Stock Car racing, without doubt, is the acceptable face of vulgarity. Bent motors get rumbled instantly; offenders are told to clear off and not come back, thank you very much. The message is clear: ‘What is it you don’t understand about Eff Off, mate?’

So off he effs, back to his house on the outskirts of Croydon or wherever, to lick his wounds in solitude. The fact that he has loads of dosh and his house is worth over two million quid counts for nothing. You don’t take the mickey out of those boys, at least that’s how it seems.

Our world is different but ‘bent motors’ have become its hot topic: I’ve never before had so many letters on one theme. We race posh old cars on fine circuits and, after 40 years of competition driving, some of the cars I raced when new are now priceless gems of historic motor racing, off which the lid has been raised to reveal a huge can of wriggling worms.

In case you hadn’t noticed, everybody else knows that cheating has been taking place in this gentlemanly branch of motor sport and everybody hopes it will be put right this winter. (Well, all right, almost everybody.) There has been a chronic lack of effective leadership from the governing bodies and it has been left to race organisers to take up the challenge. They are the ones who will have to clean up the act, but can they do it?

As I said last month, we have heard the fine words and we shall see what happens next season, starting about three months from now. Much depends on these organisers but much also depends on the gentlemen racers themselves. Will they have the balls to kick up a fuss?

A friend of mine, at a club dinner just before Christmas, found himself chatting to a fellow racer. Both of them run unique, one-off single-seaters from the 1970s and both use modern CV joints in the transmission instead of the original doughnuts. These modern parts give ‘no performance advantage’ but they are safer, more reliable and in some cases have been in use for over 20 years. Is this cheating? That was their debate.

In my view it isn’t, but is it legal? If not, I’m told it would cost about £6000 to change each car back precisely to its original specification because it also means the gearbox has to be replaced. Little things like that are found all through our sport but there are also people who really bend the rules.

This is out in the open now. Everybody knows it and if I published every evil story I’ve been sent since this scandal blew up I’m sure I could be in court for the rest of my life. Choosing my words carefully, then, I shall suggest what can go wrong in real life.

Now, just suppose a competitor does have the courage to complain about somebody who appears to have an engine that is too fast, but the guy in the fast car has powerful contacts. What happens next? The most likely outcome is that there will be a very public crackdown on the ‘cheats’ who use things like modern CV joints in that race series. Nothing whatsoever will be done about the man with the suspiciously fast engine. The wrong people will certainly cop it. The message is simple: until the policing of legality is truly independent, some manipulative rotten apples in the barrel will try to get away with some very naughty stuff indeed.

Weak government has allowed countless performance-enhancing modifications to creep in over the years and we have now reached a point at which it is impossible to go right back to running cars as they were when new. That has to be faced. Take this example: most of us involved in the sport recognise that replacement Lucas ignition parts for cars of the pre-electronic ignition age, now made abroad and not in Birmingham, are not up to the quality required. The mood is to allow electronic ignition, and that seems reasonable. It’s inexpensive and reliable; if it raises power a tiny bit, so what?

These problems go back decades. Another correspondent recalls racing a Lola Mk1 in the late 1970s. There was a debate then over whether the 1220cc Climax was allowed. It got through because one Lola had been so fitted in period, but only as a road car. It never raced! Despite that, it became accepted gradually that larger engines were all right. There’s no evidence that Lola Mk1s ever raced with FWB 1450cc engines in their day but please point out, says our friend, any Lola Mk1 1100s racing today.

Also, thanks to modern pistons, better cams, gas-flow work and so on, historic race engines are better than they used to be. Those FWBs gave about 110bhp when new but now they’re said to produce over 140bhp. Are these guys cheating? How do you hope to stop them? Should you stop them?

Many years ago, I remember the late Rivers Fletcher introducing an ERA Club Dinner. When he referred solemnly to the 1.5-litre ERA, someone quipped, ‘What’s that?’ It got a loud, long laugh. (Bob Gerrard was meant to be the guest of honour that night, by the way, but he got stuck in bad weather and rang to say he couldn’t make it. As coffee was served I was called upon unexpectedly to give the main speech in his place. That was one tough night, I can tell you.)

There’s only one conclusion here. Leading organisers are right to aim for their own ‘level playing field’ with clear rules, which everybody can understand and abide by, under which these cars can be raced today. Good luck to them but, next season, we shall all be watching very closely for any really funny engines that might still be about.