Showing posts with label Le Mans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Le Mans. Show all posts
Saturday, October 17, 2026
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Tuesday, June 09, 2026
Happy birthday to David Hobbs! He started racing in 1959 in his mom's Morris Oxford. Within three years, he was at Daytona driving someone else's Jaguar and lending his own Lotus Elite to Jimmy Clark.
The career that followed touched every corner of motorsport.
Formula 1 for Honda, McLaren, and BRM.
Sports cars in the Ford GT40, the Mirage, the Ferrari 512M, and Porsche 917s and 956/962s.
IMSA Camel GT for BMW.
Fifth place at the Indianapolis 500 in a McLaren.
Championships in Formula 5000 and Trans-Am.
He even led the Daytona 500 in a NASCAR stock car.
A British driver leading the biggest stock car race in America. In the same career where he raced a Porsche 917 and a Ferrari 512M.
Twenty starts at Le Mans. Two third-place finishes.
Two decades of returning to the same race, in different cars, for different teams, across different eras of the sport.
After the driving Hobbs joined CBS in the early 1970s and became one of the most recognizable voices in American motorsport television, eventually working with SPEED.
Saturday, May 30, 2026
Friday, April 10, 2026
Wednesday, December 03, 2025
the 1951 Crosley (a budget roadster from Cincinnati) Le Mans Special, body by Pop Dreyer, was on Bring a Trailer in 2020, at 53k thank you Billy O!
a Stan Mott drawing ( https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search?q=Stan+Mott+ )
an article appeared in Road and Track in 1958
Schrafft went on to race the car here in the States a few more times, including at the 1952 12 Hours of Sebring, where it finished 14th overall and third in class.
In addition to supplying a letter designating Schrafft and Stiles as Crosley’s official representatives, Crosley agreed to sell the duo a Hotshot at cost and to introduce them to Paul Klotsch, the company’s chief engineer.
Klotsch was also the man responsible for developing Lloyd Taylor’s wartime copper-brazed stamped-sheetmetal stationary four-cylinder engine into the CoBra and later CIBA automotive engines for Crosley, so he knew his way around the potent overhead-camshaft design.
Stock, the 44-cu.in. engines were good for 26.5 horsepower, but Klotsch had a few tricks up his sleeve. From the back stock, he produced a forged military-spec crankshaft. He specified stellate-faced exhaust valves, polished ports, a bump in compression to 9.0, a pair of downdraft Carter carburetors, and a number of aftermarket items, including an Iskendarian camshaft, a Harman and Collins distributor, Braje cam cover and finned aluminum crankcase, Braje header, and low-friction piston rings from Grant. On the dynamometer, the finished engine put out 42 horsepower at 6,000 RPM, but as John Matras wrote for Automobile magazine in 1993, the Isky cam didn’t really come on until 6,400 RPM and the engine was good for 7,500 RPM, so “they would never learn the actual maximum bhp of the little engine.”
After the boat ride to France, Stiles and Schrafft quickly discovered that the stock headlamps were "about as effective as a pair of whale oil lamps,”
They found themselves forced to upgrade the headlamps first, then the generator to power the headlamps. The latter was easier said than done, considering they needed to find a generator that could also turn the water pump off the back of its shaft like the Crosley’s generator did; they chose a Marchal, either not realizing it had non-roller bearings that wouldn’t withstand race conditions or not having a choice but to use it.
It lasted only 40 laps.
At some point, the car lost its original Klotsch-modified engine, replaced with a standard Crosley four-cylinder, and Schrafft replaced the original Crosley transmission and torque tube driveline with a Fiat four-speed and driveshaft.
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Saturday, August 16, 2025
Friday, August 01, 2025
Sunday, January 05, 2025
Friday, August 09, 2024
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Sunday, August 04, 2024
Monday, November 20, 2023
Actor Michael Fassbender is in a You Tube series, "The Road To LeMans" about racing a Porsche.
The documentary film "Michael Fassbender: Road To Le Mans" YouTube series follows Fassbender's recovery after the 2022 heartbreak and documents his preparation and participation in the 2023 edition of the race.
Fassbender discusses his mindset of "failing and then going and failing better" in racing, highlighting the challenges he faced during the 2022 and 2023 races.
Despite the difficulties, Fassbender has shown genuine pace on multiple occasions and aims to reach his full potential as a racer. Le Mans 2023 was action-packed, featuring various key moments and a notable victory for Ferrari.
For the last few years, Fassbender has been working to race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, via driving for Porsche in the 911 GT3. He achieved that dream in 2022, and it was all documented in the Michael Fassbender: Road To Le Mans YouTube series by Porsche, a series that offered an incredible behind-the-scenes look at his journey. Sadly, the 2022 edition of the French endurance race didn’t go to plan for Fassbender.
Porsche released this season of the series, documenting Fassbender’s preparation and then participation in the 2023 edition of the race, after feeling like he had unfinished business.
Fassbender's journey to Le Mans started in 2020 when he raced a 2017-spec Porsche 911 RSR in the 2020 European Le Mans Series (ELMS). The car was with the team Fassbender would go on to race for at Le Mans. The actor began the journey to racing at the Porsche Driving Experience, an entry-level program that trains drivers with an 85-hp Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car.
He strives to become a paid driver, rather than a pay driver. Season four of the show would document Fassbender’s efforts in the 2022 European Le Mans Series season, and culminate into the 2022 edition of Le Mans with some incredible behind-the-scenes footage. While his crew finished the race in 51st out of the 62 entries, it was a tough experience for the team hence Fassbender’s determination to come back in 2023 and do even better. Sadly, 2023 would end in the barriers, and it was particularly gut-wrenching as Fassbender had just 15 minutes left in his stint.
In 2021, he scored his first-ever podium when he finished second in class in Portimao, Portugal. Fassbender also took a third-place finish in class at the Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet, France.
Four years ago, Porsche had the same title for a you tube film https://youtu.be/K7gMRbNOP7c
Thursday, June 08, 2023
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Thursday, February 16, 2023
interesting art made on a Morgan LMP2 race car, inspired by the signs found all around the Le Mans circuit, much of which uses public roads.
“Fernando Costa makes a sculpture using small pieces of metal welded together using a spare chassis to mount all these pieces of metal on. When the sculpture was finished, it was scanned, and a very intricate wrap was made.”
He made the livery on a model, which was then transferred onto the actual racing car by fellow French artist Filip’o’.
The pieces of metal used by Fernando Costa for the Morgan art car were inspired by the signs found all around the Le Mans circuit, much of which uses public roads.
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