2008 Porsche RS Spyder

While touring "The Porsche Effect" exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum several years ago, the author's first reaction upon seeing this car was that it is "a modern race car," until one realizes that it was ten years old and therefore historical.

In 2005, Porsche and their long-time partner, Penske Racing entered into an agreement to race the Porsche-designed RS Spyder in the LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype Class 2) class of the North American American LeMans Series (ALMS). The Penske/Porsche RS Spyder competed for three full ALMS seasons – 2006, 2007, and 2008 - and dominated with 24 wins and nine championships.

The RS used a mid-engine longitudinally mounted carbon fiber moncoque chassis with double wishbone torsion bar pushrod suspension anti-roll bars and carbon fiber brakes at all four corners. 

The RS powerplant, the Porsche MR6, engine was a 207 cubic inch 90 degree DOHC double overhead camshaft V-8 with four valves per cylinder that developed 478 horsepower. The power was fed through to the rear wheels via a six-speed sequential gearbox that like the engine was used as a stressed member.         

In the ten-race 2006 ALMS season, Penske Racing with their twin Porsche RS Spyders sponsored by the international package handling service DHL scored seven class wins and one overall win at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and claimed the LMP2 team and manufacturer championships. Sascha Maassen, the German driver of the #6 RS Spyder won the driver’s championship with Lucas Lohr, driver of Penske #7 RS Spyder the runner-up.

For the 2007 ALMS season all competitors raced with 10% E10 ethanol enrichment in their fuel tanks. The yellow and red DHL-sponsored Penske Porsche RS Spyders dominated the series, as in twelve races, they scored eight overall wins and three class wins. Penske repeated as the LMP2 team champion, Porsche again won the Chassis Manufacturers' and Automobile Manufacturers' Championship and Frenchman Romain Dumas won the drivers’ championship, as the Penske drivers captured the first four positions.

For 2008, Porsche added direct fuel injection and the output of the MR6 engine increased to 503 horsepower, although the ALMS required the LMP2 class cars to carry 55 pounds more weight than previous years. 

This car shown at “the Porsche Effect” exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum won the 12 hours of Sebring overall to mark Porsche’s 18th overall win and first overall win at Sebring since 1988 on the 20th anniversary since its last win. The first three cars all finished on the same lap, as this car - chassis #802 - driven by German Timo Bernhard, Dumas and fellow Frenchman Emmanuel Collard finished with a winning margin of one minute and two seconds.  

The Penske team also claimed an overall 2008 victory at Miller Motorsports Park, to go along with class wins at St. Petersburg Mid-Ohio and Road Atlanta. Team Penske won the team LMP2 championship for the third consecutive year, as did Porsche with the manufacturer championship as Bernhard and Dumas shared the driver’s title. 

With the announcement of the 2009 ALMS requirement of restrictor plates on the Porsche at the end of the 2008 season, Penske Racing Inc. withdrew from ALMS competition with a total of 24 class wins and eleven overall race wins. The car shown at the Petersen exhibit remains part of the Team Penske collection.       

All photographs by the author

A pair of real race cars at the Petersen

During a summertime 2017 tour of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, the author photographed a pair of nineteen seventies real race cars. 

This McLaren M8F represents what the author considers the pinnacle of American road racing, the Canadian-American Challenge Cup for group 7 race cars, basically no rules racing. In 1971, the author, then a teenager, pleaded with his father for weeks to attend the Valvoline Can-Am race in August at the Mid-Ohio sports car course. 

The author was thrilled when Denny Hulme qualified his #5 McLaren M8F powered by a 494-cubic inch Chevrolet big-block engine for the pole position, but was disappointed when the mighty McLaren broke its drive line on the pace lap and never raced. 

Hulme and his teammate Peter Revson battled Jackie Stewart in the weird box-like Lola T260 all season long, and no racer besides those three men won any of the ten Can-Am races held in 1971. Stewart won two races that included Mid-Ohio, while Hulme won three races. Peter Revson won five races and was crowned the Can-Am champion.

This McLaren M8F example part of the Museum's permanent collection was restored by Canepa Motorsports of Scotts Valley California. 

In 1976, regular race fans could watch a Formula 1 grand prix race without confusion; the Ferrari is powered by a 183-cubic inch flat 12 cylinder engine connected to a transverse mounted five-speed gearbox. There was no carbon fiber, electro-hydraulic shifted transmissions, DRS wings, or  two-way communication with the "strategist" of the modern Formula One, just drivers that drove like hell. 

This Ferrari 312T2 represents the car defending world champion Niki Lauda drove that season, thus it carried the number 1. Even casual fans know the story of the 1976 season due to the success of the motion picture Rush.  Lauda nearly burned to death in a crash in Germany but returned to action after he missed two races six weeks later at Italy and finished fourth. 

Lauda won five races to James Hunt's six and lost the World Championship to Hunt by a single point after he withdrew after three laps in the season-ending Japanese Grand Prix. Citing the danger of racing in a downpour, as Lauda later said "my life is worth more than a title."  Lauda returned with the 312T2  in 1977 and won the second of his three world championships.    

This Ferrari  312T2 is part of the exhibit "Seeing Red: 70 years of Ferrari" in the Bruce Meyer gallery through April 2018.   

Photos by the author