News out of Mongolia today is that Canadians Kees Nierop and Lawrence Yap are out of the rally following a high speed roll. Fortunately the rally prepped Porsche Cayenne kept them safe, other than the usual bumps and bangs that come from an over. Unfortunately their truck sustained more damage and is not able to continue in the event.

The overall leader is now Dr. Erik Brandenburg in his Porsche 911, Safari Rally Clone! Following Brandenburg by just over 9 minutes is the Cayenne of Rod Millen. The previous leader, the Garnham Land Cruiser fell to 12th overall when they spent over and hour and a half trying to get free from a mud hole.

Following a day of rest and some easy transit sections, the competitors in the 2007 Transsyberia Rally took on Stage 9 yesterday and it wasn’t quite so easy. Looking back though, the easy transit on Friday showed a weakness for the Porsche camp that foreshadowed the outcome of Sunday’s Special. Tires.

“With these tires you can go for a ride in an English park, but not compete in a rally in Mongolia” complained Overall Leader Armin Schwarz.
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Following a ten hour wait at the Russian border on Friday, teams finally made their way in to Mongolia. During the 43.5 mile transit section to the camp at Oelgy, several teams had to stop to change tires. Even though it was a transit, the road was so rocky that tire punctures were commonplace. Yesterday was a well needed day of rest and the competitive stages continue today.
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Nelson, welcome to The Garage and I just wanted to say I am looking forward to your future articles with great interest. I have been involved with racing in one form or another since I was a little boy but my path took a very different road (no pun intended) than most. On the other hand is there such a thing as a “normal” means of a passion for the love of racing? I think not and I am sure each persons chain of events that led to their passion or involvement of racing is as much of an interesting story as any other.

In my case I grew up in a small town in southwestern Oregon back before the muscle car era when anything that had a set of mag wheels or a hole in the muffler was classified as a hot rod. My racing bug started with my buddies and me racing our bikes down hills in something similar to what today is called Mountain Biking. Later on it was go-carts and that eventually led to me lying about my age so I could drive an old beat up “Hobby Stock Class” car in the dirt stock car races. I can remember one of my father’s friends had an old Corvette stored in my dad’s garage. For hours at a time I would set behind the steering wheel making tire screeching sounds as I yanked the shifter around pretending to bark off the gears. I am sure that even with a dead battery I probably wore out the tires on that car without ever leaving the garage.
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The field of 33 vehicles continues it’s race across Syberia, having dodged animals and crossed rivers on their way to today’s check point in Omsk. The rally leader continues to be Armin Schwarz and Hilger Oliver in a Porsche Cayenne.

The above photo shows Canadians Kees Neirop and Lawrence Yap navigating the river on day 2. Fortunately, they seem to have made it across, which not all teams can say. There were several vehicle failures in the river, ranging from electrical problems to a blown engine.
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Team Press 1 driver Carles Selma of Spain and co-driver Jörn Pugmeister from Germany took the win on stage one of the Transsyberia Rally today in a Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia, beating out 34 other competitors to the finish.

As more details become available, The Garage will try to keep readers informed. We will try to pay close attention to Team North America 1, the Canadian team of Kees Nierop and Lawrence Yap.

The Porsche Cayenne has had more than a few detractors since it’s inception, with many feeling that there is no reason for an SUV with 911 lineage. Porsche is determined to show the world that the Cayenne is a winner in it’s own arena. But what exactly is that arena?

This is no shopping mall autocross, this is the Transsyberia Rally. Beginning this morning, 25 rally prepped Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberias will begin the 7000 km trek from Moscow’s Red Square to the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbataar. There are no over privileged soccer moms on board these Cayenne’s, with names like Rod Millen and Armin Schwarz at the wheel. There will be some serious stage action.

To cope with that action, the Cayenne’s have received more than a bit of beefing up from the big guys at Weissach. Mods include full roll cage, upgraded air intake and body sealing (for water crossings), additional lights and rally tires. As would be expected, each truck carries a full complement of navigational electronics to make sure the crews find their way.

The event runs until August 17 and will be covered live through the Porsche web site. You can also check back to The Garage, as we’ll keep readers up to date as we receive details.

Porsche press release and more photos after the break
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Hot on the heels of releasing details on it’s new GT2, Porsche has released a cool (duh) promo video for the car.

Video after the break via World Car Fans
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I’ve been wondering when we were going to hear more news about the progress of Number 27, the Ranta Porsche 901 that is currently being restored in Pfaffenhausen by the Ruf team. The original plan had been to have the car finished some time this summer. It looks like that probably won’t happen, but it’s nice to see that things are progressing well.

Another shot after the break
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Our recent post about the BMW M1 vintage racers prompted commenter Mike Hum to direct us to a gallery of shots he took at the Budweiser GT endurance race at Mosport in August 1985 that includes a shot of the same black M1.

Amongst all sorts of great shots, the images of Manfred Winklehock are almost spooky. I’m going to assume these images were taken Saturday, as Manfred died Sunday. I’ve always felt somewhat fortunate that I was able to go up Saturday, but had to work Sunday.

You can see all of Mike’s images here. Watch for some very young looking modern legends: Derek Bell, Jochen Mass, Jacky Ickx, Hans Stuck and even Martin Brundle. There are also several shots of Stephan Bellof, on track in the Porsche 962.