Double World Sportscar Masters champion and rare Porsche parts reproduction specialist, EB Motorsport, rounded off its 2014 historic racing race season with a top twenty finish and two class wins at the legendary Spa 6 Hours.
Fielding all three EB Motorsport racing 911s over the course of the weekend, brothers James and Mark Bates claimed class wins in both the Pre-‘66 GT and FIA World Sportscar Masters races, before starting the headline event.
As torrential rain soaked the Francorchamps circuit during the classic Spa 6 Hours endurance race, the pair used their considerable experience to bring EB’s 1965 911 race car home inside the top twenty. Only one other 911 from the extensive start group claimed a top twenty finish: the short wheelbase car of Le Mans winner, Raymond Narac.
Spa 6 Hours for EB Motorsport Porsche
“We set a much-reduced race calendar for 2014, and Spa was our target event,” said Mark Bates, who finished the race under red flag conditions in P19 overall. “I made my 6 Hours debut last year sharing a short wheelbase 911, so was excited to race with James in our own car this year. Achieving a top twenty finish in atrocious conditions within reach of a winning Le Mans Porsche driver is a very special feeling.”
“It’s been a landmark year for me,” smiled James at the end. “A hectic workload and the impending arrival of my first born shrunk our race schedule, but the EB Motorsport cars are very competitive. Mark put some amazing laps together in horrific conditions and showed established Spa regulars a clean set of heels. It’s a cracking finish to the 1965 911 race car’s debut season.”
EB Motorsport sponsored by Millers Oils
EB Motorsport’s Porsche 911s are sponsored by Millers Oils, after dyno tests proved that Millers lubrication freed more horsepower from EB’s 3.0 RSR race car. The trio will be joined by a fourth in 2015: a 911R recreation, currently in build at EB’s Yorkshire HQ. “This one features the full range of EB’s 911R parts, including our featherweight doors at just 4.5 kilos a side: with the hinges,” says Mark. “Target weight is 860 kilos: we’ll see how close we can get.”
Alongside the 911R build, an exciting recreation of the 1974 Porsche 911 2.1 RSR Turbo casts an intimidating shadow, but that’s a story for another day!
See the full range of EB Motorsport rare and lightweight reproduction Porsche parts at www.eb-motorsport.com.
“I don’t want this to read like some PR whitewash over an error on our part,” Richard Tuthill insists. “We had a fully engineered, production-based solution to take the Porsche 911 RGT into WRC on the FIA’s table in May. We’ve tested the car over 120 kilometres on gravel, absolutely flat out. This car is fantastic on gravel and should be racing in Wales. But it won’t be, and we all know why.”
I understand Richard’s frustration. Less than a week before Tuthill’s R-GT Porsche was due to take the start of Wales Rally GB, the FIA decided to reject the car’s gravel specification for the Oxfordshire team’s home event, despite all of the planned modifications being fully described in plans submitted to Switzerland almost six months ago. Having sucked up a truckload of R-GT red tape already this year, this was one step too far.
Earlier this week, the R-GT was taken to Walters Arena in Wales, home of many gravel test sessions and identical terrain to the Rally GB gravel stages. In-car footage from testing shows the R-GT Porsche’s incredible speed: the 911 pulls two gears higher than Tuthill historic cars on the same stages and easily hits the limiter in sixth on the longest stretches of gravel.
‘The car was born to be driven on gravel,” says Richard. “It is well balanced, amazingly easy to drive and with the wonderful 3.8-litre engine and sequential six-speed gearbox, it is very, very fast. We experimented with the setup up throughout the day and will continue to develop certain areas, but I could not have imagined it could be so good from the very first KM. It’s more than ready to hit the stages, be they gravel or snow.
“Combined with the car’s performance on asphalt, this confirms that it is an all-rounder and can be used across the world in all regional championships, where the regulations follow FIA guidance.”
Tuthill Porsche FIA Rally GB
Lengthy discussions at FIA headquarters in Geneva could not move its technical department to approve the car for use on this weekend’s Rally GB. It’s a blow to Team Tuthill, the rally organisers who have headlined so much promotion with the R-GT Porsche but mainly to the fans; hundreds of whom were looking forward to witnessing the return of a Porsche 911 to WRC gravel stages.
Richard explains the impasse. “Within existing R-GT regulations, there is scope to allow modification to the suspension uprights that are fitted to the chosen base model. However, this only allows the fitment of gravel brakes. In the case of the 997 RGT, the upright is too big to fit within a 15 inch gravel wheel, regardless of the size of caliper and disc fitted. Understandably the FIA needs to review how this issue can be resolved and, not surprisingly, it is unwilling to allow complete freedom for modification on safety grounds.
“We found a solution from Porsche factory parts, which we tested to great effect. That solution, developed by our chief engineer who is one of the most experienced motorsport engineers in the world with thirty years of Le Mans, WRC and Dakar behind him, was still not enough to convince the FIA. While we fully accept that any new category will raise technical challenges that need open discussion and thinking to get around, I cannot hide my frustration at the way this decision has been made, given we started this enquiry in May.”
FIA Leadership through F1 Motorsport Crisis
Lately it seems that the FIA has given up on the ‘sport’ side of motorsport in the vested financial interests of its commercial manufacturer partners. With F1 in crisis and the governing body standing by motionless, will the FIA ever draw back those curtains of red tape and start listening to fans who only care about racing? Or does the inactivity reflect a lack of leadership as the FIA president works his connections to land a plum job at the UN: a theory I read on one of the leading F1 blogs last week? So much for a bright future.
The lightweight Porsche 911R race car in build at the EB Motorsport workshop has almost reached the end of its bodywork journey and is now being prepared for paint. Earlier this year, EB added another metal fabricator to their engineering business, who was also experienced in restoration. The new man has extensively rebuilt the rust-ridden chassis, replacing the huge amount of corrosion in the base chassis with nice clean metalwork.
Pictures I received of the project in progress made it look very nicely done. More shots just shared by Mark at EB Motorsport show the 911 with EB’s light composite body panels (handbuilt in the same workshop) attached, including front wings, doors and rear quarter panels. The roof is still steel, which begged the question why the guys didn’t use the EB Motorsport fibreglass roof panel to replace the original metal panel.
“Simple answer is that the lighter EB roof panel is perfect for replacing sunroof holes on cars originally equipped with a sliding roof,” says Mark at EB. “On a car without a sunroof, we would be putting a lot of work in to save two kilograms, so we’ve opted to leave things as they are and look elsewhere for weight savings.”
EB Motorsport reports a number of 911R kits sold to satisfied customers. I know a few people who have opted for a 911R conversion on their challenging SWB 911 restorations, using EB’s lightweight Porsche 911 doors and aluminium hinges, full front wings with built in sidelights, 911R tail light conversion and composite rear quarter panels. Target weight for the EB 911R is circa 860 kilograms: that would be quite an exciting achievement.
Also in the EB project stable is the 2.1-litre RSR “Baby” Turbo replica, which now looks little short of insane. Mark has been working on the flat fan conversion prototyping and recreating the magnesium oil cooler housings as per original race cars. He is also building a new front end for his Harley chopper. So much stuff going on up in Yorkshire: kudos to the guys there.
More bad news via email recently, when I received these pics of a crash involving the ex-Sam Gassel 1973 Penske Sunoco Porsche 911 RSR recreation at the 2014 Coronado Speed Festival. Sam bought the project unfinished from Gib Bosworth of Kremer ST replica fame, and built it into a very fine replica of the Penske car. It’s distressing to see it take such a heavy impact, but these things happen in racing.
The Coronado Speed Festival is part of San Diego’s annual Fleet Week, which is held at the US North Island naval base in San Diego to open the base to the public and recognise the contributions of San Diego’s military community. It is the US Navy’s only open-house event on the US West Coast.
Not too much information about the crash online, but it looks like it all kicked off in the first five minutes of qualifying. The pics suggest a wide mix of cars on track, and it certainly looks that way to me, having seen some video of the session shot from good mate Mike Gagen’s ’88 IMSA GTO Camaro, which was on track amongst a bunch of prototypes and a few 914s too.
If you’re thinking that a spread of cars from the 1960s to late ’80s on track at once is asking for trouble, you might be right. Regardless of fault in the incident, this is not a fun way to go racing. I can’t imagine that the car escaped lightly, which is very sad given how much work Sam put into this labour of love. Hopefully any damage caused to car and driver is entirely fixable (pic here from Flickr):
It was recently announced that America’s SVRA had been awarded stewardship of the Coronado Speed Festival from 2015. SVRA already organises some of America’s biggest historic motor racing events, so hopefully affairs like the RSR crash will become a thing of the past. Gagen reminds us of a famous saying amongst vintage racers: “your car already has race history, so the only history you can add is bad history.” ”
SVRA also oversees the popular Monterey Historics, so picking up Coronado and its sister events at Sonoma and Portland means that SVRA now runs all the major West Coast vintage racing events. Given some of the feedback on the cliquey-ness of certain race meetings, I’m not sure that is such a hot idea, but it is what it is. Hopefully my info is behind the curve and there will be room for everyone to take part. There is nothing quite like racing, California-style.
Porsche Cars North America has announced that Rennsport Reunion V (RR5) will be held at Laguna Seca from September 25-27, 2015, four years after Rennsport Reunion was first hosted on west coast USA. Note that this is an amended date from the original 9-11 Oct 2015, as that clashed with 919s running in WEC at Fuji.
Previous Rennsports were run out east: once at Lime Rock and twice at Daytona. The feedback from my trusted sources was that Daytona topped Laguna for spectacle, and of course Daytona has heavy links with Porsche history, so was perhaps a more appropriate location for a Porsche racing heritage event.
However, with the heaviest concentration of Porsche collections anywhere in the USA, a high proportion of American Porsche owners living within reach of the circuit and the corporate side of Rennsport requiring the dry and sunny Monterey climate, California was deemed to be a better location.
There’s little doubt that Rennsport Reunion V will outsell previous events, and this will satisfy US sales and marketing. I don’t keep up with new Porsche cars so not sure where it fits with model releases, but no doubt a new car will slot in somewhere. Meanwhile, many European enthusiasts will be asking if Rennsport is worth the effort. The faithful will journey to Monterey, but would the average UK or European enthusiast gain enough from a trip to California to justify the considerable expense?
September 25-27 does not tally with any half-term private or public school dates that I can see in the UK, so taking the kids away for a couple of weeks is unlikely to work. European holidays are not much different, so it looks like a grown-up deal only. This is probably no bad idea, as only the most Porsche-obsessed wife and kids would enjoy it for more than an hour or two.
Flights and Accommodation: Rennsport Reunion V
Flying to Monterey is best done direct into San Francisco, but Los Angeles often offers better prices, and then you have the PCH rent-a-car drive to enjoy. Hotels around Laguna are good, and the R Gruppe Porsche crowd normally stay at the Hyatt Resort on the outskirts of town: there will be a block booking going on there. However, there is a PGA tournament going on during the same weekend, and room rates are now sky high.
Having previously stayed all around the region, Pacific Grove is my choice of overnight halts: great prices and the sound of the ocean within earshot. If standing beer-in-hand with Porsche freaks in the car park late into the night is your choice of bedtime, then grab a room at the Hyatt. I will do the standing around of course, just without many beers in hand and with a short drive back to my digs.
If your visit is only going to be about hardcore track action featuring rare and historic Porsche racing machinery, remember that this is largely an exhibition event with rare cars coming out of collections. Do not forget all the real Porsche racing we enjoy here in Europe. Whether it’s the 917 in the hands of Gary Pearson at Silverstone Classic, 962s racing at the Spa Classic, or 935s and RSRs at Oldtimer GP or Classic Le Mans, there is great historic racing on this side of the pond. Don’t feel bad if you can’t make it to Rennsport.
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