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Posted
Oct 09 2009, 03:30 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 3 comment(s)
Ok, let's pick up the story of Klaus Ludwig and see what he's been up to from 1984 until present. At the end of Part1 , his fortunes were starting to flat line just a little bit. Klaus had chosen to race for Zakspeed Ford racing team instead of Porsche a few years previously, and it was becoming apparent that this perhaps was not the best long term decision for a 1980s sports car driver. As the Group C and IMSA GTP eras entered their third year in '84, Porsche was the sports car to have...
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Posted
Oct 02 2009, 06:21 AM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 10 comment(s)
In part 2 of our McLaren F1 GTR Retrospective, we are going to look at the 1996 season. McLaren Cars made a number of improvements for the 1996 season with revised aerodynamics, cooling and fuel system. Many components were re-engineered. As I explained at the beginning of the month , a new test car, Chassis ‘10R’ was completed and used to announce the 1996 season, although ironically the car still carried some 1995 aerodynamics. We needed a livery which jumped out of the page and also...
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Posted
Oct 01 2009, 04:40 PM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 13 comment(s)
As our BMW Feature Month comes to an end, I have been asked to give my personal reflections on the golden years of the McLaren F1 GTR. Grab yourself a coffee….it’s a long one! With the aid of Rod's images from his recent visit to Rahal Letterman and John Brooks extensive collection, I'll attempt to cover the two seasons in which the short-tail GTR changed the face of GT racing. It may not have been part of the original McLaren F1 project, but the story of the McLaren F1 GTR was...
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Posted
Sep 11 2009, 11:38 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 11 comment(s)
Around the office at EA, the Speedhunters audience is always referred to as "the hardcore" ... That is, you guys are so much more than casual automotive fans; you eat, sleep and breath this stuff... But among automotive enthusiasts there are the hardcore and then there are the REAL hardcore . People whose automotive knowledge reaches encyclopedic depths in whatever area they've chosen to specialize in. One genre of these car culture extremists are people who specialize in the cataloging...
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Posted
Sep 04 2009, 01:00 PM
by
John Brooks
with 8 comment(s)
There are times when the features that I write for SpeedHunters develop a life of their own. In this case what started out as a quick look at the BMW V12 LMR's victory at Le Mans back in 1999 has turned into something a little bigger than that. The events from that week in June 1999 still echo around racing today in physical and commercial terms and looking back has brought me face to face with those issues. One thing that is certain, it is doubtful that we will ever see the 1999 scale of manufacturer...
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Posted
Sep 03 2009, 09:49 AM
by
Jonathan Moore
with 8 comment(s)
Aston Martin are helping publicise the upcoming 1000kms Le Mans Series race at Silverstone by displaying the 007 car outside Euston station in London for two days this week, so I had to drop by to get a picture. They'll be three Lola Aston Martins at Silverstone, with their clean sweep of the Nurburgring podium positions to live up to. It's going to be a tough ask... The car was drawing a lot of attention from passers-by, though there weren't really a lot of obvious signs as to why it...
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Posted
Sep 02 2009, 12:36 PM
by
John Brooks
with 11 comment(s)
Party like it's 1999 !!! OK the year was given some special significance in some areas and by most folks as it marked the end of a century, whether the sense of fin de siecle was real or induced mattered not, change was going to come. I mean, "Things can only get better" so the politicians' siren song went. The Le Mans 24 Hours was subject to the same forces that assaulted us all that year, a physical manifestation of this was the presence of brand new pits, paddock and administration...
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Posted
Sep 01 2009, 01:26 PM
by
John Brooks
with 9 comment(s)
It is received wisdom amongst the cognoscenti who infest the La Sarthe department of France each June that it takes three attempts for a manufacturer to win the big race, Les Vingt Quatre Heures du Mans. Ask Peugeot who will tell you through gritted teeth of the blood, toil, sweat and tears expended in pursuit of victory, that was finally achieved earlier this year. It is not enough to be fastest around the track, you have be strongest as well. Ask Nissan or Toyota, who despite being the favourites...
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Posted
Jun 29 2009, 10:50 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 20 comment(s)
Well Exotics and Luxury month is about to end and we're about to usher in a month devoted to AWD cars in all shapes and sizes ( although you can expect to see a lot of Imprezas, Evos and GT-Rs )... I wanted to end my own writing on the subject of supercars with a good look at two legendary machines Dino and I encountered right at the end of our Ferrari Museum tour. I don't know what the Galleria Ferrari museum director was thinking when they put these two cars in a separate room from the...
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Posted
Jun 19 2009, 04:59 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 3 comment(s)
A purely breathtaking image... get it now for your desktop! :R
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Posted
Jun 18 2009, 06:50 PM
by
John Brooks
with 11 comment(s)
Ok let's jump straight in and look at the dramas from further down the field at the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours. Behind the diesel class, here was another prototype race going on, that of those powered by petrol. Although a factory effort in name, the Lola Aston Martin team is closer in resource terms to the best of the privateers. A titanic battle ensued between the two quick AMR cars, the ORECA's, the Pescarolo and the Speedy Lola. This was resolved in the 007 Lola Aston's favour which had...
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Posted
Jun 18 2009, 07:00 AM
by
John Brooks
with 25 comment(s)
When two tribes go to war, one is all you can score.............................. Well they finally did it, Peugeot won the Big One. The 2009 24 Heures du Mans. The Lion has roared. The number 9 Peugeot 908 Hdi-FAP driven by Alexander Wurz, Marc Gene and David Brabham covered 382 laps of the 13.629 kilometre circuit, 5206 kliks in total or 3,235 miles. The average speed was a tad under 135 miles per hour, a sobering thought. The winners were one lap up on their team mates Stephane Sarrazin, Franck...
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Posted
Jun 12 2009, 06:20 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 14 comment(s)
Ok enough drift articles for the moment... the big event this weekend is the Le Mans 24HRs which starts tomorrow morning. As I don't own a television, I'm going to be getting up at 05:30 to head over to a buddy's apartment to watch the first few hours of the race. I should then hopefully be able to stream video and/or audio from the rest of the event at home. We'll see how it goes, but last year I managed to watch 18 of the 24 hours.... I hope some of you are inspired to at least...
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Posted
Jun 12 2009, 10:25 AM
by
John Brooks
with 14 comment(s)
Anniversaries are tricky things, looking back tends to fade the negative and accentuate the positive. Nostalgia for a safe past rather than the uncertain present or unknown future. But the years do rattle past quickly so some form of marker post is necessary if only to give focus to the things to come. Back in 1984 I never imagined that I would be still be following the circus some 25 years later. Although in my twenties I still had no clue as to what the future would bring, I was between careers...
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Posted
Jun 10 2009, 03:20 PM
by
John Brooks
with 7 comment(s)
Day 2 of the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours and Day 2 of the scrutineering process. This is a form of torture for the teams who hate the disturbance to their preparations for the race. The idea is that the cars are taken from the pit boxes on the circuit by road to the middle of the City of Le Mans, which is nightmare of traffic jams and tram related hold ups. The factory teams arrive in their purpose built transporters and go through a process where the cars are checked over as are the technical papers....
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Posted
Jun 10 2009, 03:28 AM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 14 comment(s)
As you will be aware, 24 Heures du Mans, to give its correct title is one of the biggest events on the motorsport calendar. To help you follow this weekends event, here is a quick guide to Le Mans coverage. First off, I have produced another Spotter Guide for Le Mans, in conjunction with Radio Le Mans.com, Ten-Tenths.com and some other partners. The guide is available as a 2 Page PDF and 2 JPEG images. The latest version was released earlier this morning. You can download the guides at spotterguides...
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Posted
Jun 09 2009, 12:40 PM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 6 comment(s)
This cool shot comes from Aston Martin Racing, who are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of its first win at Le Mans, back in 1959. Just as 2009, Aston Martin Racing entered three cars in the race for Stirling Moss/Jack Fairman, Roy Salvadori/Carroll Shelby and Paul Frere/Marucie Trintignant. - Some VERY legendary drivers in that list! Although Ferrari had dominated in this period, Aston won the event after the Moss/Fairman car acted as a 'hare' and raced hard early on. This forced Ferrari's...
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Posted
Jun 08 2009, 10:20 PM
by
John Brooks
with 12 comment(s)
Day One in the run up to the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours...............stars of the show for Monday were Audi with their trio of diesel powered R15 prototypes and making the last appearance in their stellar career, Corvette with a brace of C6.R s. The "Verifications Administratives et Techniques 24 Heures du Mans" is perhaps a unique occasion in top line motorsport as the fans can get up close and personal with the cars. Of course Rod seemed to have sent his New Jersey weather to La Sarthe.....
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Posted
May 15 2009, 04:00 PM
by
Carl Jarrett
with 25 comment(s)
Ok, I've found destiny, I am LOVING this car. As some of you know I built up a FFR Cobra roadster, but I'd sell that, and my soul in a heartbeat for one of these. Exotic Auto Restoration in SoCal have taken a Superformance Coupe and modified it to produce a limited run of very special Daytona Coupes. Superformance cars are authorized by the man himself Carroll Shelby as 'legit' replicas (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one), so a Superformance Coupe is as close as you're going...
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Posted
Apr 27 2009, 11:58 AM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 12 comment(s)
If you are a budding artist in Europe, you may be interested in this competition, run by Dunlop. The task is to design an ‘art-car’ livery for the Dunlop sponsored JWM Ferrari F430 GT, which will run at Le Mans in June. Three national winners will be elected by an expert jury, a fourth winner will be the one that has received the most votes from the public. Twenty designs will enter into the European semi-final that runs between 14th May and May 30th. Semi-final winners will be guests...
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