Jim Richards and high horsepower racing cars are far from strangers, but even the seven-time Bathurst and eight-time Targa Tasmania champion had to admit that his unexpected guest drive at the recent 2008 Shannons Phillip Island Classic was something special.
The new Shannons ambassador and his wife Fay were planning a quiet social weekend at what has become Australia's largest historic race meeting when Porsche Museum Director Klaus Bischof asked him if he's like to take the wheel of the priceless 1100HP Porsche 917/30 that Mark Donohue raced to victory in the 1973 Can-Am sports car series in the United States.
Richards, who has just taken delivery of a new 390kW (523HP) Porsche 911 GT2 in a bid to win his ninth Targa Tasmania rally in April this year and is also readying a 410kW (550HP) 1962 Falcon Sprint V8 for racing in this year's Biante Series, was naturally interested to experience the performance of the 1200kg Porsche with more than double the power.
Although the busy Phillip Island Classic programme only allowed him a few laps on both the Saturday and Sunday of the weekend, it was enough to leave Jim suitably impressed.
"I put my foot down around the back of the circuit and it just took off," he said. "In fact it felt better the faster I went, but I didn't go close to tapping its full potential. This was a demonstration drive in a famous, historic car and I drove it accordingly."
"It was actually very easy to drive slow, which was surprising for a car with such a reputation, but I read Mark Donohue's book 'The Unfair Advantage', in which he detailed the story of developing and driving these cars and to drive them really fast was something else."
Reputedly producing up to 1580HP (1178kW) in qualifying form and a reliable 1100HP (820kW) in race trim, the spectacular Porsche 917/30 with its 5.4 litre turbocharged 12 cylinder air-cooled engine could accelerate from 0-100km/h in 1.9 seconds, 0-160km/h in 3.9 seconds and 0-320km/h in 10.9 seconds, on to a top speed of 400km/h.
At the end of the 1973 season, Mark Donohue established a closed-circuit record in a 917/30 that still stands today, lapping the Talladega oval in Alabama in August 1975 at a speed of 355.85km/h.
Jim was also scheduled to demonstrate the Porsche 917/30 for the Porsche Museum on the Albert Park circuit during the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix, with special sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday during the four-day Grand Prix support programme.
