This edition of Quentin Spurring’s fabulous series covers the 1970s in his well-known and valuable decade-by-decade history of the Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race. The decade from 1970 to 1979, certainly saw some of the most memorable race cars in recent times take to the track. This ten-year period commenced with Porsche’s first victory in the French race (1970), and … [Read more...]
My first race as a crewman – Sebring 1978
In the early to mid-1970’s I had been working part time (race weekends) as an IMSA tech inspector at some of the races, mainly the ones that I could fit into my work schedule of my day job as an engineer. At some point, I had decided that eventually I wanted to race myself, but I realised that I needed to work first with some team to learn what was required to actually go … [Read more...]
Porsche 935/78 Moby Dick – A Legend in its own Time
Group 5 rules offered manufacturers a great deal of freedom to modify their cars in the Silhouette class. At Porsche, Norbert Singer pushed the rules to the limit, and gave us the Porsche 935/78 Moby Dick, truly a legend in its own time. Introduction In the 1970s, Porsche had several things going for it on the motorsport stage. Firstly, they had built up a wealth of … [Read more...]
The Old Warhorse
This is a story of the incredible career of Porsche 935 009 00030, one of the most amazing race cars ever, or as someone once said, the car of a thousand faces. Also known as the ‘Old Warhorse’, Porsche 935 009 00030 is one of the most storied cars ever to race. It has a long and distinguished history, racing in IMSA and World Championship events from 1979-1987. It has won some … [Read more...]
Rolf Stommelen – a driver for all circumstances
Rolf Stommelen was one of Germany’s leading racing drivers for over a decade and if as the title (above) of his biography implies, he could drive anything anywhere, this was largely true. Although his Formula 1 career with mediocre teams was patchy, in production cars he was reliably top class. But it was with Porsches that Stommelen was at his best, from amateur wins in his … [Read more...]
