Belgian Historic Rally Champion, Glenn Janssens, thanked his lucky stars last weekend after walking away from a huge 100-mph crash in his amazing Tuthill Porsche 911 rally car.
Rallying the opening event of the season at Haspengouw, Glenn had just shifted into fifth gear around a right-hand bend when a hint of oversteer escalated into something bigger, leading to a series of barrel rolls at very high speed.
The landscape surrounding the crash was ploughed fields in usual Belgian style, but the ground was frozen solid. Imagine crashing on rutted concrete and you get the idea. This video shows the damage suffered, and also shows the guys walking away: the only happy news for Janssens fans from this event.
Tuthills have been building rally cars for over thirty years and crashes are part of the world they live in: I’ve got plenty of crash damage pics from the workshops over the seven years we’ve been working together.
It’s never pleasant to see a car bent and broken, but it’s always very satisfying to see a Tuthill Porsche roll cage work as intended. This won’t be an easy repair but I’ll keep you up to date with the rebuild as it unfolds.
News from the Americas! Hayden and Steven have just enjoyed their second rest day of the event, at Puno in Southern Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. This update was from Tuesday night.
Nice drive this morning, 0500hrs wake up to leave La Paz early enough to avoid road blockages by striking workers. Lovely drive and little barge crossing to Peru border, leaving beautiful but contradictory Bolivia behind.
Great hotel on Lake Titicaca makes rest day tomorrow even more anticipated. Lola still faultless, but the Porsche 356 will get a greasing and general spanner check. That said, Lola needs new plugs again, as poor fuel has been hard on plugs in all the old cars. T is bringing three more sets to Cusco in 2 days.
We have run at over 14,300 feet without re-jetting the carbs, so very happy and proud of our sea level work and the choices Brian and I made in setting these up! Our faith in physics continues.
Yesterday on the way into La Paz, we sat at 120 km/h (72mph) for an hours or so at just over 3,900 metres, or almost 13,00 feet. Where else in the world can you do that? That’s like a highway joining all the high peaks of the Rockies. Amazing!
Today rest day, tomorrow Puno to Cusco, in the foothills south of Machu Picchu. Next day is another rest day to allow some exploring in the legendary Peruvian ruins, followed by a 600-kilometre drive to Arequipa, not Aeroquipa as per the rally notes.
Second biggest city in Peru, the historic centre of Arequipa has been granted UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status. The old town’s beautiful heart is balanced by some of the highest levels of solar radiation in all of South America, thanks to the nearby Atacama Desert and local air pollution. Break out the UV sunblock! More news when we get it.
WEVO Hayden has just finished Day Three of the 2013 Great South American Challenge with Steven Harris in Lola, the 1964 Porsche 356C. This is the fifth event of Hayden’s marathon rally career that I’ve covered as official WEVO blogjacker and it’s bound to be another good story.
Last used in anger on the 2010 Peking to Paris Rally, Lola has undergone a programme of evolutionary improvements on its P2P spec. Steven has a bit more experience under his belt and Hayden has done a few rallies with the competitive, experienced and thoroughly hilarious Alastair Caldwell, so is now a surgically precise co-driver navigator. I’m expecting cool runnings from Lola and her crew this year.
Team WEVO’s hard-earned expertise broke cover for the first time yesterday, when Steven and Hayden took first place on the day’s sole special stage of 19 kilometres: the only car to clean the run. Lola took the complete day’s drive of 693 kilometres from Curitiba to the wonderful Foz de Iguacu waterfall on the Brazil/Argentina/Paraguay border in her stride, a minor misfire at the end of the day due to suspected dirt in a fuel jet.
Today is the first rest day of the event, so time to visit the falls, clean the car and the carburettors. The team can catch their breath after a rushed start to the event, when Lola was delayed through customs: arriving at the start point (above) well after other competitors had finished packing their cars and stickering up.
So it was that Lola ran naked through the initial 488km transport stage from Rio to Campinas, skirting the edge of Sao Paolo in an enjoyable first day’s driving. Day 2 was another sub-500km run from Campinas to Curitiba, through the open plains of Brazil’s wheat bowl region, before climbing into the Apial Hills.
Parking alongside this magnificent straight-eight Buick shows her size in relation to most other competitors but they don’t spare the old stuff on these rallies: everything gets a proper thrashing. Car budgets include the build cost and the repair cost afterwards!
Today’s rest day will be mostly about settling into the marathon rally rhythm. Extended rallies are not just driving: there are rest/tourist days and fixit days, days to catch up with overseas news but any real downtime is about soaking up the unique pace of life: a pace that will dominate until March 24th, when the rally finishes in Tierra del Fuego: South America’s southernmost point.
Thirty-nine days rallying in a Porsche 356. I think we could all go for that, right!?
Porsche’s plans to run a pair of works 991 GT3 RSRs in the World Endurance Championship and at this year’s Le Mans were confirmed today by the respective championship organisers: FIA and ACO.
Stuttgart is keeping us gagging for all-new RSR pics, but the drivers have been rubber stamped. Porsches number 91 and 92 will be run by Manthey and driven by six works pilots: Lieb and Lietz in the 91 car, partnered by Romain Dumas at Silverstone, Spa and Le Mans, while the 92 car goes to Bergmeister and Patrick Pilet, with support from Timo Bernhard at the same three races.
Everyone else will be battling it out in ALMS for the year, so I wonder what the chat is like at the Porsche drivers’ training camp in Tenerife right now (pic from today by Michael Christensen).
The works cars race in LM GTE Pro at Le Mans, while three customer cars fall into LM GTE Am. IMSA Performance Matmut and Proton return, both running 997 GT3 RSRs. Shame no Nic Armindo with the tri-coloured IMSA team, instead Raymond Narac will drive with Jean-Karl Vernay: reigning champion of Carrera Cup France.
Vernay has support from Porsche to race in Supercup this year, which should be interesting. IMSA will also run a second GT3 RSR featuring Pascal Gibon as lead driver. All we need now is Seb Loeb, and we’ll have most of France driving Porsches this year. Loeb Racing’s entered an ORECA-Nissan, but a lot can happen in 24 hours.
As for the second customer team, Mrs Glynn will be delighted to see newest ALMS GTC Porsche driver, Patrick Dempsey, popping up in Ferdinand posts from Le Mans this year. The Gray’s Anatomy heart throb and rather handy racing shoe will chalk up 24 hours in the number 77 Dempsey Racing-Proton Porsche RSR at Circuit de la Sarthe, along with topping Sarah’s list for the fifth or sixth year running. Patrick Dempsey & Ewan McGregor: nothing else matters to SG on TV. Apart from David Tennant.
In the midst of the excitement around their upcoming event, Sebring tweeted this great Porsche 906 pic with the text: “I would say this photographer got pretty close to the action at Sebring ’67.” I loved it: the sliding Carrera 6 must have clipped that tyre by microns. Clearly whoever was driving knew their Porsche well! I set out to find the driver.
First place to look was an entry list for Sebring 1967 and the drivers of car 49. Car 48 was the MG of Timo Mäkinen and 50 was another MG. All the 906s were up in the 30s, including one with Hans Hermann and Jo Siffert, but there was nothing for car 49.
A quick look on the Sebring Facebook page showed the same pic, but a few people dating it to 1966, when Siffert and Charles Vogele drove Charles’ 906 with number 49 to sixth overall. But that car was red. I dug around a bit more and found a few pics of the Sebring 1967 4-Hour, but this was another dead end.
Weighing just 600 kilos and with perfect balance, the 906 Carrera 6 with eventual fuel injection was successful into the 1970s as the 906E, so I looked at later years. Google didn’t help much, so I switched to the next most powerful search engine: eBay.
A quick search on ebay for 906 Sebring threw up this pic from 1969. Checking an entry list from 1969 confirmed a Porsche 906 raced as number 49, driven by Dr. Merwin (Merv) Rosen and Dave Morrell.
A quick google for Merv found a hardcore Illinois racer and an SCCA legend in his Porsche 906, with great results all across America. I also found an email address and have sent him a message: would be cool to hear more about his career. Merv if you’re out there, please say hello!
The amazing Nick Tandy’s off the blocks well in Florida, with a stunning pole on his debut drive for the works Porsche team.
Porsche drivers locked out the first four places in the 36-strong GT class, with the first eleven cars split by less than a second. Konrad/Orbit driver Tandy beat last year’s Daytona winner, Magnus Racing’s Andy Lally, to the front, along with plenty of other big names. It’s the perfect opening to a works drive career.
“Pole position in Daytona shouldn’t be underestimated, even if the race runs over 24 hours,” said Nick. “Starting from the front allows you to avoid getting caught up in any skirmishes and that’s certainly an advantage. Our car ran perfectly and that gives us a good feeling for the race.”
Sharing the cockpit with Lally is Porsche works driver, Richard Lietz. “We won the race last year. Second on the grid is an excellent starting position to repeat this success.” Sean Edwards (MOMO Porsche) nabbed third, ahead of Patrick Long in fourth.
In a sure sign of attack mode, Long’s team mate, Patrick Pilet, said he’d love to score a podium. “Sean did an excellent job. After this great qualifying result we are all looking forward to the race. Our goal is to finish on the podium.” Anyone who’s ever seen Pilet drive knows a win is on the cards.
The scene is set for a terrific battle at this year’s Daytona 24 (and I’ve got the perfect birthday present) with new boy Tandy out front, taking 911 needle to the rest. Needle makes for great racing, so this will be unmissable.
Racing starts on Saturday at 15.30 hrs local time (21.30 hrs CET). Get yourself sorted for coverage! There’s be online streaming on a number of websites, and Radio Le Mans will be running their usual excellent race commentary live online. Can’t wait!
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