Bentley EXP Speed 8

[GT1]

The Bentley project was up in the air after the first year as far as the direction it was taking.

I think in 2003 VW did everything possible to make sure a green car finished. They put Audi drivers and personal and even the blasted pit crew (can we not find British pit crews?) on the 7 car and the Audis were restricted and Pirro also hinted in an interview before Le Mans that the new Michelin tire that they were using was what Bentley were using the previous year and now he could see why they were so quick.

When people say the Audi finally met its match I just wink and say "sure".

[MorganFan]

When people say the Audi finally met its match I just wink and say "sure".

Yeah, sure, VAG threw their weight behind the green cars in 2003, in the same way that the R8's got the nod in 2001/2002 over Bentley - that doesn't change the fact that the Speed 8 was a damm good car, and that only a "straight" fight between two unshackled, factory backed teams would be the way to see which was the better car. My money would still be on the Bentley, it was just so quick in it's winning year, without really ever being pushed.

VAG would never let the Speed 8 run as a non-factory car. Bentley represents their ultimate sporting/luxury brand, and they would not risk their investment in leveraging that brand by letting a customer team without sufficient resources to able to guarantee a win, race the car.

Also, I did see plenty of stuff at the time that the Speed 8 was much more labour intensive in terms of maintainance, setup, etc than the R8, which I again assume ups the cost and makes the car more difficult for a privateer to run effectively.

Still, it would be great to see it still running. I did feel that VAG kind of cheapened the victory a little by so obviously favouring the Kristensen/Smith/Capello car over the more "British" entry, in my opinion, a bit of a "scr*w you" to the trad brit origins of Bentley.

[simon c]

still miffed that wallace / leitzinger / vd poele were booted out after 2002. james weaver was spot on...

[MorganFan]

Why did James Weaver pull out? I read somewhere he had "concerns over the way the project was being run" but I never heard anything more juicy than that.

And yes, I think the 2002 lineup deserved a crack at the podium in 2003, especially Andy Wallace (brit car, brit driver, etc, etc).

[Aysedasi]

I'd have loved to see Andy in that winning car in 2003.

I thought James left the project for "safety" reasons?

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by Aysedasi
I'd have loved to see Andy in that winning car in 2003.

I thought James left the project for "safety" reasons?

Lack of tyre pressure sensors on the car, I believe.

[Bob Riebe]

I thought James left the project for "safety" reasons?

Originally posted by cybersdorf
Lack of tyre pressure sensors on the car, I believe.

[FG1]

Originally posted by MorganFan

VAG would never let the Speed 8 run as a non-factory car. Bentley represents their ultimate sporting/luxury brand, and they would not risk their investment in leveraging that brand by letting a customer team without sufficient resources to able to guarantee a win, race the car.

This sounds about right to me.

FG

[jhansen]

I believe James Weaver left Bentley for more than just safety reasons. He was on Windtunnel and this question was actually posed to him. I can't remember his exact response. Tim may recall his comments better than I can.

Side note: Bob...you're not a driver at the top level (at least you havn't claimed to be) and your indifference about safety issues in racing is becoming rather tiresome.

[GT1]

I never said the Bentley wasn't a great car. It was, but it was almost too obvious at Le Mans 2003. I remember Pirro before the race being interviewed and he said he was "optimistic for a good result" but said something to the effect that a good result didn't mean winning.

Letho had the look of "What did you expect" afterward and said he knew unless the green cars had problems there was no chance and the straightline speed was killing them.

It was just too obvious. Aside from having a button to blow up an engine on the R8s just in case, VW did everything possible to ensure "Bentley" a win. The part about the German pit crew still cracks me up.

I was expecting Rienhld Joest to claim the victory was a "bloody" good one.

[MorganFan]

I never said the Bentley wasn't a great car. It was, but it was almost too obvious at Le Mans 2003

Correct, in exactly the same way it was too obvious in 2001 and 2002 that Bentley probably weren't going to be allowed to beat Audi. In 2002 they were only allowed to run 1 car as opposed to 3 factory R8's, to ensure Audi got the third victory they wanted.

I suppose given all the money VAG have pumped into their LM cars, you can't blame them for engineering the results they wanted.

Ultimately, that's the fault of all the other manufacturers. Nobody else has been on the ball enough to build and develop a car in the last 5 years that has seriously stood a chance of beating the Audi Speed Eight or the Bentley R8 unless they had suffered extreme reliability problems, which you just knew they wouldn't.

I'm still kind of cheesed off though that having waited so long to for Bentley to come back to LM that VAG cheapened the end result (IMHO) by playing things that way.

I wonder if they would have seriously countenanced running the R8 and Speed 8 programmes for as long as they did had there been serious opposition that was challenging (and maybe beating) VAG. Didn't Porsche get "warned off" over their LMP in 2001, with the carrot/stick approach over the Cayenne/Tourag joint venture?

Sad thing is, with Audi talking about the R9 coming along, and not a lot of firm data about any other major manfacturers building new LMP cars, when is this situation going to change?

[Aysedasi]

Lets ease off on the Audi-bashing in this thread.......




....... there's another thread to do that in.....

[Bob Riebe]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jhansen


Side note: Bob...you're not a driver at the top level (at least you havn't claimed to be) and your indifference about safety issues in racing is becoming rather tiresome. [/


To bad man, living life under a rock because one thinks Chicken-Little might be right, is not what motor sports is about, or life for that matter.
Indifferance about safety is the only reason racing was ever started.
I learned thirty some years ago that worry about tomorrow is foolish at best, tomorrow may never come. If God decides it is time to check-out, you are gone.
Bob

[Nordic]

If God decides it is time to check-out, you are gone.

Thats right, however I would not want to join him before my time for the want of a bit a pre planning or better design work.

Indifferance about safety is the only reason racing was ever started

Not quite true, the reason racing started was to promote the virtures, both of safety & speed, not who could climb the stairway to heaven fastest.

[Fab]

Originally posted by TerryC
What a waste to put it in a museum. Thanks for that detailed list.

Originally posted by Osella
They should be in private hands, racing

Even if I'd prefer to see those beauties on the track, considering that VAG won't race them anymore, the good side of the museum is to have a chance to see one back in the Classic races... later ! Didn't VAG let a car to the LM museum ? Imagine the Classic event in 2020

[Bob Riebe]

Not quite true, the reason racing started was to promote the virtures, both of safety & speed, not who could climb the stairway to heaven fastest.

Nordic:
You got this one wrong; it was speed and who has the meanest rod on the block.
Of course, if you could explain to me how sitting on what was a glorified buggy with an engine, going well over twice as fast as the fastest horse, without any form of "safety" equipment, helmet, seat belt, roll protection of any type etc.(they did wear goggles, and some, a leather helmet) promotes safety, I will listen.
Bob

[jhansen]

Bob...I'm gonna get you a time machine and send you back 50 years so that you can enjoy real men's racing.

Tell me something, do you enjoy any present day racing? Something is telling me that I've asked you this before, but I'm asking again. If present day racing is such a slap in the face to what "real" racing is, why watch it at all? And why live in the past? It must pain you to see the NHRA slowing down their cars due to Darrel Russell's passing.

Here's my definition of racing: find a series, examine the rules, build the best car that fits within set rules, build the best team you can, hire the best driver you can, and then try and go faster than everyone else in said series (or class, whatever). I see examples of this everywhere.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by jhansen
Bob...I'm gonna get you a time machine and send you back 50 years so that you can enjoy real men's racing.

Tell me something, do you enjoy any present day racing? Something is telling me that I've asked you this before, but I'm asking again. If present day racing is such a slap in the face to what "real" racing is, why watch it at all? And why live in the past? It must pain you to see the NHRA slowing down their cars due to Darrel Russell's passing.

Here's my definition of racing: find a series, examine the rules, build the best car that fits within set rules, build the best team you can, hire the best driver you can, and then try and go faster than everyone else in said series (or class, whatever). I see examples of this everywhere.

OY, please do! Please, please, please.

Do the new rules in the NHRA bother me, not really, they already turned it into a spec. series by banning anything except Dodge Hemi based engines( the Fontana maybe be grandfathered in but when John Force wanted to use a Ford Hemi, the said NO; not to mention the OHC engines. It has been neutered already, in the US.
A gent by the name of Sainty has developed a sweet three-valve SOHC engine in Australia)

The GTS class is still enjoyable but could be far, far better if the performance proved a products capability, not what one can do under artficial restraints.
I still love Indy, even though T. George is now pooping on his own series.

The books I first read (I was reading at a junior high level by fouth grade) were planes, trains and automobiles, it is now in my blood.

The past only ended in the late eighties, or very early nineties, when series sanctions appear to have been infected by brain worms.
The "Corvette" GTP, did not look similar to a production cars shape by accident. Ford did not use a front-engined GTP by accident.
Through most of the eighties racing was governed by "Race on Sunday and sell on Monday", that is not the past, that is the guiding motto that is lacking now and why racing is in such doldrums. The racing means near nothing; except GTS, which is the only area where a win can still mean something.

If the ACO and FIA continue to neuter the cars, eventually the factories will say goodbye to the GTS and then racing will be, nowhere men living in nowhere land.

I grew up with racing that had tremendous make loyalty and rivalry; my associates were also always curious as to what was new in various varieties of competition.
The current lemming form of race fan is, to me, still one of the few things in life that amazes me, even though by the journals I read, it should not be.
It is a cancer that has infested far more important things than auto racing.

When I first decided to go online, there were far more people who grew up with experiences and attitudes like mine, maybe thay are still around but they are not on the type of sites I usually read. (I realize there are far more sites out there than one has time to go searching for, but as was shown by a recent change in the Autoweek forum, many have simply died or been neutered just like racing.)

This is an abstract at very best but perhaps some day when those of you who are most curious, or annoyed, about why I post, have an experience or experiences that show just how fleeting life is, and why following the crowd is just plain sad, you will know.
Que sera, sera.
Bob

[jhansen]

You're not exactly leading a movement. Leading and following are choices true enough. But stopping and taking a seat at the side of the road, to then only criticize everyone else is quite frivolous in my opinion. As for history, learning from it is one thing, but clinging to it is folly.

I’d also challenge that Audi have reaped a healthy return on their prototype program.

As for neutering cars, that’s a matter of opinion. I’m sure some thought that the Group C formula, which placed an emphasis on fuel consumption, as well as power, was silly. But it brought about some truly great racing cars. Should the manufacturers choose to invest in sportscars in mass once again, we could see something similar happen.

But I don’t really want to split hairs with you. I was just rather curious about your point of view. Things can always change, and always do change. Que sera sera indeed.