Skategoat

Is anyone familiar with the Rothmans-Porsche Cup that ran 944 cars in Canada in the 80s?

I may have located a car from that series in very good shape at a reasonable price but I need to know more about it.

I know they ran normally-aspirated 944s in 1986 (Scott Goodyear was champion). This is the car I am interested in. How was it equipped? I know it was much lighter than stock with no a/c, straight pipe, manual windows and doors.

What about suspension and engine mods?

Thanks,

Henry

Jay-P

Those cars came with limited slip, 16' wheels, and race sport suspension. I'm sure you're more interested in the "race sport suspension", which I've been told includes more than the basic M 030 parts. OEM tires were the Pirelli P700 slightly modified for the series.

Engine was the stock 2.5l 150hp. Each engine for the series were dynoed to ensure equal output and then sealed to avoid tampering.

Series, I believe, ran in 86 and 87. Good luck with the purchase.

GeoffD

The Upper Canada Region of the Porsche Club of America has three former n/a Rothman's cars that run in our Driver's Ed events. Two of them race regularly in PCA Club Racing H class.

The cars are standard 1986 (early offset, late interior) 944 shells with no sunroof, no power accessories, no air conditioning, no insulation, no power steering but with upgraded suspension and limited slip differential. They had the 1986 US and Canada 944 motor with 9.7:1 CR and 150 HP. They weighed somewhere around 2688 lbs, about 100 lbs less than the standard 944. For this reason they are now forced to race in PCA H class as opposed to I class which is where standard 944's race. My 88 924S is as fast or perhaps faster in a straight line but the Rothman's cars have a braking and handling advantage due to their lighter weight and wider tires.

The series was a totally Canadian Series which was the brainchild of David Deacon who I believe was at the time the marketing manager of VW/Porsche Canada (which by the way no longer exists, we just have PCNA now). Somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 cars were built by Porsche on special order and sold to race teams in Canada. Sponsors included Porsche dealers and firms like Denon and Reebok. The series ran at Mosport, Shannonville, Mt. Tremblant and other Easter tracks and I presume also ran at Westwood (near Vancouver, now closed)and other Western tracks.

This was a real golden age of Canadian racing as at the same time, we had the Player's GM and Michelin/Honda roadracing series. The n/a series ran for 86 and 87 and was followed by the 944 Turbo Cup series in 88 and 89. Driver's who participated included Scott Goodyear, Paul Tracy, Jacques Villeneuve Sr., Rick Bye, Richard Spenard, Ludwig Heimrath and Ron Fellows.

A few of the cars were never raced and turn up from time to time. Track ready cars have been purchased for less than $20,000 CDN ($12,700 US) which is the least you will EVER pay for a bonafide, reasonably modern Porsche racing car which can still be campaigned competitively.

Mark Lue

The racing was some of the best I've seen, kinda like the British touring car series.

Here's a long shot, does anybody out there have any video tapes of the Rothmans Porsche Cup races? Please e-mail me!

Mark
'86 944NA

GeoffD

Someone who knows all about these cars is Terry Cleland of Canadian Pragmatics in Toronto. I think that Terry was the one who prepared the engines and also built cages and exhausts for many of the cars. The cars came with stock exhaust and no roll cage.

I had a few more thoughts about this series. One of the reasons that this series was so popular was that it pitted the best Canadian drivers against each other in Porsche's entry level car with a minimum of modifications allowed. The Boxster of the late 90's is to Porsche what the 944 was in the mid 80's. It is a car that helped bring a lot of new owners to Porsche and that many non Porsche owners were familiar with and aspired to.

Heretofor Porsche has shown zero interest in racing the Boxster. So imagine a series, similar to the Rothman's series but using 40 standard issue bottom of the line Boxsters fitted with safety equipment and good tires. The drivers would be the best sedan, endurance and sports car racers in North America and the events would be held as support races at CART, ALMS and other major races. The emphasis would be on low cost but very competitive racing (no GT-2's, no Super Cup cars, just stripped Boxters, all the same!) and Porsche would endorse the series. What a blast!!!!

*Rothmans*

Actually there are four Rothmans Challenge cars in the UCR PCA. You just haven't seen mine yet. Rick Bye just sold his original Reebok Car to another member for well over what you are stating the market value of the cars are. I doubt there are any unraced cars out there, I do know there are turbo cup cars that were never raced.
The cars are undercoating free, have no AC, power steering, and manual windows. They do have a heavy roll cage however.
The engines are stock, and the suspension id the 1986 sport suspension with adjustable spring perches on the front. The exhausts were free, and varieties of straight pipes were used, some exiting under the drivers door area (very loud!!!!)
The cars have LSD also as mentioned.
And by the way, the 1986 Champion was Kees
Nierop, a very successful Porsche racer that went on to race the same factory cars that Spenard, Adam, Goodyear and others raced.
He was simply a better driver and was a very impressive racer in a variety of cars.
Some of the others like Maxwell (car is in the US) and Fellows are currently racing in the ALMS quite successfully!
In my opinion, for the money you can but a lot more car (as I sent to you directly)
and the value is purely sentimental imho...

Skategoat

My apologies to Kies Neirop. I think Goodyear won in 88 maybe?

Brian Wilson

They have Porsche in Canada??? JK.

Karl T

> My apologies to Kies Neirop.
> I think Goodyear won in 88 maybe?

Richard Spenard won in 1987. 86 and 87 were the only years for the normally-aspirated cars, in 88 and 89 they went with the much more powerful Turbo models. It was a testament to the original format of the series that the Turbo Cup cars were made at the factory, rather than built after-the-fact as the NA cars were. Indeed, I don't believe that there are ANY NA cars that weren't raced, whereas the Turbo cars could be ordered as an option from Porsche without promising it'd be raced.

I'd have to disagree with the comment (from "Rothmans Challenge") that for the money you could get a better car. While it's true that for CDN$25k you could purchase a nice GT-2 class 911 (see UCR's web site for one, as an example), I doubt that it would be competitive, whereas the Rothmans 944s do reasonably well in H class. They'd be better in I, as the H-class 911s have a 50hp advantage, but one of these cars took first place at Mosport's Club Race Sprint this year, and another took the Enduro win.

As for fun, I think it's hard to beat running in H or I class, with their big fields (25 cars at Watkins Glen this year!) and closely-matched power-to-weight ratios. Just my $0.02.

Karl T

GeoffD

Karl and Ken (you know who you are),

When did you boys turn up?

The reason that I say that there were some cars that were not raced was that I looked at TWO in the early 90's. One down around Stratford and one in Sunderland (if my fading memory is correct). They both met all the specs (no power stuff, no sunroof, no undercoat /insulation, sport suspension, LSD etc) but had stock exhaust and no roll cage. BTW I am quite sure that the cars did not come with a cage, I think that, as Karl said, they were basically standard equipment delete cars that were made into race cars in Canada.

Karl T

> When did you boys turn up?

Well, you know, I heard the words "Rothmans Cup" and came running...

From the archives... the cars that ran in this series were ordered "en masse" from the Factory by Porsche Canada as option-delete cars. If I'm not mistaken, they were not able to be purchased by the general public - not only did you have to be "in the know" but you also had to purchase the car - for the express purpose of running it in the series - from the dealer that was sponsoring you. So, you had to agree to race the car, and the dealer had to agree to sponsor you, before you could take posession of the car. From the chain of title, that certainly fits with my car.

As was previously mentioned, Terry Cleland at Canadian Pragmatics was deeply involved with many teams, but not all. In fact (judging from the backwoods construction of my exhaust) I think they had very little to do with my car.

As you can tell, we are trying to get more information on the cars and this series. If any of my info is incorrect, please feel free to correct...

_k_

*Rothmans*

As always Karl is in the know
I agree with the sponsorship information, and the way the cars were ordered through VW Canada.
As far as other option delete cars, I bought a car from New York state that was rare indeed: a 1986 factory deleted sunroof
(never seen one of those before ever except for the Rothmans cars), sport suspension, LSD, but it had AIR and POWER STEERING.
But it does have undercoating !
I also agree that they will do well in H class for the money... but I seem to think a "normal" I class 944 tweeked the right way (read suspension modified) with the
right aftermarket goodies (come on Karl, you and Ian are still all original purists, right? ) you would be just as fast.
The point of the series was that all cars were identical, and the best driver won, and they did with few exceptions. Only a few of these cars of the pack of 31 or so ever led a race !
In PCA mods are allowed. The 944 seems to be
a great platform to get into racing. Just ask the creators of the new series "the 944
cup" www.944cup.com
The Rothmans cars are a real piece of Porsche racing history and I am proud to own one. And if you do, get in touch, Karl might create a website dedicated to these cars. We will be glad to hear from you.