Proposal to expand the 2 Litre class structure in Classic F3

The current class structure in CF3 has been in place for some time now and over that time the period has been extended and cars of varying designs and incorporating various technologies introduced in period have been incorporated into one class with varying rules.

We would therefore like to propose a change to the single 2 litre class, the current 1600 class would remain as is, by recognising the different technologies and splitting the class into three separate classes as follows:

A1 Cars without side pods (basically pre 79 - March to 783, Chevron to B43, Ralt RT1 etc.)
A2 Cars with side pods but without flat bottoms (basically 79/80 - March 793/803, Argo JM6 etc.)
A3 Cars with side pods and flat bottoms (basically 81-84 - Ralt RT3 etc.)
The reason we decided to use descriptions rather than date breaks is to ensure that cars of like technologies race against each other for points and prizes and cars are not penalised by their date of manufacture. Clearly there will be some work to do to allocate all competitors a class but most cars will fall naturally into a class and rules will be developed to avoid people changing their car to fall into another class. It may be that some existing rules can be adjusted but that is for another day at the moment.

Why do we want to do this? Our objective here is the following:
Enable more competitors to win a prize.
Give more people something to race for.
Enable all cars to have an equal chance of success.
Improve entry levels and encourage competitors to do more races.
Give competitors from any class a chance to be overall champion.
Points would be awarded at each event in accordance with the current structure but by class rather than based on overall finishing positions and trophies would be awarded 1st to 3rd in each class at each event in addition to the current overall race trophies to 1st to 3rd on the road. An additional 9 trophies to be won. In addition we would like to have some subjective awards such as driver of the day.

At the end of the year the champion would be chosen from one of the four classes, this includes the 1600’s of course, although a fail safe mechanism for doing this needs developing so that we can maintain our desire that any class could produce the champion.
The championship awards would therefore be:
Class A (2 litre) overall champion - existing
Class A1 champion - Derek Warwick Trophy - new
Class A2 champion - Nigel Mansell Trophy - new
Class A3 champion - Martin Brundle Trophy - new
Class B champion - Tony Brise Trophy - existing
Roger Andreason Trophy to first pre 79 car - existing
Chairman’s Cup for most promising newcomer - new
Avon Tyres Trophy to most improved driver - existing
Frank Gomm Trophy to best self prepared car - existing

As the 2021 championship regulations are now settled we will look to formally introduce this proposal for the 2022 season, subject to the support of you, the competitors. However we intend to use the 2021 season as a trial and we would maintain an unofficial points tally but we would, with the help of the HSCC, look to making the class awards at each event and at the year end.

It is our belief that this change will be a positive one for CF3 and look forward to hearing your comments so we can gauge support. Now is the time to have your say on the future of CF3.
Please reply with any comments you have to Colin Painter on colinmpainter@btinternet.com who will deal with any questions. Thanks.