A highlight of this year's Le Mans Legend, the historic support race at the
Le Mans 24 Hours, will be Sir Stirling Moss's very first race at the wheel of
his own 1961 Porsche RS 61.
Sir Stirling bought the car back in March
2010 and entered it at Laguna Seca last August - only for the gearbox to seize
on the warm-up lap. As a result, Stirling spun off and was hit by a Lotus that
came off at the same corner, causing substantial damage to the Porsche's front
end but thankfully not to Stirling. The car was shipped to UK Porsche specialist
Maxted-Page & Prill for repair, and will be seen back out on track - for its
first ever race with Stirling at the wheel - in the Le Mans Legend on Saturday
11 June 2011, a few hours before the start of the modern 24 Hours.
The Le
Mans Legend is a regular fixture at the world's greatest endurance race. It is a
historic support race featuring Le Mans-type cars - many of them with genuine Le
Mans history - from a selected era of the race's history. For 2011, the chosen
era is 1949-65, and the race has become so popular with entrants, as well as the
hundreds of thousands of spectators who flock to Le Mans, that the 61 places on
the grid were snapped up soon after entries opened - with a bulging Reserves
list, too.
From the Ferraris (250LM, 246S, 365 PS) and Listers (Knobbly
and Costin) likely to dominate the front of the grid, right back to the earlier,
smaller-engined cars such as Frazer Nash and even a 1500cc HRG, a spectacular
and diverse array of historic racing cars will take to the world-famous 8.5-mile
track for the Le Mans Legend.
To ensure battles for victory right the way
through the field, the entries are split into classes, and Sir Stirling -
sharing the 45-minute race with co-driver Ian Nuthall - is in the class for
sports-racing cars from 1959-65, with engines of no more than 2 liters. This
puts his Porsche RS 61 up against a Porsche RS 60, Ferrari 206P, Lotus 15 - and
a 2-litre, 6-cylinder Porsche 904-6 prototype, one of just six built, of which
only four survive.
"Despite the incredible provenance and value of the
cars entered, the Le Mans Legend is a fiercely fought race and none of Stirling's opponents will be hanging back," commented Duncan Wiltshire of Motor
Racing Legends, which organizes the Le Mans Legend. "There's no doubt that Stirling
will have quite a fight on his hands; but then, he's used to that. In fact, he
positively thrives on it."
The 61 cars in the 2011 Le Mans
Legend will take to the track at 10am on Saturday 11 June, shortly before the
start of the Le Mans 24 Hours. For more details of the race, see
www.motorracinglegends.com
- or,
for more details on Sir Stirling's car, see
www.stirlingmoss.com.