The intrepid WEVO Porsche team has reached the tip of South America in the 2013 Great South America Challenge.
The month-long rally drew to a close in Ushuaia, with landing-craft transport across the Straits of Magellan, from Patagonia to the southernmost tip of this epic continent. High winds and dirt roads kept the teams honest in Argentina, but WEVO’s Hayden Burvill reports the rally as much tamer than previous marathon events including Peking to Paris, and London to Cape Town.
“Not much to report, no challenge for Lola, me or Steven. Great scenery and a lovely introduction to Argentina, that will lead to future visits, hopefully on better rallies! The event is now officially finished: we finished 1st in class, 2nd overall. Good fun being with my two drivers thsi time out and great to be 54deg South.”
Not sure what marathon is coming up next. Porsche friend Alastair Caldwell is just back from a month-long thrash through India in his Pagoda Mercedes and his in-house mechanic has finished refurbing a classic Rolls Royce after its last rally event.
Tuthill Porsche is working on cars for the next Peking-Paris and the forthcoming London-Sydney, which should both be interesting. I’m looking forward to more desert miles to blog about.
Porsche has upgraded the 997 GT3R ahead of the 2013 season. We’ve already covered some of this in our earlier Falken Porsche N24 RSR blog, but it’s useful to look at Porsche factory pictures of the R.
The most obvious changes are to the aero package. Front bumper, wings, sill trims and underbody diffuser have all been optimised to produce additional downforce. The rear wing has been widened to full body width.
Longer wheelbase, increased track – 50mm wider front and rear – and 12-inch front wheels combined with improved aero performance allow higher cornering speeds.The 4.0-litre flat six produces 500 hp, sent to the rear via a 6-speed sequential dog ‘box with air shift and steering paddles. This is fast and smooth, and should be reliable.
Porsche offers a conversion kit for older GT3Rs at €45,500 plus tax. I wonder how many Euros that is per Nurburgring tenth of a second.
Our friends at Falken Tyres have confirmed their driver lineup for the 2013 Nurburgring 24-Hour. The team will also run their Porsche 997 GT3 RSR at a number of VLN events this season.
Sebastian Asch, Peter Dumbreck, Wolf Henzler and Martin Ragginger are all confirmed as Falken Porsche drivers for the year, with the clear aim of a top ten finish in the 24 Hour event. The Porsche 997 GT3 RSR has also received a few upgrades ahead of its first outing: a VLN test on the 16th of March.
Falken Motorsports’ experienced team principal, Sven Schnabl, has upgraded the teams’ RSR with a new aero package of wider wings, new splitter and double canards up front, with a larger rear wing to increase downforce. Cooling vents around both front and rear arches are bigger, and the car can now run 12-inch front wheel rims, half an inch wider than last year. The 997 also now runs four headlamps.
Falken’s Japanese engineers have developed a range of new tyres for this season, which the drivers are keen to explore. “After a really exciting 2012 season, we are hungry for more in 2013,” says former Porsche Junior, Martin Ragginger. “We will give it everything we’ve got for the fans and aim for a top ten place in the 24-Hour Race.”
Falken’s season looks busy, with a race weekend every month bar September:
16.03.2013 VLN Set Up Day
23.03.2013 ADAC Westfalenfahrt
27.04.2013 ADAC ACAS H&R-Cup
17-20.05.13 ADAC ZURICH 24h-Rennen Nürburgring
22.06.2013 Adenauer ADAC Simfy Trophy
20.07.2013 ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen
24.08.2013 ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen
12.10.2013 ROWE DMV 250-Meilen-Rennen
Chances are we’ll get to at least one of these events: I rarely miss a Nurburgring 24-Hour and am overdue a weekend in the woods. Are you heading out to one or more VLN rounds? Keep in touch if yes – could do with some keen amateur photographers on my side.
Day 17 of the WEVO Porsche 356 South America rally and the boys are driving from Cusco to Arequipa: around 600 kilometres.
Thanks to Yellowbrick GPS technology carried on board the cars, you can track their progress on the rally home page under ‘results‘. Here are a few screen shots demonstrating what is possible.
Time now in Cusco is 08:22, and here is their current position. Untick everything except the Class C box to see the cars in their group.
This is a wider view of the route so far plotted by GPS: it likes to use a straight line to minimise data points stored. Bit of a pain when map data is overlaid but not much choice here.
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.
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