Equipe Classic Racing is planning to launch a new competition class in 2018, especially for Pre-1963 GT and Production racing cars running on Dunlop Historic tires. Building on the success of its clubman series for pre-’66 FIA GT cars under 2700 cc, and following a season in that series that enjoyed an average grid size of 46 cars and more than 90 cars entered in the first Equipe Three Hour Relay, Equipe GTS has decided to expand.
Equipe Pre-’63 will cover FIA Period E and some early Period F cars. The provisional 2018 calendar has eight races including Silverstone GP Circuit, Donington, Brands Hatch, Oulton Park and Zandvoort. All the 2018 events will follow the same 40-minute, pit-stop format for one or two drivers, with eligible cars including Austin-Healey 100s, 3000s and Sprites, Jaguar E-Type and XK, MGA, Morgan, Lotus Elite, Alfa Romeo and many others.
Equipe Pre-’63 will run to FIA Appendix K specification, with FIA Papers welcome but not mandatory. By carefully selecting eligible cars, the original Equipe GTS series has delivered close and exciting racing with an emphasis on high driving standards. Equipe Pre-’63 will follow the same ethos and will also adhere to the “club” and social emphasis of the original brand.
“This grid is a natural and complimentary extension to Equipe GTS,” said Equipe Classic Racing Partner John Pearson, “the Pre-’63 cars have a lot of available events, but we think the car choice for this grid will produce some very close racing. The ’50s and the first part of the ’60s are the last period of production cars that could be driven to the race track and then to work on Monday. The later cars were more developed, and cost far more to run today. Equipe Pre-’63 will focus on pure production racing cars to period specification, we feel this will give closer and more competitive racing with the ’63 cutoff excluding some of the massively powerful cars of the mid-’60s.”
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