James Achard

When I was pit crewing at Daytona last year(2003), rumors were flying arond the pits that TRG cars had sequential transmissions. I never was able to substantiate that but I do know Porsche Motorsport has been working on this.

Cheers, James

Greg A

James,

Very interesting info. Thank you for sharing it. I had not heard that rumor before. Which team were you with @ Daytona?

I visited TRG some time in February 2003. Two of the their three Daytona cars were there. My memory of this trip isn't rock solid, but this is what I can recall. The wrecked car was being rebuilt and they were going over the other car. The third car was on display at the museum in Daytona.

The wrecked car was basically empty as they were repairing the body, so I didn't see its trans. However, the second car had what appeared to be the traditional GT3 6 speed. I didn't inspect it very closely though.

Greg A

Greg Fishman

The only Porsche's last year with the sequential gearboxes were the AJR cars.

M758

I think the TRG car at 2003 Daytona was a regular 6-speed and I remember some in car shots watching one of the Porsche factory racers downshifting for 1 going through all the gear complete with heel and toe and what seemed like an H-pattern on the stick.

Not at all like the quick bang- bang- bang down shift of a sequential.

Paul

The only sequential in the '03 ALMS was in the Alex Job car, and this was pretty much all season long. The other teams agreed NOT to step up to the sequential until '04.

MJR911

Guys in PCA have run the hewland/wevo dog boxes for awhile. It can be done, just not bulletproof for an endurance race.

Paul

The Wevo is a 915 dogbox, which of course would never be used at the Pro level (although it's been pretty reliable for club racing). Forget Hewland for any sort of endurance racing. Too many heat treatment and "old dog design" issues.

The GT-brand 993 and G50 dogboxes, used by AJR and Callas in '99 and '00 were easily as strong as the standard synchro version, although the final race of '99 saw a broken fork in the Callas car (due to overly enthusiastic drivers pounding the shifter with no synchros to dictate the shifting speed).

Now that the bugs have been worked out, the Holinger sequentials as used by AJR may prove over time to be more durable than the standard synchro version transmission. Prudence may still dictate it being a year or two before any team uses the sequential in a 24-hour race. Besides, we shouldn't expect that Porsche would be allowed the advantage of a sequential transmission at Daytona. More likely we'll see a new "left-hand-shifting" rule for all Porsche drivers.