustangs against Chevy Camaros, AMC Javelins etc., BMW 2002s against Datsun 510s and Alfa Romeo GTVs, etc., Brabham Formula B cars against Lotus Formula B cars, etc., Titan Formula Fords against Caldwell Formula Fords, etc. — and so on.
• Populating “run groups” with classes consisting of cars that perform at roughly similar speed and lap time ranges. The purpose of this is safety. For example, classes consisting of 500+ horsepower sports racing cars are not readily grouped with classes of 100-200 horsepower formula cars or “production” cars.

Common Categories of vintage racecars include but are not limited to:

• Production “Tin Top” Cars (F-Production, E-Production, D-Production, C-Sedan, B-Sedan, A-Production, B-Production and others)
• Production Sports Cars (F-Production, E-Production, D-Production, C-Sedan, B-Sedan, A-Production, B-Production and others)
• Open Wheel Formula cars (Formula V, C, B, A, Formula Ford, Club Ford, Formula, Formula Atlantic, Formula 5000, Indy Cars, Formula 1, Formula 2 and others)
• Sports Racing Cars (Lola T-292, Chevron, Lola Mk IIIB, Can Am and others)
• NASCAR Stock Cars

Beginning with the first vintage racing car organizations of the early 1970s, racecars and competition-version production cars produced from 1950 to the late 1960s were generally categorized as “vintage” racecars. Much of this was due to the illustrious automotive and engineering creativity and innovation during this period, which produced a renaissance of performance, aesthetics, aerodynamics and pure power and dizzying speeds that to this day are still being emulated and imitated.

Because this period was followed by the 1970s decade of gas-crisis-driven ultra-conservatism in automotive design and performance, car and racing enthusiasts viewed the 1950s and 60s as halcyon times for the automobile, vs the 1970s “dark ages.”