Rennsport
Reunion 2 at Daytona
The Rennsport Reunion 2
at Daytona was a follow-up to the incredibly successful Reunion at Lime
Rock. The first Rennsport was a great event showcasing Porsche's
racing history, and despite the small venue, a huge number of spectators
came to see the show. The sequel was appropriately held at Daytona
International Speedway, where Porsche's have won countless races and
there was plenty of room to support an event of this grandeur. The
highlights of the Rennsport Reunion 2 were the five race groups and
Concourse. The official number of combined entrants for the two
events was 620 cars.
The Concourse dominated
the Saturday afternoon activities as the cars lined up on both sides the
entire length of the pit lane. Meticulous examples of all Porsche
racing machines were in attendance. Anyone with the slightest
interest in Porsches or Racing History would have been thoroughly
impressed.
Since PCA does not hold events in
Daytona, many Club Racers have never driven on the famous banking and
jumped at the chance to race at the speedway. The largest of the
five race groups had over 110 cars, significantly more than are allowed
to run the 24-Hour Race. After a great showing in Atlanta, we had
high expectations for this event. Doug Nargiz, Dave Montrois and
Bill Via drove their RSR replicas in the huge 911 group with impressive
results. Bill and Doug finished 3rd in their classes and Dave
finished 1st. Mac McGehee also won his class and finished 23rd in
the large field of PCA Club Racers. Rick Brownyard finished 3rd in
his class. One of the race groups was dedicated to the increasingly
popular Porsche Cup cars. All cars in this group were 964, 993 or
996 Cup cars with the exception of a couple GT3Rs, 993 RSRs and a GT2
which seemingly should have been in the group with other turbocharged
cars. Cory Friedman or Leh Keen topped the Cup cars every session,
but the GT2 was a bit quicker. Steve Johnson ran an impressive
qualifying, breaking into the 1:58s in only his third session at the
track. He qualified 2nd in class, and Leh sat 3rd. Cory
turned the fastest Cup lap of the weekend and sat on the outside pole
next to the GT2 of Larry Schumacher.
This
proved to be one of the most exciting spectacles of the whole weekend,
with excellent racing and a lot of changing positions. At the
start, Cory got a great jump and out-broke the GT2 into turn one, taking
the overall lead. Leh also had a good start and fell behind
Schumacher, 3rd overall and 2nd in class. Steve was right behind
Leh, closely followed by Chris Wally. These top five cars steadily
pulled away from the rest of the field. Cory ran a strong pace and
lead the race until they reached the banking, and the 250HP+ advantage
of the turbo kicked in and Schumacher took over the overall lead, where
he would also finish. With Johnson, Keen and Wally fighting fiercely
for 2nd, Cory was able to pull and maintain a lead over the other cars
and his lead was never really challenged. At the end of a great
6-lap battle, Wally came in 2nd in class, third overall. Steve and
Leh ran side by side through NASCAR 3 and 4 and Steve just edged out Leh
by less than 2 hundredths of a second. Behind the leaders, Jack
Gilsdorf won his class in his 993 Supercup. This event was
primarily an exhibition, but it was great to see the intense Cup car
competition among the Parade. As always, we are very proud of our
drivers and would like to congratulate all of them. It seemed
everyone had a great time. |
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