Legends of Motorsports kicked off its 2011 season at Barber Motorsports Park this past weekend (May 20-22). Started in 2009 by racing legend Bobby Rahal, alongside Zak Brown and Peter Stoneberg, the LoM series sports a multi-class, multi-race format that spans from ‘50s-era sports cars, to FIA Championship of Makes, to Group C and IMSA GTP, to historic F1.
Porsche’s breadth of motorsports participation through the years places it in the forefront of many of these classes, and the Barber entry list included several notable examples. The Collier Collection brought two from their vast array of historic race cars. The 1967 Nürburgring 1000K-winning 910/6 (sn 910 007) was one of them. Piloted by American Joe Buzetta and German Udo Schütz (being a “home” race, a German driver was chosen for every Porsche with a chance of winning), led the trio of podium-bound 910s across the finish line on May 28, 1967. While it wasn’t Porsche’s first overall victory at an endurance race of international magnitude, it was its first in Germany’s premier sports car race.
Also from The Collier Collection came one of the 13 908/3s built between 1969 and 1971 (sn 90803 013). Perhaps no other Porsche from that era was as indicative of Ferdinand Piëch’s philosophy of extreme weight savings and his desire to dominate the competition on track. The 908/3 weighed a scant 1,200 pounds, shaving approximately 100 pounds from the 908/2 that preceded it, and it was built to compete at only two races, Targa Florio and Nürburgring 1,000K, because the 917 wasn’t ideally suited for those two courses. Nevertheless, 013 finished 5th at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1973, two years after rules changes forced Porsche’s larger-displacement 917s to the sidelines.
Historic 911 representation at the LoM Barber event came in the form of a 1975 Kremer-built RSR. Its three-year European racing history includes race wins at Diepholz and Hockenheim. More modern prototypes at Barber included a pair of 962s, one in Brun’s Repsol colors and another from Dyson Racing’s early forays into prototype racing.
Legends of Motorsports’ 2011 season includes two more event weekends, Circuit Mont-Tremblant in Quebec, Canada (July 8-10) and Sebring in central Florida (December 2-4).
