In the world of high-performance automobiles there are two kinds of owners. First, there are those who buy an exclusive vehicle, only to hide it away, parked inside an enormous warehouse filled with the rest of their toys. Occasionally, those owners invite a friend or two inside to show off the pieces of automobile and maybe even take the classic out for a Sunday drive. Then there is the kind of sports car owner that just so happen to be a driver. These enthusiasts appreciate their vehicles in a way that the previous group only dreams of. There is nothing like fully stretching your super car’s legs or seeing just how deep into a turn your prized possession can go. For those drivers, there are these magical things called track days, a place where speed junkies can get full use out of their big boy toys.
Top Speed recently attended one of these Saturday afternoon visits to one of our local race tracks where we joined up with Henry Gilbert and got Hooked on Driving. The problem with most track days and even racing schools is the price. Not only is participating in one of these programs expensive, but the amount of actual seat time is rather limited. Most instruction programs will have you sitting in a class room for half of the day and then make you wait around amongst all the other pupils for your brief opportunity to make good on everything you learned earlier on in the day. Not at Hooked on Driving, they do conduct a brief chalk talk for first timers, which are always a good idea, but this track day program is geared towards giving clients the most seat time possible in a safe, responsible environment.
The Japanese automaker Toyota will bring a handful of their remarkable racing cars to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, July 3-5. The three day event is Europe’s answer to Monterey Historic Races that take place every year at Laguna Seca. The event allows racing enthusiasts to get an up close look at everything from classic competition cars to the racecars of tomorrow and allows these machines the opportunity to do what it is that they do best when they race against the clock and the hill.
The sombrero wearing import carmaker will be showing off a Lexus LF-A super car and a TF108, last year’s unrestricted F1 car complete with the German Timo Glock behind the controls. Making almost as much power as the F1 machine, Toyota will also bring a four wheel drive Celica GT4-X developed by English based tuners Fensport. The Celica makes 700 HP and can make consistent 10 second quarter mile passes all day long.
Rally enthusiasts will be happy to know that their will be a pair of classic Group B Celicas as well as the car that won them the Manufacturer’s Championship in 1999, a WRC Corolla. Alain Prost’s championship ice racing Toyota Auris will also be on hand, the car is built to look like the compact city car, except the racecar is built from carbon fiber and features a tuned 3.0 Liter V6. There will also be a couple of Can-Am and Le Mans racers on hand as well.
However, it will be Gazoo Racing’s V10-powered Lexus LF-A endurance racer, coming straight from competing in the Nurburgring 24, along with an IS-F that competed in the same race twice around the clock, that will be one of the main attractions on the hill climb course, making an appearance at the Earl of March’s annual gathering.
Thanks to the real driving simulator’s new video feature, we can bring you this short film about the lesser know of the Western European race twice round the clock. An automotive journalist once wrote a story about how there was a barbaric band of endurance racing fans who would paint their faces and hurl flaming objects onto the track during the race as added obstacles for those on track. That part of the story was most likely a stretch of the truth, but either way, what a crowd. So set some time aside to learn a little bit about the Nurburgring24.
Things didn’t turn out as well as Dr. Ulrich and the rest of Team Audi would have liked, but at least an R15 made it onto the podium. It was a sight to see all three Peugeot 908s regroup for the final laps of the 24 hour race, in order for that oh so important photo finish after so many years of trying. Things didn’t turn out exactly as we predicted:
Like you saw in the video, a Peugeot 908 took the overall win as well as the LMP1 trophy.
In the smaller LMP2 category Team Essex’s Porsche RS Spyder took home first place in its category.
Johny O’Connel won his 4th 24 Hour Title behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Corvette
Risi Competizione taking the GT2 win for the second year in a row, in the same Ferrari F-430.
No matter whether you are watching the race on television or are enjoying the aromas first hand, there is one essential tool that any race should have with them. Birdwatchers have their books from the Audubon Society to help them identify different species, well now the web site spotterguides.com is offering the same tool to enthusiasts free of charge. These fully color coded entrants list are very well designed and offer all the information you would need to know about a particular race team’s entrant. Best of all, Spotter Guides gives you a diagram of the race car which makes it all the more easier to identify when it is going around the track.
Spotter Guides is currently offering their wares for the American Le Mans Series, British Touring Car Championship, Formula 1 and of course the 24 Hours of Le Mans. So now when the announcer starts talking about an Audi R15 is being held up by a slower Porsche RS Spyder on the other side of the track, you will know exactly which cars they are talking about. Follow the link to download your own copies for this weekends race from Le Mans.
It is mid-June, the Nurburgring 24 has passed and the endurance race fans from around the world are gathering at the Circuit de la Sarthe in France. That is because this Saturday and Sunday, June 13 and 14 racing greats from around the world are competing in the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans. The race twice around the clock includes vehicles from the ALMS as well as the LMS racing series which are made up of two classes of GT, production car based racers, and two classes of prototypes, this year’s race will include 20 of the big boy LMP1 machines all fighting each other as well as lapped traffic for an overall win.
The big battles lately have been between Audi’s and Peugeot’s endurance racing teams at these events. The German automaker is competing in their all new R15 racecar and Peugeot is bringing back their 908, except this time it has Formula 1 derived KERS. Reports from the racetrack say that the Audi camp has gotten a hold of some unfound speed from their previous entrant, the R10. The four ringed automaker has an excellent track record at the epic endurance race, with an Audi engine winning every year since 2000. 2003 was the only year that an Audi R chassis didn’t take home the victory, that year Audi’s factory efforts lent their services to fellow members of the Volkswagen family, creating the Bentley Speed 8. Ever since 2006 Audi’s racing team has been taking advantage of the rules regarding diesel powered race cars, a trend that has caught on with Peugeot.
The Bentley Boys were a group of privileged young British racing enthusiasts from the 1920s who chose the English automaker as their drug of choice, along with the women and booze, to compete in motor racing throughout Europe. The boys had a notorious reputation for playing hard and driving even harder. These young chaps are responsible for establishing the brand as a luxurious sports car builder that could cater to the wealthy and the speed to compete with the best makes of its day.
So it is only fitting that the world’s most exclusive car show, Pebble Beach, will be honoring the marque’s 90th anniversary by setting aside a special part of the 18th fairway for Bentley racing models. Started by W.O. Bentley himself; the car company was founded with one purpose only, to “make a fast car, a good car, the best in its class.” Thanks to the Bentley Boys, that includes four consecutive wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1927 to 1930.
Last year the organizers of the famed Concours d’Elegance honored GM’s historic vehicles, with an impressive row of 16 cylinder Cadillacs. This year the theme will be British motoring, starring the flying B. In addition to the show’s dedicated racing class, there will also be two classes set aside for unique Vintage Bentleys, a class of Derby Bentleys, and several other models from various classes. Peter Hageman of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance promises that their “Bentley racing class promises to be the most impressive collection of Bentley team cars ever assembled.”
Things could get messy over on the set of the BBC’s hit television show Top Gear. As everything sits at the moment, the newly nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland is backing a bid to develop the land where the television show’s test track is located. Due to the fact that the English government is fiscally involved with both ventures, it will be interesting to see how they handle things. It is sad to say that soon, there could be no more stars in reasonably priced cars flying through Hammerhead or ridiculously priced machines at speed, hopefully the producers will figure out a way to resolve this.
We here at Top Speed know what it is like to have the fate of your test track in jeopardy. We too have a controlled facility for conducting vehicle evaluations; and although the Top Gear test track was built by Lotus engineers, ours was built by old fashioned construction workers from the era of Miami Vice. This track used to have Porsche 962s and Nissan GTP race cars climbing its painted curbs.
We are talking about back when races were held on city streets and spectators could enjoy the screams of turbocharged engines bouncing off the concrete canyon walls. Racers like Derek Bell, Geoff Brabham, Brian Redman and Miami native Raul Boesel all won at this track for almost a decade starting in the early 1980s. Today, the city is planning a beautification project that will take away our beloved test track, it is only a matter of time before we have to say goodbye, but after all it will be a government project, so at least we won’t have to worry about it happening anytime soon.
British racing fans have a new reason to watch Formula One this season, despite the low point that was reached when last year’s champion got caught up in an embarrassing scandal with the rest of the McLaren team, putting a cloud over the capital of motor racing. Well out with the new and in with the old, because Great Britain has a new favorite son. Jensen Button, the driver who couldn’t buy a win, and took a pay cut to ride in the Brawn GP chassis for 2009 has just set a record winning 6 of the first 7 races of the season after finishing first at the Turkish Grand Prix this past Sunday.
This is quite a turnaround for Button, who has driven Benettons, Renaults and quite a few Hondas. His previous highlights included finishing 3rd in the points behind the wheel of a BAR in 2004 before he had to wait until 2006 for his first win, also coming in a Honda this time at the Hungaroring. Until the start of this season, Jensen just wasn’t as fast as the rest of the Formula 1 field. So where did all this speed suddenly come from?
This last round of the World Touring Car Championship was filled with plenty of racing incidents. However, there was one that stood above the rest. Usually the safety car comes out to calm down the field and restore order to the race, except this time the car with the amber lights on top became part of the action. Check out around 2:20 and then again at 3:00 to see what we mean.
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