It's getting close

A fantastic bit of advertising by Audi. One of the true greats, Mr Allan McNish takes us through some of what it takes to win at Le Mans, the world's greatest motor race. As much as it is about Audi and their effort to repeat their victory of 2010, it's really a better advertisement for Le Mans itself. June 11th, 2011. It'll be one for the history books.

By the way, Allan is answering questions over at the Fourtitude.com Audi Sport forums, quite candidly I might add. Stop on by and see what has already been asked, ask your own questions, and if you submit the best question Allan just might pick you to receive an autographed copy of Truth in 24, the tale of Audi's victory at Le Mans in 2008.

_WRS

VW Sport IMSA GTI (Part 4, so what about that paint)

After initial inspection of the VW Sport Caravan GTI we were left with a pretty clear picture of what the car was (very clean) and what it wasn't (track ready). It has all the appearances of a race car, but without a fuel cell, fire system or ignition kills it was obvious that some fairly significant changes would need to happen to get it close to that level, and that's before we're talking about mechanical bits like the engine or suspension.

But before all that could even be thought about, we had to figure out whether or not any body or paint work would need to happen. So with this in mind, Alan, Josh and I all took a good look at it and tried to figure out what to do.

CTSCC - Kevin Gleason kills in qualifying, starts P2 at Lime Rock

APR Motorsport is looking good going into this weekend's Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Memorial Day Classic at Lime Rock Park. VW Jetta TDI Cup veteran Kevin Gleason ran a scorching sub-60 second lap to take second place on tomorrow's starting grid. For a track as tight and technical as Lime Rock, a strong starting position is key. Kevin will start tomorrow's Grand Am CTSCC race in the #181 and hand over to brother Chris to finish out the event.



Championship points leader Ryan Ellis will end up P14 on the grid, with the small track making for tight, and slow, qualifying in the 171 GTI. Ian Baas will be co-driving with Ryan.



APR Motorsport is in need of a good weekend, as the previous round at VIR race was challenging to say the least. Both GTIs struggled and placed off the podium, while the star-crossed S4 was finished off in a heavy shunt. The S4 is done for, and a new chassis is being prepped, but it effectively ends the APR effort in GS for this season.

The race is tomorrow at 10:30am - check out www.grand-am.com for live timing and scoring. The race will be broadcast on Speed TV sometime in the future...

Best of luck to the APR crew! Unfortunately tight time and finances means no trip to Lakeville this year, maybe next. With a strong finish, APR drivers Ian Baas and Ryan Ellis should stay in the hunt for the championship.

_WRS

Video Post: The Kamei Golf at the Nurburgring

Mike, Chris and the guys over at Clubgti are a never-ending treasure-trove of rare bits of information on all things VW Motorsport, especially the famous Kamei Golf. Chris just posted this video from 1977, which shows, among other things such as a GELO Porsche 935, a few fleeting seconds of the world's most-famous sporting Golf.

_WRS

Pic Post: (vintage) David Rugh / Portland Racing GTI

David Rugh, Columbus Ohio 1985. Picture copyright / used with permission Mark Windecker.

The best yet. We've been searching high and low for additional pictures of the other Portland Racing VWs from 1985. Our buddy Mark Windecker, an amazing photographer with amazing archives, has come through for us once again. He went back through his catalog of the 1985 Columbus Ohio IMSA Champion Spark Plug Challenge race, and came up with this shot of the #04 Portland Racing entered GTI, driven by David Rugh. David finished 5th, and in this shot we can clearly see a number of similarities between our VW Sport Caravan GTI and those they ran on the track. It has the same paint scheme and windshield retainers, and from what we can see a very similar cage. Standard fenders of course, and what looks like a Kamei front spoiler, but its an encouraging shot.

Just think. Twenty six years ago the car would have seemed rather cheap and disposable compared to the big IMSA GTP cars which were the main event, and few photographers would have bothered to waste the film. Film isn't cheap; not now, not then. Thankfully Mark was there, documenting more than just the big show, and providing us with the chance to take a look back in time at what the more grassroots guys were doing back in 1985.

We're in the process of tracking down more information, and this particular pic has come up with the most promising leads thus far. More soon. Hopefully.

_WRS

VW Sport IMSA GTI (Part 3, Inspection of a factory racer)

When we last left off with our VW Sport IMSA GTI Bring a Trailer score, we had just gotten back from picking it up from the previous owner, and narrowly missed possible (near?) disaster thanks to a rather intense lake-effect snow storm. Although we had certainly inspected the car before signing off on the bill of sale and loading up, it wasn't exactly the best situation for rumination on the finer points of the car.



I mean sure it all checked out. The car was clearly a one-of-a-kind. But what exactly did we get? The ad on BaT as well as any other information we've scrounged has said that it was a spare car built into an IMSA GTU class car, or perhaps was more a concept than race car. One thing's for sure: It's an odd and completely original piece of the Volkswagen motorsport history in the United States. Let's take a look inside to what Portland Racing has done shall we?

Spotted in NYC: Mk2 Golf on Porsche 928 wheels

Our buddy Tony sent this pic of a very clean and very nice looking 1985 Mk2 Golf small-window car with European bumpers and polished Porsche 928 wheels, which he spotted on the Upper East Side earlier today. Proof positive that the K.I.S.S. theory of VW styling is almost always the best.

_WRS

Video Post: VW Polo R WRC teaser trailer

Busy workin'

You can stumble onto the strangest things in New York

This past Saturday my wife and I were going to see a friend's band play a show, and we got done with dinner a bit early so we decided to stroll around a bit and work off a few calories before hitting the bar. If there's one thing I've learned after living in NYC the past 6 years it's that you can pretty much expect to see anything at anytime. Crazy people, famous people, rare cars, expensive cars, pretty much anything is possible at any time. There are certain things you do not ever really expect however, and seeing the 2010 Championship DTM AMG C Class Mercedes sitting alone in a giant and unfinished new dealership is certainly one of those things. So when we happened upon this only-in-New York scene, naturally I decided to take some pictures....

Video Post: VW Golf24 = 1, Porsche GT3 Cup = 0

Passing on the outside of Karussell... Combined with the recently announced driver pairing of Johnny Herbert and Mark Blundell on one of the three Golf24 cars that VW will run in the Nurburgring 24 this year, I think we have something to look forward to in June.



_WRS