Winter Trial 2013 Porsche Preparations

Silverado – the Twinspark Racing Porsche 911 ST – returned from the body shop last week sporting only a single color 8080 silver and having its rear end corrected. Silver colors and cosmetic surgery are not uncommon on older ladies and Silverado is no exception. However, this paint job covered up a rush job by an incompetent colleague and the bodywork corrected an intimate encounter with a nameless Italian on a Dolomite mountain pass! The things these cars are up to when you’re not looking.

And there’s more work to follow, to get the rear end straight with the rest of the body. On the inside a new, correct 300 km speedo is going into the dash, as soon as we work out why suddenly you need to switch on the tripmaster to get a speed reading…

After our open exhaust race with the Hulk in September I started toying with the plan to replace Silverado’s muffler with two short tips which look like megaphones, but attach to the heat exchangers. Had those on the shelf for years. Co-driver Joost will no doubt freak out as he feels Silverado looks and sounds plenty wild already. It’s a Dutch thing: “act normal, that’s crazy enough”. I guess that’s something I never quite embraced. I spoke to Magnus Walker tonight: he’d totally get this !

Winter tyres have arrived: our secret weapon this year. Stiffer than standard sidewalls to deal with the load the car carries on this rally. Tip from my tyre supplier for the stable: Nokian. Check them out: they invented the winter tyre.

1 Comment

  • Joost| November 20, 2012 at 5:05 pm

    Leo, I will not, repeat NOT, complain about the look and feel of the exhaust pipes. However, the noise level is something I would love to discuss, preferably wilst the engine is not running. If it is running any normal conversation is impossible, unless we’re wearing the headset. What the hell, it’s only the rear end of the car, and that is a part that we love to show our fellow competitors. Looking forward to another great week in the snow. Let’s try to perform as we did in 2011 and never mind the noise.

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