2015 Photos of the Year

We appreciate the quality of good photography, particularly when the lens is pointed at interesting things around a race track.  If somehow you missed some of the great galleries with favorite photos from 2015, now is your chance to make amends.  Usually, we try to add some value here rather than merely re-posting links, but we will let the links speak for themselves in this case.  No doubt there are more out there, but enjoy!

Dailysportscar – Dan Bathie photos

Dailysportscar – Sören Herweg

Dailysportscar – Pedro

Dailysportscar – Andrew “Skippy” Hall

Dailysportscar – David Lord

Dailysportscar – Adam Pigott

Dailysportscar – Martin Spetz

Dailysportscar – Doris

Dailysportscar – Regis Lefebure

Racer – Marshall Pruett favorites

Racer – Marshall Pruett alternates

Rhys Vandersyde Best of 2015

Speedhunters – Larry Chen

AE (Az Edwards) Photography

 

 

Falken Porsche 2014 Nurburgring 24 Hours

For no particular reason other than photos of the Falken Porsche from the 2014 Nurburgring 24 hours apparently have the ability to catch one’s attention when poking through the archives, a brief look back in time is warranted.  The Falken 997 Porsche is known as a regular and fan-favorite competitor in the Nurburgring 24 hours.  Falken always has a distinctive paint scheme and does a ton of on-site marketing support.  As you might have seen on this blog or elsewhere, the 997 car was recently put up for sale after a long and successful run as the team will running a new 991 platform for 2016.

In 2014, the Falken Porsche was piloted by a four-man squad of Wolf Henzler, Peter Dumbreck, Martin Ragginger, and Alexandre Imperatore.  All of these drivers are extremely skilled and experienced which put the car in good hands.  The car qualified 20th overall with a time of 8:19.761 – shockingly 9 seconds off the pole time of Kevin Estre in the Dorr Motorsports McLaren.  In fairness, Estre’s lap in the McLaren was several seconds faster than any other car.  Most cars were in the 8:13 or 8:14 range.  Regardless, the time for the Falken Porsche likely shows more about the team’s endurance mindset than anything about raw speed.

 When the checkered flag flew, the car claimed a fourth place overall – two laps off the leader.  The finish was the team’s best overall finish to date and resulted from running a clean and consistent race.  The 2014 Nurburgring 24 hours had relatively good weather which meant a dry and fast race pace.  The team moved into the top 5 after 8 hours of running before moving into fourth about 90 minutes before the finish.

Leading up to the 2015 race, Dailysportscar.com published an interview with team principal Sven Schnabl.  His planning paid off as the team claimed its first podium in 2015 with the same impressive driver line-up.

Enjoy the pics and best of luck to the Falken Porsche team in 2016!

 

 

 

Falken Porsche 997 GT3 R For Sale

With thanks to Dailysportscar.com for the pointer, the Falken Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (997) that has raced thousands of kilometers is now for sale.  The team is moving to the 991 platform for 2016, so they have put their 997 up for sale.  Interested?  Check out the listing on Mobile.de with a €500,000 asking price.  The car finished on the podium at the 2015 Nurburgring 24 hours – the team’s best ever result.  In honor of the team and the car, here is a gallery of shots from the 2015 N24 race.

IMSA Daytona Test notes

Once again, Marshall Pruett is a journalistic machine.  He continues to turn out high quality pieces on open wheel and sportscar topics.  The latest is a rewind on the IMSA test at Daytona posted on Racer.com.  Marshall has lots of goodies about people, tires, testing, Balance of Performance and development.

Perhaps the most potentially disappointing tidbit is the note that a deal between IMSA and either Aston Martin or Mercedes is unlikely which means no customer GT cars on the IMSA grid in 2016.

DragonSpeed brought two SLS models to the test and TRG had an Aston Martin in action as well.  (Incidentally, the Sportscar365 team posted several reports on the test.  If you haven’t read the Tuesday notebook or the Wednesday notebook, they are both worth a read.   The site also features photo galleries like this.  Dailysportscar also has posted a photo gallery from the test.)

AMG has said that their order books for the new GT3 are busy and existing customers are first in line, so they weren’t expecting to have cars available – at least early in the season.

It could still be an interesting IMSA season with a new Audi, a gaggle of Lamborghinis, a new BMW M6 platform, a new Porsche 911, a new Ford GT, the new Ferrari 488, the return of the Viper, and other news, but hopefully the Aston Martin and Mercedes can find their way to the grid at some point.  The more the merrier…

 

2016 Sports Car Racing Calendar

Having trouble keeping up with the schedules of the dates, venues and series in 2016?  The team at Dailysportscar has you covered.

The 2016 calendar by date is posted here.  The 2016 calendar by series is posted here.  Both calendars are always posted on the Dailysportscar.com website on the right side of the page.  These are incredibly helpful to keep track of what is happening, when and where.

Thanks much to Graham at DSC!

James Weaver retrospective – mandatory reading

Mandatory reading – make sure to check out a nice piece on Dailysportscar from Gary Horrocks on James Weaver.  Gary had a chance to sit down and talk with James at the recent Porsche Rennsport Reunion.  I recall and greatly appreciate crossing paths with James (and, it must be said, Rob Dyson, Pat Smith and others in the Dyson racing orbit) in the 1990s as Weaver ran with co-drivers like Andy Wallace and Butch Leiztinger.  The triumphant Daytona 24h win with “Magnificent 7” drivers that combined for the win was particularly memorable.  Cheers, James!
 Canon 5D Mark III, 70mm, ISO100, 1/500 sec, f/5
September 27, 2015
Porsche Rennsport Reunion V, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
James Weaver driving the Dyson Racing Porsche 962-101 in parade laps