Flat-out racing on ice and snow returns to Zell am See in Austria this month, when the inaugural GP Ice Race is run on January 19th and 20th. A contemporary re-imagining of the spectacular ice races held in the region from 1937 to 1974, the event is the brainchild of Vinzenz Greger and Ferdinand Porsche, great-grandson of Dr Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951).
“For more than forty years, spectacular car races on ice as well as skijoring (skiers towed behind cars) fascinated the people at Zell am See,” notes Ferdinand Porsche. “Even before World War I, there was an ice race for motorbikes on the lake. During the 1950s, the event evolved into what we today think about, when we hear about skijoring.
“The first skijoring competition in remembrance of my great-grandfather Dr. Ferdinand Porsche took place on 10 February 1952. Four years later, the event was renamed “In memoriam Prof. Dr. h.c. Ferdinand Porsche”, now featuring ice races for motorbikes and cars. The event was not won by a Porsche – but by a DKW. In a couple of weeks, we will bring back this legendary event from obscurity, newly interpreted as “GP Ice Race”.”
Porsche celebrities from far and wide will attend the event, but, in keeping with the original ice racing ethos, there is no special treatment for the big names. “There are no VIP tickets for paddocks and boxes only for privileged visitors,” said Ice Race ambassador and motorsport legend, Hans-Joachim Stuck. “At our event, the ticket is also really close to the action and the stars.”
Other big names from racing and rallying include Walter Rörhl, Richard Lietz, Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas, Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Jochi Kleint. The two-day program features show rides of celebrity riders, traditional skijoring, where skiers are pulled across the snow by racing cars, the competition of current racing and rally vehicles and demo rides of historic motorsport cars such as Otto Mathé’s original Furhmann-engined “Fetzenflieger”, now owned by the Hamburg Automobile Museum PROTOTYP.
Automobile Museum PROTOTYP founder and director, Oliver Schmidt, will be piloting the Fetzenflieger on the demanding track and is already looking forward to the race: “Otto Mathé won this event four times with his famous monoposto in the 1950s, so of course expectations are high! Whether I can equal the performance of the true “Ice King” will be seen at the show rides on Saturday and Sunday afternoon but either way it will be a lot of fun for everyone!”
Zell am See: GP Ice Race Event Schedule
Saturday January 19 2019
11:00 AM Opening event area
12:00 AM Start of the event
1:00 PM GP Ice Karting, Qualification & Day final runs
4:00 PM Show races & specials
4:30 PM Qualification & Day final runs
8:20 PM Show races & specials
8:50 PM GP Charity Ice Karting, Qualification & Day final runs
10:00PM Pit Lane Night
Sunday January 20 2019
7:30 AM Opening event area
8:30 AM GP Charity Ice Karting, Qualification & Day final runs
15:10 PM Show races & specials
15:40 PM Day final runs, Final runs & Award ceremony
Porsche has unveiled its new Cayman GT4 Clubsport, which features a small amount of natural fibre bodywork. The move is in tune with Stuttgart’s aims to increase the use of sustainable, renewable materials following a 2015 Sustainability Report which showed Porsche had increased its use of fossil fuels and electrical power through the year.
Porsche says that 718 Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport is the first ever production race car to feature body parts made of natural-fibre composite material. Both doors and the rear wing are made of an organic fibre mix, sourced primarily from agricultural by-products such as flax or hemp fibres and feature similar properties to carbon fibre in terms of weight and stiffness.
Three panels on a car doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a start. The technology obviously exists to do more, as demonstrated by Swiss firm BComp, whose partnership with the Electric GT sustainable racing project was announced back in 2017.
Bcomp’s proprietary material is a high-performance, cost-efficient product that can replace or reinforce carbon fibre and other engineering materials. It is said to cut up to 40% weight with no change in performance. The natural fibre composite bodywork developed by Bcomp can also be embedded with LED lighting to act as an information screen while the cars go around the circuit.
Bcomp’s powerRib and ampliTex reinforcement fabrics have been used throughout the sports and leisure markets, in products such as skis, snowboards, surfboards, canoes and guitars. Bcomp has also collaborated with the European Space Agency ESA on the development of lightweight space applications.
Porsche Cayman GT4 Trackday model not available in the UK
The Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport comes in two versions ex-works: the Trackday model and the Competition variant for national and international motor racing. The Trackday edition is not available in the UK.
Costing £130,000 (plus 20% UK VAT), the 718 Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport Competition model weighs 1,320 kilograms and is powered by a 3.8-litre flat six producing 425 bhp. This is 40 bhp more than the previous model, but it didn’t stop Porsche selling 421 examples of that one over the last three years.
The transmission is a six-speed PDK with mechanical rear diff lock. Suspension is from the GT3 Cup and the bias-adjustable brakes are steel discs all round measuring 380mm in diameter. Air jacks and a fire extinguisher system are fitted as standard. The car comes with a 115-litre fuel tank for endurance events and lengthy Nurburgring sessions.
Porsche Motorsport recently ran a one-make event for Cayman GT4 Clubsport models at the 2018 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Eight invitation-only places were handed out to various celebrity drivers and Porsche customers to compete on the 12.4-mile hillclimb course up the side of America’s 53rd tallest mountain.
First run more than 100 years ago in 1916 as the Penrose Trophy, Pikes Peak is one of motorsport’s best-known time trial events. The 4,700-ft ascent with 156 turns was a well-kept secret amongst US racers until 1984, when the first European teams arrived. Michèle Mouton with the Audi Quattro blitzed the all-gravel course, setting a new record in 1985.
The promotional value of Mouton’s Quattro on full boost in the Rockies surrounded by endless blue sky was not lost on Audi’s World Rally Championship competitors. Peugeot soon entered the contest and the French brought unprecedented attention to the hillclimb in 1989 with the release of ‘Climb Dance’: a film by Jean-Louis Morey following Ari Vatanen’s attempt on the course in 1988.
Manufacturers have been pilgrims ever since, using the event as a marketing metaphor for man and machine overcoming nature’s most extreme obstacles. The succulent irony here is that the mountain takes its name from explorer, Zebulon Pike, who failed to make the summit and the whole course was tarmac’d in 2011. But of course the hillclimb is an amazing event and no small achievement to take part.
The eight entrants of the 2018 GT4 trophy race included legendary mentalist, Travis Pastrana (above), who I worked with as part of the Race4Change effort on the 2011 Safari Classic Rally. Driving a Porsche for half the Safari, co-driven by Fabrizia Pons (who had co-driven Michèle at Pikes Peak), Travis was excellent fun and pretty quick, too: complaining that he needed a sixth gear on the long flat-out straights. The car soaked up some serious punishment over the three days that Travis was driving and was somewhat reluctant to go much further at speed when Pastrana jumped out after three days.
Other drivers in the Cayman group included IMSA Porsche regulars, Mike Skeen and Till Bechtolscheimer, former baseball player turned Porsche dealer principal, CJ Wilson, and Indycar driver, JR Hildebrand. Eight-time Pikes Peak class winner and Porsche fanatic, Jeff Zwart, was brought in as a consultant to advise the drivers on what not to do, but Pikes Peak left its mark on Skeen and gentleman driver, Nick Kwan, both of whom experienced unplanned high-speed contact with the scenery through the weekend.
To cover the event and derive some cool content, Porsche Motorsport North America partnered with Porsche Design, Yokohama and Mobil 1. Mobil 1’s Youtube channel, The Grid, recently released a nice video feature on the event – watch it below. Click through to Mobil 1 The Grid on Youtube to subscribe to this Porsche-friendly channel. The pics in this piece are from the Yokohama Tyres Facebook page. All good stuff.
RM Sotheby’s has announced that the only works Paris-Dakar Porsche 959 rally car in private hands will be offered for sale in its Porsche 70th Anniversary Sale at the Porsche Experience Centre Atlanta on October 27th. Driven by René Metge in the 1985 Paris-Dakar Rally, the car failed to finish, but that’s another story.
I have spent a little bit of time with this car over the years, as it was previously maintained by Tuthill Porsche and supported by the team on appearances including the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
I first met the 959 on an early visit to the Wardington workshops in 2004. My 911 SC Cabriolet had been in with Francis for a service and I had a nose around the barns when I came back to collect it that evening with two year-old (now 16 year-old) Ciara in tow. As a Porsche rally freak, it blew my mind to see the Dakar 959 sitting in a corner under the cover. How crazy to think my humble SC was being worked on under the same roof: that was a pretty cool thing.
Paris-Dakar Porsche 959 up close
The Paris-Dakar Porsche 959 was a constant presence through my early years of working with Tuthills. I never used it in a magazine feature, but Chris Harris drove this car back-to-back with a roadgoing 959 for GT Porsche magazine in September 2006. The original Paris-Dakar car featured a lightweight 3.2-litre engine with a close ratio gearbox versus the road car’s 2.85-litre twin-turbo flat six, but the 959 as tested by Harris was running a magnesium-cased 3.5-litre engine producing 350bhp, to safeguard the 959’s original engine. Despite this, Chris was effusive in his praise for the 959 Dakar’s high drama.
“The car is brutally noisy. In fact, it sounds so intense that the sensation of speed is heightened because you can’t believe that such a racket could ever be produced unless the sound barrier was imminent. It chomps through the close ratios faster than I dare use the uprated 915 gearbox and like any rally car on the road, it feels completely detached because so much of its suspension performance isn’t being used.
“It rides quite beautifully – better than the road car – steers like you’d expect given that it isn’t hampered by hydraulic assistance and the brake pedal takes a decent prod to have any effect. Driving through rural Oxfordshire, its remarkable to think that this car was capable of 140mph over boulder-strewn African tracks.”
No doubt this is a wonderful 911: a real piece of history that would certainly spice up any serious air-cooled Porsche collection. I’m intrigued to see where the bidding ends up and who it passes to.
We have finally arrived in the week of Le Mans Classic 2018, where my friends at Tuthill Porsche are supporting five 911s in the 2.0L Cup as part of the Porsche 70th anniversary celebrations. For those who cannot make it in person, the organisers have just announced unprecedented online coverage of this remarkable event.
Le Mans Classic will feature its biggest ever live and free online streaming during July 7 and 8, when sixteen cameras will broadcast for sixteen hours, covering twelve races which can be followed live at www.lemansclassic.com. The cameras wil share the action from the entire 13.6km circuit, and the broadcast is managed by AMP Visual TV: the organisation behind coverage of the Le Mans 24 Hours for the last thirteen years.
Live coverage of Classic Le Mans 2016 attracted more than 300,000 online spectators worldwide, and this should easily be eclipsed in 2018. Bruce Jones, Jim Roller and Martin Haven, will provide the English language commentary.
I don’t yet know when the coverage starts or how long it lasts daily, but the race schedule at the circuit for the two days is as follows – it is reasonable to assume that the cameras will not be showing some of the night sessions:
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