Register Director - Ken Anson followed Mark, and gave a brief presentation on the Registers, also highlighting the raft of upcoming Register Events, which are scheduled between now and the end of the year, a truly impressive list of events organised by the individual Register Captains. Alex then introduced our Guest Speaker for the night, new Porsche Centre Doncaster General Manager Flavio Parletta. Most members would be aware of Flavio, in his previous role as Service Manager at Porsche Centre Melbourne. Flavio spoke of his passion for the marque, (particularly after having recently completed a stint with Mercedes !!) and following a question from the floor, commented that it is also the passion held for the marque by us, PCV Club Members, which helped to enticed him back to the fold. Flavio spoke of his career so far, and of his involvement with the Porsche brand, and invited his updated team of Porsche experts at Porsche Centre Doncaster to join him upfront, where he introduced each member to the meeting, and had each of them speak briefly on their individual roles at the dealership. At the conclusion of Flavio’s presentation he invited members and guests to join him
and his staff at the completion of the night’s presentations for a tour of Doncaster’s “state of the art” service facilities which are situated above the showroom at Doncaster. Social Director – Alex Harmati, thanked Flavio for his presentation, and on behalf of the club, and all those present, thanked Porsche Centre Doncaster for making their facility available to us again for a club night. Club President – Michael O’Brien, then gave a brief overview on the upcoming Porsche Festival which is to be held at Seaworks – Williamstown on Sunday 21st October. and invited Porsche Festival Committee Member (and Life Member) – Will Darvall to the microphone to give the meeting an update on the Festival, Will reminded members that this year marks a significant year for Porsche AG, with the 70th Anniversary of Porsche, and that the club had decided to celebrate this important milestone with members by holding a flagship event, the Porsche Club of Victoria Porsche Festival ‘Celebrating Together’. Will explained that the Festival will showcase our passion for the Porsche brand, and focuses on members proudly displaying their vehicles, within three different levels of participation: Concours, Show ‘n’ Shine, and Come ‘n’ Park. The Concours and Show ‘n’ Shine categories
will be judged with places and prizes awarded according to judging criteria, whilst the Come ‘n’ Park category has provided an opportunity for members to present their vehicles amongst other beauties in the general display area. A separate display area for special cars has also been arranged at the festival, these cars will be very rare, very interesting, perhaps with fascinating history, and be ones that members will enjoy getting to see! Will also asked for volunteers to assist with set up, pack down, judging and marshalling. Editor’s Note: Bookings are now closed for this event with the maximum entry list of 176 cars having been received, so even if you are not entered, why not come down to Williamstown on the 21st October and share in the fun and camaraderie of the day with fellow club members. All PCV members and immediate family will have free entry, with visitors and public being charged a gold coin donation. This brought our club meeting at Porsche Centre Doncaster to a close with members mingling over final drinks, while most took up Flavio’s invitation to visit the Service Centre upstairs. Next Club Night: Tuesday 9th October – AGM & Club Night – Porsche Centre Melbourne
Mark Donohue Porsche 911 RSR IROC Back in 1974 when this Porsche was new, Mark Donohue was at the zenith of his career. He was the reigning Can-Am Champion in the fearsome, 820kW, 12-cylinder Porsche 917-30 he helped develop, had won the Indianapolis 500 in 1972 and had two Trans-Am Championships and a 24 Hours of Daytona victory on his extraordinary CV. But perhaps more relevant was his racing development work on the Porsche Carrera RSR that evolved into the world’s most successful GT car over the following decade. Donohue had first come to grips with a prototype in late 1972 during down-time at Paul Ricard circuit in the south of France while testing the then-new 917-30 Can-Am Porsche. Factory race engineers, already in awe of his development input on their 12-cylinder sports cars, willingly acted on his advice.
that of the road-going RS 3.0, covering regular bolt-on nine-inch front and 11-inch rear Fuchs forged wheels, but a larger, all-fibreglass whaletail replaced the pert and smaller duck-tail fitted at the factory. A stark no-frills interior, with simple plastic pull handles for the doors and deleted door capping’s and glovebox lids to save weight, were similar to the RSR. The 3.0 litre naturally aspirated engines of the IROC cars were tuned to nearly RSR spec and developed 235kW, compared to the 172kW of the basic RS 3.0 and the 250kWplus produced by racing RSRs, while the gearboxes were Type 915 Porsche five-speeds with spaced ratios, rather than the close-ratio cogs employed on the racing versions. Packaged with massive four-piston finned aluminium brakes from the 917 Can-Am sports car, coil-over suspension rather
than the torsion bars used on road going 911s and weighing just 950kg, they were weapons worthy of the combatants. With a million dollars in prize-money up for grabs, there was no shortage of quality participants - and big egos - on the line. Twelve drivers – Bobby Allison, Emerson Fittipaldi, George Follmer, A.J. Foyt, Denny Hulme, Gordon Johncock, Roger McCluskey, David Pearson, Richard Petty, Peter Revson, Bobby Unser and of course, Mark Donohue – all of them major title-holders at the time Cars for each of the four rounds staged at major US racing circuits were selected by a pre-race driver ballot and to jazz the whole show up, the Porsches were painted in bright colours, both for easy driver identification and to make the series more appealing to fans during the advent of colour TV.
At around the same time, Donohue’s boss Roger Penske was toying with an idea to put some of the world’s best drivers into identical racing cars for a series called the International Race of Champions. On Donohue’s recommendation, Penske approached the Porsche factory to build 15 identical 911 Carreras. Porsche at that stage had just announced the new Carrera RS 3.0 as the even more potent road going successor to the legendary Carrera RS 2.7, but was developing the RSR 3.0 racing version, so the project fell nicely into its lap. The 15 unique and identical IROC RSRs built for Penske were a combination of RS and RSR components. Their fat bodywork was based on ISSUE 3, 2018
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