Peugeot 806 in the 1995 Spa 24h race?
Peugeot 806 in the 1995 Spa 24h race?
Nuff said, outclassed by themselves?
1971 Spa 24 hours Mercedes AMG 300 SEL 6.8. 2nd place against cars weighing much much more. It was thirsty, eat tires, but soldiered on and on. Great errr 'giant killing' run :)
1950 Sebring 6-hour "The Sam Collier Memorial Trophy Grand Prix of Endurance" was won with a Crosley Hotshot. An index-of-performance scoring system helped.
We've all probably seen it by now, but who could forget the racing video of two Porsche dicing it up when a Split Window VW Bus just slips past both of them as easy as can be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKV9PVHw2xA
My '97 Impreza 1.8 in STS many moons ago.
Similar to the original post, in 1963 a Pontiac Tempest 421 Super Duty, driven by Paul Goldsmith, won the 250 mile Challenge race at Daytona. It lapped a Ferrari 250 GTO five times, and lapped the second place car (AJ Foyt in a Corvette) once. http://bangshift.com/bangshiftapex/thundering-bastard-the-day-a-super-duty-pontiac-tempest-destroyed-the-worlds-best-sports-cars/ After the race, the car was reportedly bought by Mercedes-Benz, and has never been seen again.
Another good story was when two NASCAR race cars went to Lemans in 1976. http://www.motortrend.com/classic/features/c12_0606_nascar_goes_to_le_mans/ They didn't do very well (one went out on the first lap, the other lasted 11 hours) but they made a big impression.
stuart in mn wrote: Another good story was when two NASCAR race cars went to Lemans in 1976. http://www.motortrend.com/classic/features/c12_0606_nascar_goes_to_le_mans/ They didn't do very well (one went out on the first lap, the other lasted 11 hours) but they made a big impression.
Wow, I had never heard of that before.
drdisque wrote: In 1995 the Flis brothers showed up at the 24 Hours of Daytona with a brand spanking new Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, which was basically an SCCA World Challenge car. Entered in GTS3 class it was the only 4 cylinder, up against factory supported Porsches and M3's. The car managed a 24th place finish overall though as it managed to finish and reliability that year was awful. The car was a real honest-to-goodness DSM with a real 4G63 sitting up front. The car reappeared in 1998 when it could run in the lower spec GTS3 class.
(pictures from '98/'99, can't find a pic from '95) The Flis brothers would eventually give up on the Eclipse and buy a Camaro in 2000, morphing into Spirit of Daytona racing, which somewhat sucessfully ran Daytona Prototypes through the first decade of the 2000's.
Some backstory on that Eclipse: It was built in a two-car garage--like a two-car garage attached to a normal suburban home. In fact, we did an article on the car. I know a guy who was there during those cold nights--well, cold for Florida.
That issue is long out of stock and I can't put my hands on the digital file, but we're going to scan the story and see if we can post in the Articles section of our site.
Let's see how it comes out.
Some reading about that Eclipse--that car's original Daytona incarnation.
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/challenging-rolex-24-hours/
I'm no DSM expert, but those appear to be different generations of Eclipse. Is it just a reskin?
Can't forget Briggs Cunningham taking two Cadillac's to LeMans in 1950. One was a stock body. The other, known as "LeMonstre", was designed by Grumman engineers. I think they finished 10th and 11th overall.
Adrian_Thompson wrote:stuart in mn wrote: Another good story was when two NASCAR race cars went to Lemans in 1976. http://www.motortrend.com/classic/features/c12_0606_nascar_goes_to_le_mans/ They didn't do very well (one went out on the first lap, the other lasted 11 hours) but they made a big impression.Wow, I had never heard of that before.
The article notes that the program began with entries in that year's Daytona 24hr, the first year I attended. Seeing those cars running against an IMSA field was pretty cool. Considering Europe's appreciation for big, thundering V8's it's not hard to imagine they made a lasting impression on the fans.
Will wrote: I'm no DSM expert, but those appear to be different generations of Eclipse. Is it just a reskin?
I once knew that. I honestly don't remember if it was a reskin or a different tub. Obviously the car in the story is the first one that they did.
TeamEvil wrote: I remember seeing Falcon Sprints racing against Cobras and the like. I guess when the car meets the class requirements, it's in ! Honestly, kind of cool. Very cool, honestly.
I seem to recall that at Olympus in 1986 (the last time Group B ever ran in international rallies) there was a CRX in Group B. Because Group B was for two seater cars and a CRX has two seats...
Knurled wrote:TeamEvil wrote: I remember seeing Falcon Sprints racing against Cobras and the like. I guess when the car meets the class requirements, it's in ! Honestly, kind of cool. Very cool, honestly.I seem to recall that at Olympus in 1986 (the last time Group B ever ran in international rallies) there was a CRX in Group B. Because Group B was for two seater cars and a CRX has two seats...
Wow, never knew that. Group B wasnt' specificaly for 2 seaters, it was a homologation glass that required only 200 examples to be built. But sure enough Ray Hocker was entered in a CRX as the only entry in class B11. B12 was the class where the Quattro sports, Delta S4's, 205T16's etc were entered.
stuart in mn wrote: Another good story was when two NASCAR race cars went to Lemans in 1976. They didn't do very well but they made a big impression.
nudge nudge
David S. Wallens wrote:Will wrote: I'm no DSM expert, but those appear to be different generations of Eclipse. Is it just a reskin?I once knew that. I honestly don't remember if it was a reskin or a different tub. Obviously the car in the story is the first one that they did.
Dave and Will, the first car was built up by the brothers (and family and friends), the second car was an ex-Archer Brothers Firehawk car. The 1995 car started dead last (75th, max entries for the field) and finished 24th or so as mentioned, having never passed a single car on track. The 1998 car was all wheel drive and failed 5th gear 3 times. While the gearbox was being fixed/replaced it rained, giving up the chance to really make up some ground.
I was on the team for both races. We 'practiced' not too far from JG's current house.
The Flis family are great people. I have known them for many years.
If you look at the boxscore (?) of a Group B rally, there are often weird, outclassed cars, including Eastern Block stuff, N/A stuff, etc. I guess it's possible that these people wanted to build a rally car, but ran afoul of the Group A rules in some way they thought was unavoidable, and ended up in Group B. I don't know, though.
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