Known for its long distance exploits, the Porsche GT3 RSR is a fast and reliable beast. One of these machines resides in Canterbury and belongs to Scott O’Donnell.
Recently raced in the ASKO Appliances Endurance Series organised by the South Island Endurance Racing Drivers Club (SIERDC) the GT3 was in competition with the Carters V8 Supercar for the overall title.
“This particularly car was owned by the Flying Lizard team based in San Francisco,” commented O’Donnell. “We know it competed in the American Le Manss (AMS) series with contracted German drivers and would have been run at the Le Mans 24 hour in France.”
“I bought it off them two years ago. When I was there (at the team base) they had five 997s in their workshop and another two at Le Mans.”
O’Donnell previously had a 2001 996 GT3 cup car. “The RSR is quite different. It is a foot wider, four inches longer giving it more rubber (bigger tyres) and down force. It has a six speed sequential gear box as opposed to the traditional ‘H’ pattern and a 3.8 litre motor developing 440 horse power whereas the 996 was a 3.6 litre with 390hp.”
“I thought it was collectable and fast. I’ve had a lot of good reliability with the cup cars and wanted something similar but faster.”
“All the suspension is built for endurance (24 hours) where a GT3 cup car is built for sprint or 1-2 hours.”
“It is fun to drive but I haven’t quite got my head around it. It is very flat through corners with no body roll, the whole car just slides sideways. That’s partly why I’ve got Andy Neale involved because he understands these things better than me.” Neale co-drove with O’Donnell in the endurance series.
“The biggest problem I have found is that it doesn’t have ABS. The cup cars that I have driven have had ABS so if you want to stop you just jump on the brakes. This is a particular problem if you are on cold tyres as you can flat spot (a tyre) very quickly.
“It is a very nice car to drive but physically more demanding. For example you come out of the loop at Teretonga and you are breathing pretty hard because it is a long corner.”
Unfortunately for O’Donnell and Neale it was a clutch that gave in within the first hour of the last endurance race at Powerbuilt Tools International Raceway. They finished the series second overall.
