Turn 10 / Le Mans Winners Enter Sebring

[Lee Self]

Canada Phil,

MinnasOOOda boy on his way to the track. STOP
No golf cart STOP
Probably one Flamingo STOP

Night racing in a 962 - Priceless

: )  -Lee
"Working to keep this thread alive"

[Lee Self]

Speaking of Sebring,

Remember when Konrad won GTS with the first Saleen?
-Lee

"Working to keep this thread alive"
 
http://www.selfstudio.com/pages/photos/sbr/sbr09.html
http://www.selfstudio.com/pages/photos/sbr/sbr06.html
http://www.selfstudio.com/pages/pho_sbr.html

[Nordic]

I'm sure I saw one of these IMSA spec 962s race somewhere.  It may have been on display though!.  Le Mans always had an IMSA class - the 961s ran in it.

I think I'm becoming an old git - "they don't make them as good as that any more" - and I know I'm right

There was another in 92, was the team spare but it did run.
http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2809138.html

Another car Momo was famous for, the Joest 935 Moby Dick. up close its amazing just how much original 911 was still in the car.

http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2780260.html

But the best looking car to come out of the USA (with help from the UK) has to be this...

http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2764456.html

[Lee Self]

Nordic, those pics rock!

so cool to see new stuff.  got anything of a Swap-Shop variety?

-Lee
is it time to leave for Sebring yet? I'm packed
"Working to keep this thread alive"

[Fax]

Hi Nordic,
Yep the Group 44 Cats were lovely.  I think one of the saddest sights I've ever seen at a IMSA weekend was back in '82 at Mid-Ohio when they returned a very bent Cat back to the paddock after being heavily shunted during Friday practice.  Made you want to weep.  Never thought they were well suited to Le Mans but much more at home on the tighter & bumpy North American circuts.
Fax

[Nordic]

Got a couple of 935's from 81
http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2767859.html

and a 956 from 83
http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p6276262.html

But nothing from Preston at Le Mans

Good shots of the IMSA cars on your site, there sure did like to mess with the aero's back then!

Fax, your right about the Grp 44 cars, never suited the track in France. TWR tested one at Silverstone, and convinced Jag he could do a better job, I guess the rest is history, but the TWR cars never looked as good as the Grp 44 cars and I always felt sorry for the team they never got the deal.

[Fax]

Agreed Nordic, I think Bob Tullius was always more than a little bitter about Jaguar's decision to go with TWR.  He had worked very hard to build the Group 44 effort into a crack outfit and return Jaguar to the Sarthe only to be abandoned in favor of Walkinshaw.
Fax

[Andy Zarse]

Gents, I disagree with respect. IMHO the Silk Cut Jags looked better every time over the Tuillius cars. Styling's a matter of personal preference of course, but there you are. From a technical point of view, I had a good look at a Tullius Cat at Sebring last year and it seemed fairly primative compared to the wonderful Tony Southgate designs.

As to why TWR got the deal, well, I had a mate who was an electronics manager at Jaguar and being obsessed with sportscars at the time, I badgered him to get every tidbit of gossip he could. He was the person who told me a Le Mans comeback for the works team was possibly on the cards and I remember being really quite exited. Anyway, Jag HQ probably picked TWR for no better reason than TWR had won them loads of races in the ETC with the XJS. Tom had a reasonable relationship with John Egan too and of course the team was located just down the road from Coventry.

I would add in defence of TWR that the team did win at Sarthe. Twice. No mean feat, though it could be argued that they should have won more than that. Tullius did not have a glittering record in European racing whereas Tom was alwways seen as a winner (F5000 debacle notwithstanding). And yes I do know about the massive US input that help secure the race in 1990. 

[Nordic]

The TWR effort was great, no one can deny that. Following on from the XJS's it was logical to use a European team for the step up into Grp C which at the time was pretty much a Europen team and TWR where the best available outfit at the time.

As far as the look of the grp 44 cars, its as simple as not really liking purple racing cars in my case, the Bud Lite and Castrol cars always pressed more buttons than the Silk cut ones, but the Grp 44 simple white and green is a classic.

The Grp 44 car was basic, all the cars where then, the original 956 was pretty straight forward in design. There is no telling what the Grp 44 team would have come up with next given a chance.

However the best thing about the Jags was noise, and that was the same no matter which side of the Atlantic it came from

[chop456]

Don't remember if it was that specific chassis #, but they had a group 44 Jag in the classics tent at Sebring last year.

[Andy Zarse]

Don't remember if it was that specific chassis #, but they had a group 44 Jag in the classics tent at Sebring last year.

That's the JAG I looked at too, Chop.

I agree about the colours, purple was all wrong until the very last all-purple scheme on the XJR16. I always thought the TWR cars should have had a predominantly green colour scheme. However, green is also the colour of the phlegm that Silk Cut smoker's cough up every morning, so from a marketing point of view it probably wasn't a winner. As for the noise, at waking-up time, the Silk Cut smoker sounded like an XJR12 warming up in the garage. And don't talk to me about Rothmans....

[Fax]

I freely admit to being biased toward Group 44, for no other reason than I spent years watching the Group 44 team grow from a small group of dedicated club racers into a battle hardened polished team.  They were campaigning TR-7's and all sorts of production cars before becoming one of the top IMSA GTP efforts. Other thing to remember is that the XJR-4/5 design dates back to the very early eighties, before the widespread use of carbon fiber in prototypes so as Nordic said, would have been interesting to see what they would have come up with had they been given the nod.  All that said I was quite fond of the TWR cars too, hated the later Bud Light IMSA color scheme though.
Fax

[johnevans3]

Hey Chris 24, nice job finding a photo.  I saw the #22 running in the GP of San Antonio back in the late 80's and it was fast but not able to finish with the 962's.  I thought is was the best looking car in the race at that time and even prettier than the Jags. 
They had a v12 and the brand new turbo 6 running and it was quiet a race until the 12 crashed and sent what looked like carbon fiber all over the place.  I believe the turbo 6 had trouble, don't remember if it finished or not.  But it was fun to watch the venerable 12 being challenged by this upstart "little brother".  It could have been a Jag day had a little luck been with them. 
I met Al Hobert, Dereck Bell, and Chip Robinson at the race.  Nice gentlemen and very approachable for the fans.  To me, that's what separates these guys to make them special as great race drivers compared to the prima donnas at other venues.

[Chris24]

Taken in the Hendrick museum in August 2004.  I have many detail shots from my first visit there in 1997 also but these are on print and not digital.

[Lee Self]

Couldn't resist, such an opening.

I made a painting of the GTP corvette, and it has the Group 44 Jag in it as well

-Lee
"working to keep this thread fresh and vibrant"