Info on Pre 75
Pre 75 Bangers
The 2014 staging of the vintage National Bangers takes place at King’s Lynn on Saturday 16th August. Importantly, this year sees a change to the format for this meeting as compared to previous runnings.
The first and most obvious change is that the date for car eligibility has been moved so that this is no longer a Pre ’70 meeting but a Pre ’75 session. Models of car first manufactured up to and including 1975 will be permitted to race but with the date having moved five years forward, this date will be policed more vigilantly than before where an element of discretion was exercised for some cars dating from 1971 or ’72. If you are in any doubt about the age of a car, then please check with the promotion before building the car and travelling.
The second change is that the meeting is being split into two classes to be known as ‘unders’ and ‘overs’ with the smaller class being for under 1750cc cars and the overs class being extended to 1751cc to 2500cc. The important thing for all drivers to note is that the extension to the engine limit does not indicate that this meeting is drifting towards Unlimited. The increased limit is simply to give more flexibility to drivers to use a larger engine in cars that are already permitted to race. For example, the Rover 2200 (P6) can now be used on the original engine rather than having to swap to a 2 litre and the same applies to Triumph 2500, Austin / Morris 2200, Princess 2200, etc, etc.
Previously allowed cars for this meeting that would not be allowed to race under ORCi 2 Litre Banger rules (e.g. Volvo 144, Rover P4 and some of the slower lumbering Daimler / Humber models that have been allowed in the past) will continue to be permitted to race but will be subject to a 2 Litre engine limit rather than 2.5. The larger cars will also retain the pre 70 limit so that no further large models are introduced to the meeting so there will be no Mk1 Granada, Volvo 244 or Toyota Cressida for example. Mercedes models will also be limited to pre-1970 cars (as they are excluded on the ORCi 2 litre spec). We may consider removing all cars not conforming to the 2 litre ORCi specification for 2015 and onwards.
Engine swaps are permitted for this meeting but drivers should note that these are to be ‘age related’ changes and in particular we will not be allowing 16 valve engines in either class.
The intended format for the meeting (as in recent years) is for the unders and overs classes to each have two separate heats but it is expected that the Final will be a combined race, both because of anticipated car numbers and due to the strict meeting time curfew in place at the venue. The intention is that the Under 1750cc class will in future help to attract more of the smaller cars back to this meeting so that we can return to running two split classes throughout the meeting. We encourage drivers to support this initiative.