It’s now one week since I returned from my first trip to Africa, following the East African Safari Classic Rally with Tuthill Porsche as their photographer/media person. It was a brilliant experience: the team won the rally with Blomqvist, but even better stuff happened en route.
Pre-trip advice from friends who had visited Africa many times before was not positive. Guaranteed to be robbed, suffer food poisoning or worse, heatstroke or worse, malaria or worse, Ebola or worse: bring your own doctor and touch nothing would be a fair summary of their shared insights. Well, we did bring our own doctor (take a bow, paramedic and all-round good bloke, John Jones) but I didn’t require his attention. It was all smooth sailing once we found our rhythm.
I followed the doc’s advice and drank at least two litres of water a day, then added some simple precautions – no salads, kept my mouth closed while showering and brushed my teeth with bottled water, used antiseptic wipes to clean my hands and mouth a few times daily, brought some magic Avon mosquito repellent – and, while some of the guys I was travelling with had problems, I survived mostly intact. I wouldn’t do anything differently next time regarding keeping things clean, but I would look to sleep more, and spend more time talking with locals where possible. The best times in East Africa came from the people.
My ten bits of African travel advice (Kenya & Tanzania) for a first-timer virgin like me are as follows:
It will take you at least three days to get used to the heat, especially in humid parts like Mombasa
You will never get used to the heat, just endure it for longer. More altitude means you burn faster
Sleep is your very best friend. Get sleep and all will be well
Pack half the clothes you think you need, then get rid of half of them and bring a tube of travelwash
Come home with less than you brought (give shoes & clothes away at the end)
Pack plenty of earplugs, a decent sunhat and spare sunglasses
All shorts must have a front zip pocket for your passport: do not let it out of your sight. Be aware of who is around and keep cameras etc on your person
Neutrogena factor 60 sunblock is rubbish. Nivea 50 worked well for this blue-skinned European
Malaria is real. Take the drugs
Make sure your mobile/cellphone can roam in the countries you plan to travel to, and any country on their borders
Say hello to everyone – you will get the biggest smile back
There are eleven bits of advice there. Another tip from Africa is limits are for Westerners. There are mostly no rules: do whatever fits the bill and talk/smile your way out of trouble with officials. If you’re struggling with red tape, directions, airport check-in or whatnot, let a local help you. Even if they are no help (sometimes happens), chances are they will bore whatever officialdom is delaying your progress into returning your paperwork and sending you on your way. But mostly they are helpful, as long as you’re not in a rush. So don’t be in a rush. Also don’t be afraid to gatecrash VIP queues: it usually works.
Everything you carry is currency, be it local money, clothing, US dollars or just a bottle of water, even if it is empty. You will get by quite nicely if you’re ready to spend some time and play the game of “hey boss, take my picture and give me five dollars”. Obviously you’re not giving anyone five dollars to take their picture, but ask for permission to take a pic if that’s what you want. Then ask what people are doing, find out what happens in town, talk to people and soak up the experience. They soon understand there is no money coming and the people I met didn’t mind. That said, I have read a few horror stories so be prepared to make excuses and leave: “let me get you some lunch from my friends over there” or “I’ll just go and talk to my boss and get you something”.
Good advice from Richard was don’t give kids money, or anything else. Giving a kid money just means a bigger kid will beat them up and take it, then someone bigger than him will take it. Donate to community organisations if you feel so inclined – your accomodation manager knows who to talk to. In hotels or lodges, tip the luggage guys a few hundred shillings, buy a drink for the barman (chances are they will drink it and chat for a while), give your hotel chef a t-shirt, do all that stuff. But remember rules are for Westerners, so don’t follow my rules.
I had it completely wrong yesterday: Porsche was not testing a new 991.2 RSR at the Nürburgring. Instead, it was gearing up to run the new-for-2016 Porsche 991 GT3R in a test under racing conditions at the Nürburgring in the Rowe DMV 250-Meilen-Rennen, with works drivers, Nick Tandy and Fred Makowiecki.
At the ninth round of this year’s VLN Nürburgring Long Distance Championship, the pair ran amongst the race leaders at a cold and foggy Nordschleife, eventually finishing the four-hour race in third place overall. The winner was the polesitter Black Falcon Mercedes SLS, which qualified P1 on an 8:01.443 and turned a fastest race lap of 8:02.786. In comparison, the fastest lap set by the new Porsche 911 991 GT3R was 8:10.828. It finished on the lead lap, 4 minutes behind the Mercedes.
Porsche 991 GT3R test ends with Nürburgring Podium
“We didn’t come here specifically to race, but I’m happy to be on the podium,” said Tandy. “The car was fun to drive.” “Balance was good and it was fun to drive at the Nürburgring,” echoed Fred. “A couple of areas need optimising, but that’s normal in testing and development.”
The new GT3R features an improved aerodynamic package compared to its predecessor, as well as improved driveability and further optimised safety. The engine used in the Nürburgring tests was the proven (current) power plant, but an all-new direct fuel injection engine generation is currently undergoing test bench runs in Weissach and further testing in the USA.
“The first test outing of our new 911 GT3 R was promising,” says Head of Porsche Motorsport Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser. “Pure performance was not the only priority today. We are also looking at being able to offer our customers a reliable car that runs well in all conditions. The Nürburgring Nordschleife is excellently suited to put the chassis, body and systems under a stress test. And this works best under race conditions.”
I’ve been working on the legendary Tour de Corse rally all weekend, where the Tuthill Porsche team has just won its class and the inaugural R-GT Cup with the exciting Porsche 997 R-GT rally car.
Victory on Tour de Corse – Round 11 of the 2015 World Rally Championship and the fourth round of the FIA R-GT Cup – is the second win for Tuthill’s Porsche R-GT car this season, following a proper result on January’s Monte Carlo Rally, opening round of WRC 2015. Four-time WRC winner, François Delecour, has driven the R-GT Porsche all season, but brought a new driving partner to Corsica in the form of Sabrina de Castelli: a Tour de Corse veteran with numerous class wins and podiums to her credit.
Pairing Frenchman Delecour’s experience on the Tour de Corse, including a win in 1993, with de Castelli’s considerable expertise on this historic WRC event proved an unbeatable combination on a Tour de Corse blighted by the worst weather seen on the Mediterranean island for more than thirty years. Torrential rain washed away some rally roads and led to multiple stage cancellations.
François Delecour Porsche wins WRC Tour de Corse
Starting the second day of the rally just twelve seconds behind season-long R-GT rival, Romain Dumas, Delecour was prepared for the slippery first stage of the day. As Dumas suffered a puncture and then car damage in the treacherous conditions, Delecour rocketed past to seize the R-GT lead. Dumas failed to arrive at the following stage, later announcing retirement from the Tour de Corse rally.
Losing Dumas did not hand Delecour a guaranteed win, as the Corsican landscape with its unforgiving stone walls, sheer rock faces and 500-metre vertical drops can always bite back. The Tuthill Porsche crew and its drivers still had to get the car to the finish, which it did with delight on lunchtime on Sunday.
A New Chapter in Porsche Rally Heritage
“Rallying is not about getting one thing right,” said our friend Richard Tuthill at the end. “This is a sport where any one weakness will damage a team’s ability to compete and to finish. Just as in the historic rallies where we earned our reputation and continue to excel, it is our team’s ability to build Porsche 911s that perform and finish rallies that has really made the difference.
“We fought a long battle to bring GT cars back to WRC rallying, and our first season with the Porsche R-GT has been much harder work than anyone expected. Winning the FIA R-GT title before the last round is satisfying and it is also terrific to add Tour de Corse to our team’s list of victories. This rally looms large in Porsche folklore, after Jean-Luc Therier’s memorable win here three decades ago. We’re proud to have written an entirely new chapter in Porsche rally heritage.”
Delecour’s Dream of WRC Porsche wins
“What a place to win a rally and the FIA Cup,” said François Delecour. “My dream was to bring Porsche back to the WRC and let fans of modern WRC see how exciting rally used to be. This year with Tuthill Porsche has been a huge challenge, but the team is really born to rally, so we fit together perfectly.
“Tour de Corse is magical: everything a great rally should be. It is fast, spectacular, beautiful and completely unforgettable, just like our Porsche R-GT. Thanks to Richard Tuthill and his hard-working team, my co-drivers Dominique and Sabrina and all the great fans of rallying who have made this year one of my favourites. I am so happy to win this: it is just a dream come true.”
The final round of FIA R-GT 2015 is ERC Rallye du Valais at the end of October. After that, the Porsche team heads for Kenya and the Safari Classic Rally. A busy end of year for all of us rally fans!
Amongst the cool projects I’ve been party to this year is the latest reproduction from EB Motorsport: a flat-fan kit for air-cooled Porsche engines. Under development for the last two years, engineering for a flat fan kit started in the same way as most of the EB Motorsport product range: there was nothing else out there that did the job properly.
Porsche 911 RSR Turbo Replica
I’m not quite sure when EB’s Mark Bates decided he had to have a Porsche 911 RSR Turbo, but we definitely had a conversation about building a 2.1-litre Turbo replica soon after we started working together more than five years ago and the bodywork for the project is well under way (pic below). Since our first conversation, the EB Motorsport product range has expanded to include a lot of products that cross over from RSR to RSR Turbo, but the flat fan is all on its own when it comes to cool Porsche kit.
“If I could have bought a flat fan kit that looked correct and worked well at a sensible price, I wouldn’t have gone down the road of making it myself,” says Mark. “We did buy one kit but it was not what I was looking for, so we ended up doing it the long way.
Mark’s ‘long way’ would be most impossible for most of us, but nothing phases EB Motorsport. When your company has more than sixty years of experience manufacturing food-grade handling plant, including 30-metre-high composite silos that can hold tons upon tons of raw material, the minor details of re-manufacturing unobtainable throttle bodies, complex fuel pressure regulators and flat fan drives are not a big deal.
Flat Fan Components and Testing
That said, all high-end manufacturing takes time to do properly, and this has been done properly. The first step was to find a period composite fan, as making the tooling to replicate an air-cooled flat fan blade is not the work of a moment. That search came up empty handed, so a high-quality carbon fan was obtained that would hold up for testing. “Our own fan is in development, but it involves the most complex tooling we have ever designed,” says Mark. “It will take a while to get this bit right.”
The next step was the fan drive. The obvious way to recreate one of these was to buy an original 935 drive and reverse engineer it, so this is what happened. The process took six months, and the first test device was fitted to a static long block test rig earlier this year, connected to electric motors and tested for hours on end. EB measured details like noise, durability, horsepower consumption, backlash, shim dimensions and airflow with different internal diverters fitted to the custom EB fan shroud.
Flat Fan Horsepower Consumption
Testing revealed lots of interesting data, particularly in the areas of air flow and horsepower. “It’s long been rumoured that the flat fan costs a lot of horsepower due to the convoluted drivetrain, but a vertical fan will also cost horsepower,” says Mark. “Our testing proved that flat fan horsepower consumption was not linear but instead it increased exponentially. At 4k fan rpm, just 1.5 horsepower was lost, but at 12k rpm fan speed which is roughly 8k rpm engine speed, 32 horsepower was lost, mainly due to the volume of air being moved by the fan. Given the increased thermal protection to cylinders 1 and 4 offered by the flat fan installation, we’re comfortable with the test data.”
Tuthill Porsche Flat Fan 911
The video below shows the flat fan fitted to EB’s 2.5-litre ST engine on carbs, in a 911 supplied for road testing by Richard Tuthill. Tuthill Porsche will build the engine for the RSR Turbo replica and there’s even some discussion on building a short run of four RSR Turbo replicas, including EB Motorsport’s own car, all running flat fans and fun-horsepower big turbo engines. Now that would really be cool.
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Former Autofarm front man, Josh Sadler, has made a dream come true by flying his former Porsche factory 911 development car and now 1970 Porsche 911 ST to California for this weekend’s Rennsport Reunion V at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey.
A passionate racer for decades, Sadler was uncertain whether his entry would be successful, but didn’t hang around to book his transport when the thumbs up came through. Our headline photo shows the car in transit through Heathrow en route to California, where the 911 has since been unloaded and issued with a temporary Californian registration (below at Half Moon Bay).
Rennsport Reunion: an Iconic Event
“This event is iconic in the Porsche world and I simply had to do it before I got too old,” said Josh. “I was fortunate to gain an entry and thought I’ll crate up the car and do it! I ‘ve never been to Laguna Seca and don’t have an Xbox to practice on. I’m sure we’ll work out which way it goes and have a bit of fun.”
I’ve done a track day at Laguna Seca in an early Porsche 911 and I can testify that indeed it is a bit of fun: the circuit is incredible. All 911s are somewhat similar on track and Laguna is not super complicated, so Sadler’s car will deliver plenty of racing excitment when it heads on track this Saturday. Hopefully it will survive unscathed, but I do believe Josh will give it the beans.
Autofarm Porsche 911 ST
First registered in Stuttgart in July 1969 as a 2.2-litre 911S, the car was run by Porsche for two years until 1971, when it was sold to employee, Gebhard Ruf, with a 2.2T engine fitted. It was punted around Germany for a number of years, until it came to the UK in 1977, owned by Mr Paul Flanagan.
Two years later, Josh bought the car in damaged condition (69 S with a T engine in 1979: don’t ask the price unless you’re already depressed), sold the T engine and stored what was left for almost twenty years. Known for his detailed records of 911 Carrera RS heritage, it didn’t take Sadler too long to realise the significance of the car’s early years. By then, 911 values were rising so the car was rebuilt as an FIA-papered 2.3-litre ST.
I’ve seen the car up close a number of times and it is every bit as crisp as one would expect from a student of Porsche history and someone who has sold RS Carreras in volume. As ever with Josh, the car is for sale at the right price but, in the meantime, it’s great to see it being used as intended.
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