Working their way through the pack...
- Thread starter tygaboy
- Start date
The Silber-Sau! Such a cool car and build story..
Not this time, unfortunately.
The '71 ETCC Spa 24 Hours.
Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium.
Race winners were D. Glemser and A. Soler-Roig in the Ford Capri RS 2600.
The red AMG Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3 finished 2nd.
The Lauda/ Larrousse Alpina 2800CS, which qualified 2nd, retired with transmission issues.
The highest-placed BMW was the Luigi Racing 2800CS, in 6th.
The Ecurie Azur 2800CS crashed during the night, killing driver Raymond Mathay.
Some 2800CS BMWs were running 3-liter engines at this point.
And I believe one of the reasons the Red Pig didn't win was the gas mileage. They were stopping twice as much to top up the tanks...
Ha! Too funny. As it turns out, I was at that race! As a fresh faced almost/barely teenager, my best friend and I decided to hitch hike to Spa for the race. We were not too much into racing at the time but it was something to do. Needless to say we were woefully unprepared and didn’t really think a lot of details through. Such as where to eat or sleep for example. So by 2 or 3 am we both fell asleep in between benches on the grand stands (security was obviously pretty lax in those days bc I’m sure we had no money not pay for those seats). Worst sleep of my life.
But what really made an impression on us was the big red Mercedes. Spectacularly loud, both visually and audibly.
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A few seconds later, showing the whole 60-car field shortly after the start.
After 24 hours, there were 19 cars remaining.
The winning Ford Capri RS 2600 leads the Grauls/ Hoffmann Camaro Z28, which posted the best qualifying time but retired.
![bmw%2030%20csl%20114%20spa[1].jpg](https://e9coupe.com/forum/attachments/bmw-2030-20csl-20114-20spa-1-jpg.148116/ "bmw%2030%20csl%20114%20spa[1].jpg")
After 24 hours, there were 19 cars remaining.
The winning Ford Capri RS 2600 leads the Grauls/ Hoffmann Camaro Z28, which posted the best qualifying time but retired.
Oops, that’s right! I had forgotten about the Camaro. But that one what was what was attracting the most attention. While the Capris, BMWs, Alfas and, to a lesser extend, Mercedes where common sights in endurance races at the time, the Camaro was a complete out of left field surprise. It was indeed extremely fast and extremely loud but nobody expected it to go the distance. But it certainly put on a great show for several hours
EDIT: Note that, as shown on those pictures, at the time, the pits were still on the downhill towards Eau Rouge. They have since been moved to the back straight so that cars would now all hit the very fast (and dangerous) Eau Rouge esses right after the green flag.
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What a great pic!
It may just be shadow, but look at the size of the rear tires on the #22 capri! It is great to see the Camaro in there fighting it out. I was more of a Ford guy at the time, but that is one of my favorite Camaro body styles