Category: Porsche 911 Rally

And then its all over, but what a result: after several attempts our sympathetic Dutch racing driver Gijs van Lennep wins The Trial. With British co-driver-navigator Iain Tullie the team took top honors with a minute to spare after 6 days of intense rallying in their 356 C, owned by the State of Art collection. I spoke to Gijs several times before this event and his concerns that another technical problem would strand him in sight of the finish line were countered by rigorous preparation of his car. Engine and gearbox were rebuilt and Gijs felt the car ran wonderfully this time around.

The combination Van Lennep/Tullie was new to the event, but Iain had won the event several years ago with the late Malcolm Pickering, so he knew what he was up against. I asked him after the event how he had prepared [...]

We had all sorts of weather today on our Marathon track from Krems in Austria to Linz, via Budweiser in The Czech Republic. We drove 485 kms on farmer roads mostly, only partly cleared of snow. The wind was howling and the fresh overnight snow was blowing back onto the road after the morning snowplow runs. This meant we had the trickiest conditions of the week to contend with. One moment the road was clear and the next you wrestled with a snow bank.

This morning during our first regularity many cars ahead of us decided to put chains on to get up the first hill. We rather relied on the rear-weight bias of the 911 and let the 2.7 RS engine’s torque do its work. This strategy delivered us 20 minutes advantage and warm hands….

A Lancia decided to return in its tracks this morning as we were driving on a [...]

Today we drove from Slovenia to Austria and what a gorgeous day it was! Team Twinspark had an early start and we left at the head of the field from Maribor in Slovenia at 7.30 for an 11 hour day of fun in the snow. This early start proved to be a boon as the roads were covered with fresh snow, untouched by the heavy traffic of 100 rally cars. Driving in the middle of such a field you tend to get stuck in traffic when cars can’t reach the summit of a hill and roads are so narrow that overtaking is out of the question…

The sun was out and we could not have asked for nicer panoramic views, nor prettier landscape. The blue sky contrasted with the pure white snow, that we ploughed through for hours at serious speeds. We crossed the Slovenian-Austrian border around 9 AM and the main road was [...]