jason
New member
Just thought i'd give you all a little update on my current road trip....
Currently in Zell Am See in Austria and visited Porsche Design Studios today, the porsche family home and drove the glockenswhatever 25km mountain pass at 13000feet and in snow....rather quickly! A good day.
Chris (my mate from Seattle who i bought the 73rsr off) landed at Birmingham last Friday morning after a 24hr time spanned flight. Picked him up, dropped his bags off and drove straight to Castle Donnington for the last ever track day there before the circuit changes. Incredibly it was 140 quid and only 20 cars turned up!! beautiful sunshine and warm day Chris's first experience of driving in the UK was driving my RS around CD! The cool thing was we were also the last car to go through the chequered flag as an era comes to an end.
Off to dover for 8am sailing on saturday and we head straight to the ring....a few brilliant laps following germans who knew their lines VERY well and my whole perspective of this track completely changed. Having hated it in the GT3 its awesome! The ring was empty too...whats going on??
Sunday however was one of those days you will never ever forget.
The tour was heading south from Koblenz and along the way we were only about 10 miles from Destree Motorsports. I'd organised to call in and meet Wolfgang who was the original owner of my 964RSR.
When we got there the Supercup was just starting so his wife came to meet us and took me and Chris up to their living room...we said hello, sat down with wolfgang and his wife got coffee and cakes. First thing he said was 'I won this race' which of course he did, winning the 91 championship by some distance from some top drivers.
Wolfgang came across as quite a shy person and said his english was not so good (which all germans say and basically means he does not know molecular science phrases but everything else!) But as we chatted and watched the race he opened up. i've done a lot of research on him, his cars, his career over 30 years so wanted to know some personal things and why they happened....pretty sure this got him quite excited and he started talking fluently about cars, racing stories and stopped watching the race.
He said he only had a few pics of my car and showed us some of his current 997RSR and his 996RSR - the famous 'sexbomb' car in germany.
But as we talked he kept dissapearing and bringing more photos. Then he started bringing in binders. They had hundreds of pics of cars he had raced showing them on track at lots of places - 2.7RS, 2.8RSRs, 935s, 917s, 964 cup etc etc and talked about them like they were just any other car and he knows where most of them still are! In one of the binders were a few pics of my car...but in race graphics and racing. I said i thought my car was never raced and he just laughed and said no it was raced for 3 years in many races. Wow i thought thats interesting pitty he only has a couple of pics.
A few more random room departures and a few more binders and we were just in our element talking about cars and racing.
Then
in one of the binders....
is a whole stack of photos of my car in different races, different graphics and different years!!! 30+ pictures, maybe more!
I get Chris to start photographing the pictures and Wolfgang says 'just take them'. I say no i can't do that they are your pictures and so say just give me a couple you don't want. In the end we agree i'll take all the pictures scan them and post them back to him. I'm sitting here with a huge pile of photos!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I now know why my car does not have original steel wings. It did have and was raced as such but wolfgang thought the widebody was losing him straightline speed. So he had it dismantled and the wings cut back (the pics of this being done are on file). Then the car raced with a narrower body...which he said in hindsight was a big mistake as it lost him cornering downforce. I guess when it was sold the new owner reverted it back to widebody with dp wings.
We then go into his garage and look at his 997RSR, talk about his races, how he manages to run as a privateer, his 3rd in the Ring 24hrs and the hundreds of parts from decades that he has all over his garage. He lets me sit in the car and tells me how it works and says 'jason, next time I am racing at the Ring (he only races there now and about 12 races a year all endurance) the races are on the Saturday and Sunday. If you come over on the Friday I will put an extra seat in the RSR and take you around.'
To be taken around the ring by someone who knows it would be pretty special. But Wolfgang has been endurance testing the Panamera there for Porsche, has done 6-7,000 laps of the track and laps it in his RSR at 7 min 06 secs !!!! OMG
3 hours after arriving we said our goodbyes and headed off.
That was 2 days ago......I'm still grinning like a cheshire cat!
Will post a few pics when I find the memory stick i've copied some onto...until then heres a couple from today
Currently in Zell Am See in Austria and visited Porsche Design Studios today, the porsche family home and drove the glockenswhatever 25km mountain pass at 13000feet and in snow....rather quickly! A good day.
Chris (my mate from Seattle who i bought the 73rsr off) landed at Birmingham last Friday morning after a 24hr time spanned flight. Picked him up, dropped his bags off and drove straight to Castle Donnington for the last ever track day there before the circuit changes. Incredibly it was 140 quid and only 20 cars turned up!! beautiful sunshine and warm day Chris's first experience of driving in the UK was driving my RS around CD! The cool thing was we were also the last car to go through the chequered flag as an era comes to an end.
Off to dover for 8am sailing on saturday and we head straight to the ring....a few brilliant laps following germans who knew their lines VERY well and my whole perspective of this track completely changed. Having hated it in the GT3 its awesome! The ring was empty too...whats going on??
Sunday however was one of those days you will never ever forget.
The tour was heading south from Koblenz and along the way we were only about 10 miles from Destree Motorsports. I'd organised to call in and meet Wolfgang who was the original owner of my 964RSR.
When we got there the Supercup was just starting so his wife came to meet us and took me and Chris up to their living room...we said hello, sat down with wolfgang and his wife got coffee and cakes. First thing he said was 'I won this race' which of course he did, winning the 91 championship by some distance from some top drivers.
Wolfgang came across as quite a shy person and said his english was not so good (which all germans say and basically means he does not know molecular science phrases but everything else!) But as we chatted and watched the race he opened up. i've done a lot of research on him, his cars, his career over 30 years so wanted to know some personal things and why they happened....pretty sure this got him quite excited and he started talking fluently about cars, racing stories and stopped watching the race.
He said he only had a few pics of my car and showed us some of his current 997RSR and his 996RSR - the famous 'sexbomb' car in germany.
But as we talked he kept dissapearing and bringing more photos. Then he started bringing in binders. They had hundreds of pics of cars he had raced showing them on track at lots of places - 2.7RS, 2.8RSRs, 935s, 917s, 964 cup etc etc and talked about them like they were just any other car and he knows where most of them still are! In one of the binders were a few pics of my car...but in race graphics and racing. I said i thought my car was never raced and he just laughed and said no it was raced for 3 years in many races. Wow i thought thats interesting pitty he only has a couple of pics.
A few more random room departures and a few more binders and we were just in our element talking about cars and racing.
Then
in one of the binders....
is a whole stack of photos of my car in different races, different graphics and different years!!! 30+ pictures, maybe more!
I get Chris to start photographing the pictures and Wolfgang says 'just take them'. I say no i can't do that they are your pictures and so say just give me a couple you don't want. In the end we agree i'll take all the pictures scan them and post them back to him. I'm sitting here with a huge pile of photos!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I now know why my car does not have original steel wings. It did have and was raced as such but wolfgang thought the widebody was losing him straightline speed. So he had it dismantled and the wings cut back (the pics of this being done are on file). Then the car raced with a narrower body...which he said in hindsight was a big mistake as it lost him cornering downforce. I guess when it was sold the new owner reverted it back to widebody with dp wings.
We then go into his garage and look at his 997RSR, talk about his races, how he manages to run as a privateer, his 3rd in the Ring 24hrs and the hundreds of parts from decades that he has all over his garage. He lets me sit in the car and tells me how it works and says 'jason, next time I am racing at the Ring (he only races there now and about 12 races a year all endurance) the races are on the Saturday and Sunday. If you come over on the Friday I will put an extra seat in the RSR and take you around.'
To be taken around the ring by someone who knows it would be pretty special. But Wolfgang has been endurance testing the Panamera there for Porsche, has done 6-7,000 laps of the track and laps it in his RSR at 7 min 06 secs !!!! OMG
3 hours after arriving we said our goodbyes and headed off.
That was 2 days ago......I'm still grinning like a cheshire cat!
Will post a few pics when I find the memory stick i've copied some onto...until then heres a couple from today
