Blog – 1/31/2022 – Blue Ridge Region

Membership

Yesterday, the Club held its annual Planning Meeting. Next week, we will summarize the results.

Hogan’s Corner

When you can’t go out and play in your 911 with summer tires, go to the garage and pretend you are at VIR.

A little History

Racing

Who Won The 24 Hours of Daytona?

Well, I don’t know! I recorded the races and watched the races about mid afternoon yesterday. Unfortunately, I discovered that I failed to record the last 2 hours. Our friend, Rich Wiles, commented to me about the awesome finish! I hope you saw it. Here are the sports car class winners. A good day for Porsche!

GTD Pro

Class winner: Pfaff Motorsports Porsche — Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet, Felipe Nasr

Runner-up: Risi Competizione Ferrari — Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Daniel Serra, Davide Rigon

Third place: KCMG Porsche — Laurens Vanthoor, Patrick Pilet, Dennis Olsen, Alexandre Imperatori

What they said: “These last two hours have been the most stressful of my life,” said Mathieu Jaminet, who held off a late charge, and some contact, from the KCMG Porsche. “We had a great fight. We made it to the end, even though we had some contact in that last chicane. It was a crazy race all the way to the end, and that’s what people want to see.”

GTD

Class winner: Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 — Ryan Hardwick, Zacharie Robichon, Jan Heylen, Richard Lietz

Runner-up: Magnus Racing Aston Martin — John Potter, Andy Lally, Spencer Pumpelly, Jonathan Adam

Third place: Gilbert Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes — Mike Skeen, James Davison, Stevan McAleer, Scott Andrews

What they said: “The traffic, as far as the GT field, was quite fun,” said Ryan Hardwick. “It was awesome to have 35 GT cars. For us, some of the more challenging things were the LMP3 cars, because, with some drivers in them their lap times are similar to ours.”

IMSA Acquires HSR

IMSA has purchased the Historic Sportscar Racing series. HSR’s schedule for 2022 remains unchanged, and in the future, IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship calendar is expected to include a few dates with HSR serving as one of the support series where vintage prototypes, GTs, and sedans from the past help IMSA to celebrate its history with its modern sports car fans.

I have raced in HSR and really enjoyed the opportunity to be on the track with a variety of beautiful, historic cars in an environment where everyone respects one another and their automobiles. I think this will broaden the appeal of this type of racing.

Blast from the Past

Graham Hill warming up!

Porsche and BMW

Porsche verses BMW for the final podium position at Sebring.

Turn up the volume. Click Here

1991 Race between Gareth Rees, Allan McNish and Ayrton Senna

It’s been done many times since, but this is the first time we remember seeing a Formula One car, a sports car and a standard road car being demonstrated on the same circuit.It was filmed in 1991 at the Estoril Grand Prix circuit, with Autosport Young Racing Driver of the Year Gareth Rees in a Honda Concerto, Allan McNish in a Porsche 911 Turbo and, of course, Ayrton Senna in a period McLaren Formula One car. You would expect the F1 racer to be quickest, but perhaps not by quite such a margin!

Click Here