driving EX-TEAM TAISAN
 

chance arrived, so i bought an race car from TEAM TAISAN, a 996 GT3 R :evilgrin:

I track the car in one afternoon and set some competitive laptime.:burnout:

http://youtu.be/MQ5C9Nu0qN0

Hope you enjoy!:thumbup:

Sam

Looks good! 996 R´s are nice toys! ;)

I´m looking forward to some more vids of the car!

By any chance do you own chassis WPOZZZ99ZYS692111 ? The #73 Le Mans 2000 winner ?

Probably the mot epic finish in GT class for the 996 GT3, with team Haberthur losing everything in the last couple of laps, and Taisan being the ultimate winner after Dick Barbour's car was disqualified.

http://hfr-rehost.net/http://www.end...000-finish.jpg

It is chassis WPOZZZ99ZYS692111, and #73.
How do you know do much about this car?
Sam

Getting a Le Mans winning car must be awesome (even if victory was gained after the race due to a disqualification) ! You're owning a piece of history, if I were so lucky I'd really work to put it back to it's original race specifications and paintwork.

The Porsche Haberthur incident in the ultimate laps is super famous as well, I remember seeing this live in TV :
Could you post pics of the car in it's current configuration ?

http://hfr-rehost.net/www.lemans-his...2000/am_73.jpg

Le Mans winner?? Damn! Congratulations on that deal! That's awesome!

Just put her back in the original Le Mans livery and the original Race-Specs.

You are a lucky man! And of course: Some Photos of her would be great! ;)

At the moment she is mistakenly stripped off her war paint due to misunderstanding by the staffs of her previous race garage. The car was sold to me without sponsors' stickers but they took out the entire red wrap after the door, left me with a black chassis with red rear bumpers. I was not happy, of course.

To be honest, I didn't know this chassis won the Le Mans GT. I've been fascinated (and still is) by TEAM TAISAN #26's racing history in GT300 class of Japan's Super GT and I thought I would get that one but I ended up getting #73. I have been looking in the internet hoping to find #26's original paint design, and my only choice so far was to buy die cast model (which I do not mind) or eventually just talk to TAISAN about some drawing. But voilà! here you posted clear photos that got me really surprised.

The chassis was shipped to Thailand mid 2010 by my new friend & soon-to-be P-car coach Mr. Akihiro Asai to race in Thailand's Supercar series. In 2011 Akihiro won the championship piloting her with racing number 4.

At that time I was just 2nd year racing a super 1500 class civic 3 door hatch (I won the 1st runner up in my class that year). When Akihiro won the last race (Bangsaen, a road race, which I won in my class as well), I talked to him about this car. I was told that TEAM TAISAN's owner, Mr. Ricky Chiba of, has too many race cars in his garage and wants to get rid off some.

Here is an article about him with a youtube video interview showing his roomful of BIG collections. Simply amazing. http://www.carzi.com/2009/08/06/team...ictures-video/

The price was a little over my budget, and she just won the championship so the negotiation was not in my favor, so I did not get it. There were others who were looking for P-cars at the same time but they either went for 997 cup cars, Ferrari challenge, Gallardo gt3, eventually (we have extremely loose GT regulations here). This year my goal is champion in the 1500 class but I didn't do well, despite working very hard & paying for it, plagued with mechanical delays & problems. Last event by chance I found that my friend Akihiro has dropped the selling price by a staggering 35% because he wants to bring in another TAISAN Porsche (with sequential shift). The sister car of the gold color 996 RS or RSR without the crazy aero. http://www.speedhunters.com/2008/09/...gt300_porsche/

Plus the price includes 4 sets of Yokohama slicks, and most importantly the engine was only 6-7 hours after rebuilt. (Akihiro is a professional driver, he does not practice. He just arrive, qualify, race.) So I quickly close the deal thinking I have got myself a good'o 996 R with GT300 racing history.

Two weeks later I was learning her style & blasting on the circuit. She's a handful in the first 2 sessions while fine-tuning her set-up to better suit my driving style. Now with almost 2 hours of track time I can use the throttle to help me steer out of slow tight bends.

I am really surprised that she went to Le Mans ! I'll definitely give her back her glorious old war paint ! Thanks !

Wow special w lit - you just uncovered the treasure chest! Nice one!
T - congrats on your purchase which just got a lot more interesting!!
Getting it back to Le Mans state should be incredible.
Driving it now you know that must be a huge rush too.

I dig the unique silver trim around the headlights (among 996 or so other things)
oh I also way prefer the tiger stripe approach of the die cast one/Le mans vs the current so you can only win by going back there!

What an epic story - please keep us upto date when you have the time :corn:

Wow if you didn't know the real past of this car, it makes the story and your purchase even better :)

If you bought this car to race & have fun as well, let it be, race it for a couple of seasons with it's current bodywork and modifications and don't worry too much about chipping the paint :) Rear bumper, front bonnet and fenders are no longer original anyway.

But as a side project, you should talk to Taisan, talk to Porsche Motorsport, talk to the ACO to get as much original spare parts & technical documentation as possible. Then when you want to switch to something else it will be easy to put her back to original specs and sell it for good money to a collector.

Just try to avoid the tire walls ;)

It's odd in the 2009 video about the collection the car can be seen as well, and looks pretty much original :

http://hfr-rehost.net/i/86ee27553cbc...7f9c0255c3.png

Am I seeing flames out of the hood vent??

http://i1012.photobucket.com/albums/...edk/falmes.jpg

Did they modify the car to have the cnter rad exit through the hood?? Even if they did i dont see why there would ever be flames coming out of it. Very cool pic!!