New Jersey Motorsports Park Event

The second race weekend of the year has now come and gone. We had a great time at New Jersey Motorsports Park. Our Intercontinental Trophy Cup(ITC) series partnered with the Porsche Club of America(PCA) and shared the weekend with the Rolex and Continental Tire Grand Am. It was fun to be at the track with the multi-million dollar operations that take part in these series. In our ITC/PCA race the Isringhausen team had three entries, Savannah Rickli, Dan Clarke, and myself. Savannah is an 18 year old girl with various motorsports racing experiences in her background. She did quite well and we were all very impressed with her performance. A few times I saw her in my mirrors and started to get nervous. She has a real future due to her driving talent which she developed at a very young age. On top of that, she is a very nice, polite young person who carries herself well beyond her years. Our other driver in an Isringhausen car was Dan Clarke who has been coaching me most of last year and this current year. He did remarkably well. One of the drivers who calls New Jersey Motorsports Park home, said he believed Dan may have set the all time lap record for a Cayman in his first time out. He won both of our races and stirred quite a bit of buzz in the Porsche racing community.

Geoff Isringhausen

Photo by cipango27/iStock / Getty Images

Here is an article about Dan Clarke’s performance driving our Cayman which was written by David Hurth for “The Porsche Guys” web site:

Would the Porsche Cayman Make a Good Race Car?
All Porsche sports cars were meant to be raced. The cars while quite good at the normal daily driving, really come alive on a track, especially when race prepped. While Porsche mainly races the Porsche 911 and at times special race variants, cars such as the Porsche 914, Porsche 944, Porsche Boxster and Porsche Cayman (just to name a few) have shown to be very good on the track.

Need proof of this? Just look at what Dan Clarke has done with a Porsche Cayman S in the Intercontinental Trophy Cup Series. Last Sunday at the New Jersey Motorsports Park he dominated the competition in the series. While I love the Porsche 911, one does wonder why Porsche doesn’t look at the possibility of a Porsche Cayman race car. Just think of a Porsche Cayman RSR with the same power as the Porsche 911! The handling would be brilliant and then it would have a lot of power (although the 330 hp in the Porsche Cayman that Dan drove is not bad). It could be such a good car that it could possibly beat the Porsche 911 on many tracks.

While the Porsche 911 makes a great race car and a good driver can do some really amazing things with the platform, one has to wonder if the more balanced Porsche Cayman would end up being a faster car overall. You would loose a lot of traction, but should be able to take the corners a bit faster and if the power was the same it could make for an interesting race. While I don’t think Porsche will (or should) abandon the Porsche 911 race car, the addition of a Porsche Cayman race car would be interesting (it may also help increase sales as people like to drive what they see raced). I doubt it will ever happen, but then at one time Porsche did race the Porsche 924 Carrera GT at Le Mans, so anything is possible.

The following is more information about Dan Clarke and his has this last weekend in the Intercontinental Trophy Series.

Former Champ Car and Indy Lights racer, Dan Clarke, had the perfect start to his sports car career at New Jersey Motorsports Park last Sunday. The Indianapolis, Indiana based Englishman totally dominated the Intercontinental Trophy Cup Series in his Isringhausen Motorsports with Chris Smith Racing Porsche Cayman. “Speedy” Dan more than lived up to his nick name by topping the time sheets in every session, qualifying the car in pole position,1.4 seconds quicker than the field, winning both 25 lap races and picking up fastest lap in each.

Clarke was offered the chance to drive the 330 bhp Porsche Cayman S car and did not need to be asked twice.

““Having spent much of last year coaching team boss Geoff Isringhausen, I was delighted when I was able to complete the deal to race the car in both events in New Jersey””

, Dan explained. He went on to describe how much fun the car was to drive and how great it felt to be back on the top step of the winners podium. “I had pole positions and good results in Champ Car but nothing beats the feeling of driving into victory lane.” The Yorkshire born driver has clearly regained thirst for victory,

““I would love to do more races this season for Geoff’s team, they are a terrific set of guys and do a really professional job at every event”.”

Team mate and Clarke’s student, Geoff Isringhausen was thrilled with his coach’s efforts. “Isringhausen Imports was voted one of the top 25 Porsche dealers in the USA for 2012 and I love the fact that Dan along with Chris Smith Racing is helping Isringhausen Motorsports mirror the performance and achievements of our showrooms on the race track”.

The next round of the series for the Porsche Cayman S cars will take place on June 3rd at Watkins Glen, New York and Clarke is eager to keep this developing hot streak alive, “Geoff and I are working hard to ensure that I can maintain this momentum at the Glen next month and hopefully for the rest of the season”

The video below is from inside the car. The sound is incredible and it shows the potential of a Porsche Cayman S race car.

Qualifying Pole Time and GTB1 Track Record for Dan Clarke in the #25 Isringhausen Motorsports Intercontinental Trophy Cup Racing Cayman S at New Jersey Motorsport Park, May 11th 2012. Special thanks to Isringhausen Motorsports, Forgeline Wheels, Hoosier Tires, Gridsport, BELL Helmets & Chris Smith Racing.

First Event of the Year: Sebring

It is past time I got back to our Motorsports Blog. Sorry for the long delay. At our last event of 2011 in early October at Road America things were going great. My personal lap times were competitive with the top guys in the series. In the final race on Sunday afternoon I was driving very aggressively, but in control and confident in all the turns and braking zones. An opportunity presented itself to make a move into second place. I pulled up alongside of Brian Kimmins on the slight uphill coming out of Canada Corner. This took me off line and when I tucked back in behind Brian right at the crest of the hill and at the slight left turn I spun out and into the tires on the outside of the track. So much for 2011.

Onto 2012. Our first event this year was The 48 Hours of Sebring put on by the Porsche Club of America (PCA) February 3-6, 2012. This was my first event with the PCA. They did a great job organizing 400 racers and advanced drivers education attendees. We again are campaigning with the Intercontinental Trophy Cup Cayman series. Our ITC group raced within the PCA races as a subgroup so to speak. We had practice on Thursday and Friday. Then on Saturday and Sunday we raced – two shorter sprint races on Saturday and a longer Enduro on Sunday. The Saturday races had approximately 70 cars in each race. I have never raced in that type of congestion, especially at the start. It was crazy. I came around the blind Sebring turn 1 with cars aggressively going for it on every side. Guys trying to dart into every minute opening that might present itself at any given moment. As soon as I can see around the turn 1 wall and down the straight, I see cars spinning and bouncing off each other like bowling pins and tire smoke filling the air. They yellow flag the race for a few laps which lets us thin out. I skated through it all unscathed and on track. I finished both races mid pack.

Sunday came the longer hour and a half enduro. Michael Levitas of TPC racing introduced me to Randy Pobst. Randy is a multi-year World Challenge Champion, Daytona 24 hour winner and has over 70 professional wins in his racing history. Michael worked with PCA guys to let  Randy team up with me in the enduro race. Randy started the race in my car. He spent about an hour in the car. He moved up through the pack pretty well and then handed the car over to me. I got re-passed by some of the guys Randy had gotten around. This race had the fastest cars of the whole event entered, including the new 2010-2012 GT3 Cup cars. I was apprehensive about being out with those guys. So it was great to have Randy to get things started for us. He also pointed out a number of areas where we could improve our car setup.

We had a great time and met some fantastic people while at Sebring. Here are links from Ustream to Randy’s and my stints during the enduro on Sunday. There is an advertisement you have to listen to at the beginning, but then you can watch the start and the driver switch in the second video. We have two videos because we had to switch cameras which were actually iphones. We sent the iphone video stream live to Ustream. Amazing technology. Thanks for your interest and be sure to call if we can help with any of your racing or race car needs.

Geoff Isringhausen

Race Season

The ITC race season is well under way.  We have been to Virginia International Raceway(VIR), New Jersey Motorsports Park, Miami Homestead, Sebring, Mid-Ohio and Road Atlanta. Racing has proven to be more of a challenge than I hadanticipated.  Driving a race car fast on a track is not an easy task, but learning to outmaneuver competitors as you brake and set up for turns is even more involved.Both of these skill sets are necessary to win races. Generally, my competitors havemore years of experience in racing, which is my excuse for not being much of a threat to the front runners. However, the experience has been fantastic. We have learned a lot about preparing the car, which is a big part of the game. Small adjustments to the cars suspension and weight distribution, among many other things, play a large role in how the car handles on the track.

Photo by Juanmonino/iStock / Getty Images

We have two more races as part of the ITC series – Watkins Glen and Road America. These are back to back events the first two weekends in October.

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