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SPA Six Hour Race 2021

Our racing project started in late 2017 from zero. I said then that if we start this, then in 3 years we will be driving in SPA. Everybody including myself thought the man has got crazy. We worked hard the 3 years and we wanted to drive in spring 2020 in Spa in 2.0 Liter Cup race. Everything was ready, but then Covid postponed all the racing activities.

 

The first opportunity for us came then in late 2021 with Spa Six Hour Endurance Race. This was a year and half later than we had planned, but it was also much bigger challenge than 2.0 Liter Cup race with 1,5 hours and with 30 other Porsches. Now we were going to drive 6 hours with three drivers and with close to one hundred other cars partly in the night and knowing Spa very likely in rain. 

 

Spa Six Hour Endurance race 2021 was driven on Saturday evening 2.10. Our team of three drivers: Markus Palttala, Risto Virtanen and Jussi Itävuori and pit team Jan Svenns and Markus Nieminen were ready. We drove one test day, 1,5 hour qualifying on Friday and then the race. Our 1965 Porsche with its familiar race number 65 was in final results 41st out of 83 cars. In our class (GTS 11) we were 6th out of 23 and out of Porsche 911´s 4th out of 11 cars. The race started at 4 PM in the day light and dry. It finished 6 hours later at 10 PM in full darkness and light rain. The race is long for the pre -66 cars and many if not most of the cars faced some technical problems, bigger or smaller. Our strategy with 3 refueling stops and 3 driver changes worked perfectly. The car was running well the first 5 h 15 minutes, but then the gearbox started to have big problems due to a major oil leak. The last 15 minutes of the race we drove slowly only with 3th gear to be able to reach the finish line. Finally WE DID IT, but it was close! Great experience, great team and great result.

 

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