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    samedi 10 novembre 2012

    VDEV ; 2 TOURS D'HORLOGE, H+3 : LA PORSCHE POLYBAIE MÈNE SOUS LE DÉLUGE



    Le ciel était menaçant au-dessus du circuit Paul-Ricard avant le  départ des 2 Tours d'Horloge, les nuages noirs s'accumulant. Bientôt, ce ne fut plus une menace mais une réalité, la pluie s'abattant en abondance sur la piste.

    Après un départ des pilotes type Le Mans avant le tour de formation, les concurrents s'élançaient donc pour 24 heures de course dans des conditions extrêmement difficiles. Dès même le tour de formation, deux des favoris de l'épreuve étaient touchés. La  Chevron B8 n°69 Dagefruti qui avait fait la pole position et que David Ferrer pilotait pour ce premier relais rentrait au stand, avec un problème de calculateur de vitesses et de générateur de poussée et perdait de nombreux tours. Plus grave encore, la Chevron B16 n°74 du OAK Racing connaissait de graves problèmes de moteur. La Chevron allait reprendre la piste après 1h15 de course.
    © Photos : Photoclassicracing.com

    Alors que comme prévu, les concurrents des 2 Heures s'échappaient, la Lola T298 n°17 de Patrice Lafargue devant la T298 n°21 de Frédéric Da Rocha et la  Cesca Grac n°8 de Franck Metzger, Lionel Robert, parti en fond de grille avec l'Elva BMW n°5 -la voiture n'ayant pas tourné en qualifications- remontait rapidement vers l'avant et pointait en cinquième position derrière la Porsche 911 Polybaie de Bernard Moreau, leader des 2 Tours d'Horloge. Deux voitures  faisaient un joli début de course : la Mini n°24 de Lucien Guitteny, 22ème et la TVR Giriffiths n°11 de Eric Van de Vyver, 10ème après une heure de course

    Les Chevron B16, que ce soit la n°2 de Michel Quiniou ou la n°65 de la famille Scemama, étaient très en difficulté sous la pluie et étaient noyées dans le ventre mou du classement. L'Elva de Lionel Robert allait au contraire très bien et avait pris le commandement de la course,  avec huit secondes d'avance sur la Porsche Polybaie n°1.

    Dans la course des Deux Heures, la Cesca Grac (Elie Dubelly ayant relayé Metzger) et la Lola de Da Rocha avaient marqué leurs deux minutes d'arrêt règlementaire au contraire de la Lola de Lafargue qui s'arrêtait finalement après 1h10 de course. La petite March 81S n°51 du team Palmyr -François Belle pour le premier relais- était remontée en troisième position tandis que Moreau et la Porsche étaient repassés en tête, l'Elva n°5 s'étant arrêtée après l'entrée en piste du safety car, les conditions de piste étant devenues dantesques, avec une pluie diluvienne et en plus de l'huile sur la piste laissée par une Porsche. L'Elva était victime d'une crevaison.et s'arrêtait une deuxième fois, toujours sous safety car, avec changement de pneus et de pilote. La Chevron B8 était à nouveau au stand, avec de gros soucis de moteur et de boîte !

    Après la pluie, le brouillard !! La visibilité était presque nulle et Patrice Lafargue décidait d'arrêter sa course en raison de ces conditions. Après le brouillard, de nouveau la pluie plus intense. La Cesca Grac avait repris la tête de la course des Deux Heures et allair donc s'imposer devant la Lola de Frédéric Da Rocha.
    © Photos : Photoclassicracing.com

    Profitant des arrêts de la Porsche n°1 et de l'Elva n°5, la March 81S prenait la tête de l'épreuve. Après deux heures de course, le classement est le suivant :

    1 March n°51 - 2 Porsche n°1 - 3 Datsun n°57 - 4 Elva n°5 - 5 TVR n°11 - 6 Porsche n°16 - 7 Porsche n°10 - 8 Alpine M63B n°61 - 9 Porsche n°19 - 10 Porsche n°31

    Le safety car rentrait au stand après 2h20 de course et le restart était donné. La March était rentrée au stand et la Porsche n°1, pilotée désormais par Miguel Langin, avait repris le commandement devant la March de Christophe Kubryk. Après un très bon relais de Gérard Larrousse, la Porsche n°16 du Team Bernax-Massi, désormais aux mains de Damien Kohler, accédait à la troisième place. Chez OAK Racing, on décidait de changer le moteur de la Chevron qui devrait donc reprendre la piste pour l'honneur vers 22 heures.



    © Photos : Photoclassicracing.com
    Deux videos du départ sont disponibles ici

    Vous pouvez suivre les chronos 

    BY Claude Foubert(Endurance-Info.com)

    PORSCHE 962C PROWLS THE STREETS


    Ever hear the saying “only in Japan?” Well if that doesn’t apply to this particular car, well I really don’t know what does! I’m just going to go ahead and assume that everyone reading this has seen the film that MotorHead magazine produced of this crazy street-registered Porsche 962C and move swiftly along to that unforgettable day when I tagged along with the team and proceeded to be amazed.
    I have had the opportunity to shoot some pretty incredible cars this year, and the Liberty Walk Ferrari F40 was one that stood in top spot for quite a few months…until that moment when I leaned out the back window of a moving car to snap images of something that had no right making sense. But then again, this is Japan, and anything can happen.
    I sometimes think that this country is located in a parallel universe. When it comes to cars, amazing things happen on a daily basis here, so much so that you stop attributing an element of surprise to certain occurrences. But at times you just can’t help but stop in your tracks and stand there, blown away but what you have just seen. And as with most rarities, there is always an interesting story behind them so let me tell you the one behind this particular car.
    First off this is not an actual Rothmans Group C 962,
    …but rather one of only six (or is it five, hard finding concrete info on this) Vern Schuppan 962s  The second prototype to be precise. Unlike the 956s and 962s that Porsche built for racing, the six $1.5 million cars that Australian racing legend Vern Schuppan built had a carbon fiber monocoque chassis. Furthermore this car is even more unique as all of the racing parts from the 956 and 962 were swapped over including the 956′s mid-mounted, 2.65L, twin-turbocharged, flat-six engine. This being the second ever created, it sports the same carbon-Kevlar body as the race cars, something that as production of the other four cars picked up was replaced with a very different, curvier shell featuring two round headlights. Those cars were actually referred to as the 962CRs.
    We will get to the oily bits further down, as we take a little more detailed look at what makes this particular car a one of a kind piece.
    The owner has cut no corners in guaranteeing that his Group C street racer is as authentic as possible, down to the spare set of center lock BBS wheels which we had to tighten with the biggest torque wrench I have ever seen before the car was taken for its drive.
    With the majority of the day organized around a very tight filming schedule I did the best I could at setting up impromptu shoots where ever I had the chance to keep the car in one spot for more than ten minutes.
    It was during these quick bursts of shots that I was able to take in the car in all its detail, including the interior, which has been left in its “road going guise.” For being one of the most expensive new cars ever sold, equipment levels are somewhat lacking, but then again what on earth do you expect on a car like this. You get 2 very tight seats, a sill mounted shifter with visible linkage…
    …a carbon fiber dash on which the “Team Schuppan” Stack tacho and speedo are mounted, and would you believe it air conditioning which according to the owner has never really worked!
    Seeing the car is often driven on tracks like Fuji Speedway a Lap Shot P-Lap III lap time as been added as well as an auxiliary boost gauge, just to keep an eye on what those remotely mounted KKK blowers are up to at full rpm.
    Being confronted with such a legendary car…
    …sporting equally legendary livery is nothing short of mind boggling, but of course not as much as what we were all about to do next!
    The idea was to drive the car onto the highway and let Luke Huxham, who put the film together, film the car in its own element. However, while Group C engines are good at cranking out well over 600 HP at the race track, what they aren’t built to do is cruse around painfully slow Japanese roads…in first gear…right in the middle of one of the hottest summers Japan has been through. So after a few short minutes of driving…
    …the coolant in the radiators had boiled and to avoid overheating the rare engine, the owner pulled over.
    The utter craziness of what we were doing that day really became evident once we saw the car parked up on the side of your regular, Japanese country road.
    The engineers that look after the car, as well as a the rest of the owner’s vast car collection, were on hand with a modern transporter and in no time the 962C was pushed onto the truck’s platform…
    …and safely strapped down inside. The idea was to let the car cool and unload it at the first highway stop we would come across, so that when the engine was turned back into life…
    …it could be driven at speed within a matter of minutes so that the radiators would be able to do their thing.
    Seeing the highway rest stop we chose had a gas station, the owner decided to fill up with some hi-oku
    …better safe than sorry as they say. The gas station attendants couldn’t really believe what their were seeing, and were probably too shy to ask what on earth we were all doing!
    With everything set it was off onto the highway where Luke and I got our much needed rolling shots. We just managed to get what we needed before the heavens opened up with a mean summer thunderstorm, but the owner didn’t see too bothered by it all. I though we would have to pull over and load the car into the transporter just in case the rain created problems…
    …but we just kept going, the 962C blasting over standing water that at times would splash onto the piping-hot external wastegates and side exit exhausts, creating puffs of vapor.
    One of the main scenes of the film was the 962C pulling into a Family Mart, where the owner would get out, go inside the conbini and purchase a can of RedBull. We were there for quite a while and it was hard to resist…
    …taking tons of shots! You can’t get a more bizarre image than this. The funniest thing was that regular people that obviously didn’t have the slightest interest in cars just pulled up, parked, and went in and out of the shop without even giving a second glance to the Group C race car that was parked right in front of them! Of course the majority of people were amazed, and stopped to ask question and grab quick pictures with their cell phones.
    But before the day was over it was back to the warehouse…
    …where the rest of the owner’s collection is safely tucked away in.
    This is where I got a bit of time to drool over the oily bits…
    …as the rear cowl was carefully removed…
    …exposing the complex rear layout of the 962. With the car having been designed and developed in the early 1980′s things are quite simple if we are to compare it to modern day race cars like the ones we recently way in Fuji at the WEC event. But we can’t forget that this was quite an important car in its day, one of the first prototype cars to really take full advantage of ground effects. With the rear off you can also see how far back the undercover “tunnels” extend, making full use of all the air passing underneath.
    At the heart of this unique Vern Shuppan 962C is the 935/82 2.65L flat-six from a 956 race car, the first generation of the mid-mounted motors. By pure chance I saw this engine in the final stages of a complete rebuilt back in 2010 when I visited the supercar exhaust maker Kreissieg in Yokohama. Little did I know back then, that I would have the chance to one day shoot the completed car!
    From the side you can see where the engine sits.
    For a motor close to 30 years old, I was very impressed by the quality of the aluminum intake manifolds, as I have seen some terrible creations from race cars of the same era.
    The flat-six has dry-sump lubrication and the large oil tank is within easy reach right behind the engine.
    The two K26 KKK turbochargers are located on the extremities of the car so that the air-to-air intercoolers could make full use of the airflow coming in through the large side intakes.
    A Porsche external wastegate is used for boost control and once they have done their job the spent exhaust gasses are dumped out from the side of the car, one pipe from the turbo, one from the wastegate.
    Along with the engine a lot of the suspension components have been swapped over from the 956 race car. Here is a closer look at the short-stroke dampers…
    …and the adjustable anti-roll bar.
    It is truly a fabulous and unique car in every way and the fact that it has ended up in the hands of this particular owner, who thoroughly enjoys it both on and off the track, is the perfect end to an already amazing little story.
    As they say, only in Japan.

    -Dino Dalle Carbonare

    Dani Pedrosa blistering lap breaks qualifiying record at Valencia





















    After a wet practice and two mixed ones, for the first time this MotoGP weekend the Ricardo Tormo circuit at Valencia was dry, but windy for final qualifying session of the 2012 season - it’s also the final time that we’ll be seeing this 60-minute format because in 2013 the procedure will be changed.
    It was a highly intense and entertaining battle for the pole position (qualifying has become more spectacular than the races in itself) in the final ten minutes of the session, between Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo, with the three riders banging out fast laps and exchanging the top spot, but it was Pedrosa who smoked both them -with an extraordinary final sector and a final flying lap that stopped the clock in 1.30.844 and breaking after six years Valentino Rossi’s lap record (and when there was still the special qualifying 
    Jorge Lorenzo finished in second and was 0.351s adrift from Pedrosa. A disappointed Casey Stoner - in his last qualifying before retiring took third and complained of problems with the electronics on his Honda and the lack of grip of the new Valencia asphalt.
    Following this superb front row will be Cal Crutchlow in fourth. The British rider menaced the three riders for the pole position only to lose all his advantage always in the last sector of the circuit. Lining up next to the satellite Yamaha rider will be Stefan Bradl and Andrea Dovizioso in his last qualifying with the Yamaha M1.
    Nicky Hayden took sixth and was the best Ducati rider of the day and of the weekend so far, while his soon-to-be ex team mate Valentino Rossi qualified in a terrible 11th spot and 2.033s off pace and sandwiched between the two Aspar CRT riders Aleix Espargaro (10th) and Randy de Puniet (12th).
    Alvaro Bautista qualified 7th and he’ll be debuting a special livery on his RC213V for tomorrow’s race, while Hector Barbera finished in 9th.
    MotoGP Valencia Qualfifying results:
    01- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – 1’30.844
    02- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.351
    03- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.584
    04- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.668
    05- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 0.913
    06- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.951
    07- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 1.659
    08- Alvaro Bautista – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 1.741
    09- Hector Barbera – Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 1.761
    10- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP12 – + 1.990
    11- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 2.033
    with Twowheelsblog

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