To race or not to race

[TimD]

...that is the question.

I thought about this today when I was at VSCC Donington. There are always a couple of "fresh" motors that come out to play at VSCC meetings. Notable this yeat was the four-wheel-drive Indy Miller, as well as a pretty sports two-seater known as the HAR.

But for me the star was a down-at-heel red Type 35 Bugatti. The paint was scabby and chipped, there were coolant traces caked on the radiator shell, and on the front valance, there were the traces of a pre-war French registration number.

Hubert Fabri had brought it out to race, and the story came out thus: It was a one-owner car until 1970. Then a Swiss enthusiast bought it, and ran it once - unprepared - in a vintage car meet.

It broke its crank.

The stricken car was then wheeled into a barn and forgotten again. Hubert Fabri got hold of it, reassembled it, and had Bugatti expert Ivan Dutton reconstruct the broken engine.

The car lasted half of this afternoon's Williams Trophy before Fabri retired it with a vibration suggesting that a roller bearing had stopped rolling.

My question is this: Would you race such an original car? Does it belong in a museum, or is its place on the race tracks? Do you enjoy seeing a machine with such a patina of age about it, or if it were yours, would you have it restored?

I'm in two minds. Seeing it competing against its more familiar brethren was a joy and a delight. But in the back of my mind is the thought that an original car is only original once. You can restore a restored car over and over. Many of the Bugattis that compete today have been crashed and rebuilt, blown up and reconstituted several times in their racing careers. Does the world deserve one or two to be left just as Ettore meant them, even if they are shabby around the edges, and unable to come out to play with their siblings?

[Bluebottle]

I'm in two minds on this one....
All of the marks on that car are like 'trophies' and each tells a story, however small, that is part of the life of the machine. Race it unrestored and you will doubtless add a few more 'trophies' as the cars working life continues. I do like to see cars that have been used and 'loved' and bear all the marks of their life, and I do prefer to see them driven, whether on road or track. To keep a car permanently in a museum is to end it's career as a car. I think most designers and builders would hate to see their creation stuck inside like that, they were meant to be driven- they don't have a "race before" date on them.
Er... looks like I'm not in two minds after all...

[SL]

Tim.

I think the correct way is to race them as they are. Far too many are rebuilt and polished every day making them probably better than when they were made. OK they can look tatty but they were made to race and race is what they should do. Keep a few in museums for posterity by all means but those that are race cars should be let loose now and then so we can all hear and see what the designer had in mind.

Simon

[TimD]

Ah, now don't get me wrong -I'm not averse to the sight of an unrestored car competing.

It's just the awful thought of what happens the day something goes wrong, and the car finds the barriers. All of that patina would then inevitably be lost in the ensuing rebuild.

I had the same dilemma when the ex-Denis Poore Alfa Romeo 8c35 came up for sale a couple of years ago. And on a weekend when Lord Raglan's Bugatti did indeed kiss the wall ever so gently, I've got to wonder about the wisdom... At least the Raglan car has been raced and raced and raced again throughout its life.

I absolutely delighted in seeing the unrestored car on the track, but at the same time, there was a major part of me thinking "don't get too close" whenever it was challenged for a place!

[MarkB]

Having also been at Donington, I agree that Hubert Fabri's Bugatti was the best car there. The only question I have is would Hubert have bought the car and got it running again if it wasn't to race it?

If someone like him, with their appreciation for its originality, hadn't have bought it then it would probably have been restored like all of the other concours Type 35s and we wouldn't have had the joy of seeing such a car.

Just as an aside I thought the Lord Raglan car just had a stub axle shear to lose its rear wheel ( I only saw the car pull off with the wheel travelling on its own further down the track).

[TimD]

Welcome to the forum, Mark, and thanks for the clarification.

I was walking the start-finish straight when the flags came out, and saw the Raglan car right up against the Redgate wall. An onlooker afterwards reported that a "stub-axle caused the accident". Close examination of the car while it was being loaded up in the paddock revealed a little scuffing and white paint on the rear wheel and tyre, and what seemed to be an ever so slight kink to the front left track-rod.

A case of putting two and two together and making five.


I only wish that the same could be said for the poor Lotus Elite that smacked the pitlane wall in Saturday practice. That's going to take a major graft to make good.

[Peter Mallett]

Hmm,

Race.