The Place

To you are the bikes supposed to be original, or just front exit and with old based engines?
I am full of respect for what Ian Sidecarbloke Johnson has done to get a full grid, and the work that Mike (MR Equipe) has done building new bikes that are sympathetic to the way things were done at the time in.
What IS classic racing? The CRMC have their take on it, and it's filling grids. It's obvious nobody could really race hard on an original bike now, they would be rotten from the inside out.
If you look at Terry Foxon's bike, that is a work of beauty and apart from the gearchange being on the other side ( I hadn't even noticed til 666 pointed it out, call me superspy) it's as near to the original as I could hope to see but was based on a bike that was about the time I was born. To me an 89 LCR F1 is a classic, with the ladder rack out the front instead of the steering hanging off the side of the tub.

So what would you want from classic racing? I remember racing back then in the early 70's (is that too late for classic?) . It wasn't as close as all the old gits will have you believe. Someone would sod off on the quickest bike and no matter how fast you could ride you wouldn't catch him unless you were really lucky, or in most cases he broke down.

Bob's even having problems now with photos on his FB group with people thinking classic sidecar pics arent' what he thinks are classics

Totally NON CRMC relevevant because they are doing their own thing as are so many other countries and organisers.

And yes, trying to give the CRMC their own thread to work on between themselves

My personal view is to have Originals and Replicas in the same race but in two separate classes

I don't think it would be easy to police no matter what rules were made, a large majority of "Classics" that are raced are usually less than 5 years old and are full of TZ/HRC /Factory race kit/1 off parts (delete as needed) etc..

Maybe the way to go is to see power to weight ratio's taken into account so even if someone could afford £30k for a top replica the power to weight could be assessed and a weight penalty added if the outfit was more than 5% different to the rest of the field.

A Dyno and corner weight's (or similar) would measure the unit. The riders total weight in riding kit would be easy to do with a set of scales.

I can't wait for someone to develop a switchable power map for a pre unit engine and helium in the frame tubes....

I have no problem with replicas as long as they are faithfull to the original bikes and we can't expect original classics to go on forever. I raced with the classic club a few years ago and I raced a BSA this was cheap to run and we had a great time and some good races. I packed it in when, 1 day I was in the assembly area in Snetterton and, I realised I was the only twin in the race, all the rest were Imps or NSUs. As you probably all know I raced in the Classic Period and there were a few Imps and a few NSUs but the majority of the grid were twins that quite often lasted a season with a rebuild during the winter.
I think that classic racing should be for a bit of fun but there seems to be some people spending more money on a classic than I spend on an F2.