ATL986

So I was driving to the Barber Motorsports Park for the Porsche 250 today and I passed by the majestically large and historically significant Talladega Motor Speedway. (Yes, the race is still underway, I am posting this from the media center.)

This reminded me of Mark Donohue's FIA World Closed Circuit Speed Record won in 1975, just weeks before his death, when he drove the 917-30 to an average lap speed of 221.160 Miles Per Hour. (I heard rumor that they blew up every single turbocharged 12 cylinder in the united states en route to the record. I don't know for sure if that is true.)

I was curious if any RennList-ers might know anything about this significant moment in Porsche history. The record at the track still stands and likely will for a very long time. I would love to write an article about this record for the magazine. If anyone has any photography, anecdotes, or leads on who I should contact, please let me know.

(Since this is not AutoAtlanta related, I figured it would be best if I used my own User Name for the request)

Thanks,

Bradley C. Brownell (AKA AutoAtlanta)

gums

Yes, that event is well chronicled, Donohue in red Cam2 livery on the high banks at Talladega. That record may still stand for that track, but if memory serves my I think Mario upped the record at Michigan in his Lola IndyCar, I think something like 248.

ATL986

I don't know about "well documented". Other than "the Unfair Advantage" and Argetsingers new book I have not seen much on the story. There is almost nothing online, and I have never seen it in a magazine or anything.

I assumed that there may be someone here who either was there, or maybe knew someone who was.

Anything at all would be helpful.

911SLOW

In 1974 A.J. Foyt had set the world closed-speed record of 217.854 mph with his USAC Coyote on the 2.66 mile banked track at Talladega, Alabama.

Considering this Donahue realized that at last he had the chance to take advantage of the high speed that he and Porsche had engineered into the 917/30.

Remembering the speeds reached at Paul Richard, he decided that all he had to do was take the car to a high speed track and floor it.

Donahue took this on as a personal project through his own Racemark company located in Florida.

With the sponsorship of CAM 2 motor oil, he commissioned Porsche on April 28 1975 to rebuild two 5.4 liter engines with intercoolers.

Note that although intercoolers had been built and supplied by Porsche they didn’t use them in the 1973 season.

The engine was good for 1500hp.
Mark sent with an airplane his engines to Weissach and asked them to be overhauled one as a 5.4 liter and one as a 5 liter with larger turbochargers.
The agreement was that the rebuilt will not exceed 22000USD; a payment was sent on May 10th (15000USD from a Monaco bank account).
Note that the regular rebuilt price of the turbocharged engine was 180,000DM / 80,000USD so Porsche’s bill for Mark seemed reasonable.

The engines arrived at the Philadelphia airport on July 3rd.
Donahue arranged to run the Talladega track.
They trimmed the car to the lowest drag consistent with some stability and in the first test on July 23 they did a warm up lap of 218.6mph followed by a timed lap of 220.645.
In the tests both engines were used showing that Mark had been prudent to have two of them.

On August 9 in the midst of a NASCAR event Mark was given the track and put his foot down for the record. Despite some raindrops he kept it down and set a new official closed course record of 221.120.

When the car came back in the whole back was on fire but the damage was little.

That is the last racing achievement of the 917/30.

10 days later Mark Donohue died in a F1 in the same track that the 917 took its first victory..



Hope that helps.

John

*information / dates and names are from Excellence was Expected by Karl Ludvigsen.

AutoAtlanta

Hah, I have that book on my shelf. I suppose I should have looked more carefully through that book as well. Thanks for the help, I very much appreciate it.