A total of eleven cars entered for the 2017’s inaugural NSR Porsche 917 Series race. Although unplanned, the field could be split into very defined groups. Gulf‘s baby blue and orange color combo were represented by three entrants – annoyingly, two of the cars shared both livery and racing numbers (#2). Two racers opted for all-white liveries, cloaking their racing numbers and sponsors, they were dubbed The Ghost Team. Also represented by two cars were Porsche Konstruktionen (Red #23 and Blue #2) and Team Sandeman (#4 and #43). Lastly we have the Privateers, with colorful custom livery cars #97 and #917.
The series’ rules were only decided two weeks prior to the event due to a cockpit-to-chassis clearance issue, found late by some racers. Despite the short time to review the finalized rule-set, all cars passed the meticulous tech inspection with flying colors. Here are the details (no particular order):
Randy A. – #2 Gulf / Weight: 77g, 8g of magnetic down-force   |
Bobby H. – #97 Privateer / Weight: 81g, 6g of magnetic down-force   |
Alejandro G. – #917 Privateer / Weight: 73g, 8g of magnetic down-force   |
David C. – #2 Konstruktionen / Weight: 75g, 11g of magnetic down-force   |
Jordan C. – #43 Sandeman / Weight: 75g, 14g of magnetic down-force   |
Steve B. – #7 Ghost / Weight: 76g, 14g of magnetic down-force   |
Shawn G. – #5 Ghost / Weight: 75g, 12g of magnetic down-force   |
Marty M. – #23 Konstruktionen / Weight: 83g, 6g of magnetic down-force   |
Bret L. – #43 Sandeman / Weight: 73g, 10g of magnetic down-force   |
Ary B. – #7 Gulf / Weight: 76g, 8g of magnetic down-force   |
Mark L. – #2 Gulf / Weight: 77g, 18g of magnetic down-force   |
The Race:
Such as the cars could be divided into groups, it seemed that racers can also be divided into brackets. Bobby, Brett and Randy had similar performances and fought their own “battle” on Group B; Mark, in the same group, finished ahead showing a significant stronger pace. The Group A racers could be divided into 3 distinct performance classes: Stephen’s and Shawn’s cars appeared to be difficult to handle and it reflected in their lap times; Jordan, Alejandro and Ary exhibited good overall performance and finished the race with minimal lap-count differences; David and Marty cars were really dialed-in, and it showed – both racers were the only ones to turn laps under 3.8 seconds and finished way ahead of the pack. Here are the results:
Congratulations to all!