A reminder that we drive true race cars not just race cars

[b f cybronetics]

While many in NASA race cars Miata's, Honda's and such very few classes are in fact true race cars, 944 Spec is one such class. A friend of mine found these pictures of the 1984 Nelson Ledges 24 Hour winner, a Porsche 944 turbo. HMMM was it 1986 when a street version of that car hit the roads in the USA? Go to www.flickr.com and in the search box type in brut force cybernetics, you will be directed to another screen and the name will still be in the search box, above the box click on people and the search results will appear. Click on brut force cybernetics and you should see the pictures. ENJOY

 

Any one recognize the drivers, on the right is a very young Rick Knoop who now hangs out at NASA SoCal and drives a very loud Lister in TT

[laz]

Is it still April 1st? Miatas and Hondas aren't true race cars? You can't be serious.

[APartAbove]

1984 was Jim Busby, Rick Knoop and Freddy Baker. A 944 was also piloted to a win in 1982 by Fred Baker, Bob Nikel, Gary Witzenburg and Tony Assenza. I know mechanics from 1982 were Eric Steinel and Mike Greega and I have to believe they were both involved in 1984. There was an attempt to bring back the longest day at nelson ledges in 2008 with a 911 from Florida winning overall. In 2009 they went back to a 12 hour enduro because of a lack of entries from the year before.

[John Graber]

Yeah, Freddy is still around and runs a Porsche Audi dealership in Cleveland. He's active with the local PCA group and still has some race cars around. Eric Steinel runs Steinel Autoworks in Twinsburgh, OH and a does a lot of prep for the local p-guys. Mike Garriga sells 911 vintage parts for Stoddard Porsche and does race prep and engine builds for many of us local p-racers.

My understanding was this was the first 944 brought into the US. They sent a team of Germans with the car and worked together to keep it running. Many of the gaskets, seals etc. used today were developed on that car by those guys.

[APartAbove]

Garriga also told me at your party that they blew up a head in practice on one of the cars. Porsche flew an engineer and a head over from Germany while the head had a seat all to itself on the plane.

[944-Spec#94]

[Tim Comeau]

Nope. It ain't April 1st still.......

Hondas are economy commuters.

Miazduhs are TOTAL CHIC cars. The only car more chick-ish is a white convertible VW Rabbit!

[Shortcutsleeping]

While many in NASA race cars Miata's, Honda's and such very few classes are in fact true race cars, 944 Spec is one such class.

 

Rich Ceppos weighs in on racecars and cars-that-are-raced. I agree with him.

 

http://www.witchdoctormotorsports.com/ch43.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

Cheers!

 

 

Costas

cars and such...

[cbuzz]

I have to agree with Shortcut. The 944 is not a true racecar.

Now what the 944 is, is a car that was designed to race and still be street driven. The 2nd gen Mazda RX7 is also one of those cars. Both of these cars raced in IMSA and were built with that in mind. Both of these cars are still raced today successfully.

With the level of prep that we have in the 944Spec it is a low budget racer. It is very reliable and fun to drive.

In my opinion it is the perfect weekend racer. But not a real racecar.

 

See you next weekend.

[Bud944S2]

Joe,

 

I have some pics of Freddy Baker at Mid-Ohio 1990 Fire Hawk Series. Here they are

 

Bud

 

Well I tried I got this reply to the up load "Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached"

Not sure why