Author: the braking zone

Drama is about to unfold in more ways than one at the famous Nurburgring in the Eiffel mountains of Germany, as atrocious weather in the region is set to turn the speed palace into a skating rink.  The Nurburgring 1,000 Kilometers was to be the seventh round of the 1986 World Sports Car Championship Series.  The race was held on the 24th of August – the day Hurricane Charlie hit Europe.  In the most appalling conditions imaginable, the Porsche, Jaguar, and Mercedes factories fought out Germany’s top sports car event – Mercedes mindful they had not won a World Sports Car event since 1955.  It would prove to be a race to remember, although one those taking part would prefer to forget.

Paul Fowler calls the racing action.

https://motorsport.tv/duke-classic-videos/video/1986-world-sports-car-nrburgring/4971

Silk Cut Jaguar was set to win in Spain, with virtually no competition.  There was no works Porsche, Lancia, or the Rothmans-Joest Porsche to worry about.  What would happen to Derek Warwick and Jan Lammers?  Stay tuned, to find out.

The new circuit of Jerez in southern Spain was to be host to the sixth round of the World Sports Car Championship series.  In temperatures above 40 degrees Centigrade, the racing was to be close – and perhaps just that little bit too close.  Cinch those belts down tight, one more time, as we join Paul Fowler in the commentary box, in the land of sherry and the Moors, the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during the Middle Ages.

The World Sports Car Championship races in Iberia, in the sherry producing hills of Andalusia, for the first time, ever.  Paul Fowler calls the racing action.

https://motorsport.tv/duke-classic-videos/video/1986-world-sports-car-jerez/4970

World Champions Hans Stuck and Derek Bell were forced to drive an unfamiliar Joest-Rothmans 956B, but were unlikely to yield to any extra pressure exerted by Derek Warwick and Jean-Louis Schlesser in the Jaguar XJR6.  This film is known as “Comedy of Errors” for a reason.  You will see why.  Bear with us, folks.  This is wacky races, personified.

The fifth round in the 1986 World Sports Car Championship Series was to be a race full of both incident and controversy.  It was to prove a catalogue of disaster, leaving a trail of destruction, and the aftertaste of poor organization and marshaling by the British Racing & Sports Car Club.  It was a world event that will be long remembered.  We start this wacky motor race, by sending you trackside, with commentator Paul Fowler.

https://motorsport.tv/duke-classic-videos/video/1986-world-sports-car-brands-hatch/4969

From the Spa Classic, via Goodwood Road & Racing on YouTube.

You cannot get closer to Group C cars than this. Our 360 camera was mounted on the barrier at the apex of Eau Rouge to watch Porsche 962s, Jaguar XJR8s and more attack Eau Rouge and Raidillon at the 2019 #SpaClassic #gwflatout

Check out a Porsche 962C racing at the recent Spa Classic at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium.

https://www.goodwood.com/grr/race/historic/2019/5/video-wrestling-a-writhing-porsche-962c-at-the-spa-classic/?fbclid=IwAR2-Jh97N_nShT7o7ENlQXbG2WAldrmAgKDQT1svZTDTxhCfGNROkVqCFt4

What was the greatest era of sportscar racing? Was it the Ford v Ferrari battles of the 1960s? Or do the mad Group 5 monsters of the ’70s or the rule-twisting GT1 beauties of the 1990s catch your eye? Well, for many, the glory years of fender-shot racing can be found in the 1980s, the days of a fuel-formula given the name Group C.

https://www.goodwood.com/grr/race/historic/2019/5/gallery-legends-of-group-c-battle-at-the-2019-spa-classic/

West Germany’s Norisring plays host to the World Sports Car Championship, in 1986.

For the first time, the World Sports Car Championship comes to Norisring.  The 1.4 mile street circuit sprints around the Hitler stadiums of Nuremberg.  Jaguar are making their first raid on the Fatherland, aiming to beat Porsche at home.  Paul Fowler calls the racing action.

https://motorsport.tv/duke-classic-videos/video/1986-world-sports-car-norisring-sprint/4967

Jaguar, in their first full season back in sports car racing in 29 years, is looking for their first win.  Will they be able to do it at home, at the Silverstone circuit in the midlands of England?  Will they be able to beat their rivals from Stuttgart, in Germany, Porsche?  29 years after their last World Sports Car victory, Jaguar take on Porsche and Lancia at their home circuit of Silverstone.  Britain’s round of the 1986 World Sports Car Championship for teams and drivers proved to be the day on which the mighty German and Italian factory teams were chased off by the Silk Cats.  May the 5th will be a day that’s long remembered in sports car racing.

Lets send you now, to the man who will call this memorable race, Paul Fowler.

https://motorsport.tv/duke-classic-videos/video/1986-world-sports-car-silverstone/4965

The first of seven races in a row from the 1986 World Sports Car Championship, that will be featured, not necessarily in succession, but in sequence, here on Group C Sports Cars… The Thunder of the ’80s.  We open this sequence of blog posts, with a tranche of races in no particular order, from the ’86 season.  First up, the Monza 1,000 Kilometers, the season opener, from Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in Monza, Italy.  A rare opportunity to see Lancia against Porsche and Jaguar.  The action was sizzling.  With time for only one fuel stop and driver change, the pressure was really on!  The cameras capture the searing speed and frantic action at the pit counters.

The opening round of the 1986 World Sports Car Championship is run to the new “sprint” format, over 365 kilometers of the historic Monza Autodrome in Italy on the 20th of April.  In this fifth season of Group C racing, the quality of entries has never looked better.  We join Bob Constanduros in the commentary box, for the play-by-play of the action.

https://motorsport.tv/duke-classic-videos/video/1986-world-sports-car-monza/4962

May 12th, 1985, round number three of the 1985 World Sports Car Championship in the midlands of England, at the fabled Silverstone circuit.  Porsche is out in full force against one solitary Lancia.  The Porsche brigade is led by the duo of Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass aboard the #1 Rothmans 962.  Lancia with Ricardo Patrese qualifies quickest with a new track lap record at 149 miles an hour, and Johnny Palmer in the Canon Porsche would go on to set a new race lap record.  What else happened?  Tune in to find out, as the video begins with lap of the circuit noting each corner, aboard one of the 962 Porsche’s, in the hands of Richard Lloyd.  Brian Kreisky does the driver interviews, and provides the play-by-play for the race.

https://motorsport.tv/duke-classic-videos/video/1985-world-sports-car-silverstone/4960