This scandal just won’t go away. Excellent. Something useful is being done about cheating in historic racing at last. Some of us, myself among them, were cynical enough to suggest that everything would be swept under the carpet, in a very gentlemanly way of course, but maybe we’ll have to eat our hats.

The driving force to get the act cleaned up, which of course is essential, seems to have come from the competitors, but they cannot act alone. There are social pressures that make that impossible, as an extract from a reader’s email to me proves.

Without naming and shaming anybody, my correspondent spent all of last season racing against one chap who mysteriously seemed to walk away down the straights in a car that sounded very different from all the rest. My correspondent also says he’s not the only one who thinks there was something dodgy going on, but here’s the problem:

‘The man in question,’ this reader states, ‘is a nice bloke who is for sure a better driver than I am. I would never beat him anyway and it does not really bother me one way or the other. However, nobody will ever ask him for a look inside [his engine] because we’re “all pals together” and the fuss would be dreadful.’
Exactly. Nobody wants to stir things up, but competitors will drift away if they feel that nothing is being done. If the drivers cannot act, who can? International and national governing bodies have done little, but why should they be bothered?

They have enough on their plates with modern motor sport, and seem happy to let historic racing go its own way. Ours is an amateur game, run for fun, and, so long as it complies with all the safety rules and so on, that’s all that matters to those bodies. Is the UK authority, the Motor Sports Association, bothered if some historic car seems quicker than it should be? I don’t think so.

If that is their attitude, that’s fine, but somebody must stand over the sport to ensure fair play. Whose shoulders should that fall on? The only possible answer is the organising clubs, and they do seem to be responding.

When Duncan Wiltshire of Motor Racing Legends, organiser of the successful Royal Automobile Club Woodcote Trophy and other top events, stood up at his prizegiving dinner in November, he announced that an FIA eligibility scrutineer would be present at all his meetings next year, checking that the cars conform to the rules. This got an unexpectedly great roar of approval from the assembled drivers. Well, most of them anyway.

To the spectator this might seem puzzling. All that’s needed, surely, is to insist that the cars remain as they were when they were new? Well, no, it isn’t that easy. In fact, when you get into it, deciding what is right and what is wrong is extraordinarily complex. The organisers do, however, seem to be getting their teeth into it with wisdom and energy.

The Masters Racing Club, probably the UK’s leading historic racing club, will also have FIA eligibility scrutineers at their events in 2008 and they have already asked competitors for their views. Writing in a recent Masters Racing Club newsletter, John Quenby rightly pointed out that what is needed is ‘a level playing field’. This is realistic. The Club will offer stiff post-race checks and spot-checks on any aspect of eligibility, if that is what the drivers want. Rigorous enforcement of the rules in 2008 has been offered.
It would be wise, however, to accept that we cannot entertain any notion of running cars strictly as they were in their day. What is needed is a consensus which will produce that level playing field. Speaking on behalf of the Masters organisation, former MSA chief exec Quenby told me: ‘The Masters Racing Club is trying to be sensible. Nobody wants any witch-hunts – this is meant to be fun – but, if things get out of hand, we need to reel them in. If somebody is spending a lot of money on going racing with us, he should not be chasing some will-o’-the-wisp because there are others there who plainly aren’t obeying the rules.’
But what is cheating? Is it wrong to use more modern dampers, especially when you can’t get the old ones any more? Is it wrong to use much lighter, modern aluminium castings for differential casings when the original cast-iron items cannot be found?

John Quenby again: ‘The leading clubs talk to each other about this and the Masters’ view is that we should adopt the basic FIA Appendix K (the traditional rules) but specify a minimum weight limit for
E-types, another for Cobras, and so on. That figure might be higher than the original homologated weight in some cases.’

That’s the sort of clear thinking we need. If people want to fit fancy lightweight kit that was never available in the past, let’s have no complicated argument about it. On the weighbridge, the car must meet the right figure. Simple as that.

What about modern electronic ignition, which can give an advantage in top-end power? It can also be used by organisers to impose a rev limit for all runners, thus saving a fortune for those running, say, Cosworth DFV F1 engines. Is that wrong? There are innumerable non-original parts inside gearboxes and final drives, things you’d never spot. They improve reliability rather than speed but you’d need more than a Sherlock Holmes to detect them.

That arcane stuff is of no importance. It’s the people with things like blatantly oversize engines who really need to be frightened off this winter. Spotting them is not hard. We’ve heard the right words. What they’re worth will be revealed throughout next year.