Radinger / Wagner bauen Führung aus, Racecar Spitzenplätze für Thoms/Thoms, Falchetto/Falk und Johannes Huber.
After a marathon in fantastic summer weather, the familiar teams are again in the top ten of the Ennstal-Classic 2022 before the day of the grand finale. In addition to the leaders Friedrich Radinger / Thomas Wagner on Mini 1275 GT, who were able to maintain their lead over the second Mini team Klackl/Kovacic-Klackl at just under 300 points. Surprisingly, the team Florian and Dieter Böhmdorfer on Mercedes-Benz 350 SLC has moved up in the afternoon, followed right behind by the Ennstal winners of 2012, Helmut Schramke and Peter Umfahrer on Jaguar XK 150. The well-known teams Volk, Ulm/Soucek as well as Margarita and Magdalena also find themselves in the top ten as expected. Much is still open before the Grand Prix in Gröbming, one can remain curious.
The Racecar Trophy, first held with a mountain classification on the Tauplitzalm, then in good old vintage airfield racing style in Niederöblarn, provided its spectators with genuine, historic motorsport with all the familiar and popular facets. In sweltering heat and grippy asphalt, supercars competed with formula cars, rally greats with sports coupes. The winners of the Supercar class are still Heiko and Reiko Thoms on Porsche 911 GT3 RS, in the Rally Cars & GT classification Enrico Falchetto and Heike Falk are leading on Renault 5 Turbo2, in the Formula Cars Johannes Huber with his KMW Porsche SP20 from 1971 is ahead of Rudi Roubinek on Fiat-Abarth Formula 2000 from 1980 and Evita Stadler on Formula Ford 1600 Hawke DL2 from 1969.
The VW-SP in Liezen actually brought a meeting with the hard-iron bikers of the Harley Davidson Charity Tour under the leadership of Harley Pope Ferdinand Fischer, Mariazell, Lunz and Steyr took place as usual with a lively crowd of spectators. And despite the aftershocks of a marathon in the bones, none of the participants missed the traditional Porsche Night in the Classic tent Gröbming.
While family representative and Porsche supervisory board member Wolfgang Porsche was able to report quasi live on drastic events at the top of the company, the topic of conversation at the Ennstal Classic continued to be the historic Auotmobile and the aura that stoically surrounds it even in rather windy times for the industry. So passt für Porsche Österreich Markenleiter Helmut Eggert – der selbst heuer bereits zum 20. Mal teilnimmt und gemeinsam mit Porsche Austria Konzern-Sprecher Hans-Peter Schützinger einen ehemaligen Gendarmerie-Porsche 356 SC Cabrio pilotiert und derzeit auf Platz 103 liegt – gerade bei einer Marke wie Porsche das Erbe der frühen Jahre mit den aktuellsten Entwicklungen nahe beisammen: „Der Grundsatz unserer Marke war immer, zu dem Zeitpunkt, wo ein Produkt herauskommt, sollte es auf dem Höhepunkt des technisch machbaren sein. This was already the case with the 356 with its lightweight construction, and is taking place comparably today with the all-electric Taycan, which with its 800-volt technology enables absolutely time-saving charging in a manageable period of time, while at the same time demonstrating what is currently feasible in terms of driving performance.”
Gerhard Novak, as General Manager Timepieces of the Porsche Lifestyle Group the “host” of the Porsche Design Grand Prix on Saturday and committed to a great and important history, especially with the watches of the Porsche Design brand, sees a close connection between watch and car fans due to the technical similarities: “Here and there it’s about functionality and robust technology, both in the racing cars and in the ‘normal’ cars, and the topic of design also plays a strong role. What once worked well more as form follows function, now represents beautiful forms through the magic of history. That’s what we do when we reissue the Chronograph 1 from 1972 ident, for example, and celebrate the greatest successes with it.”
Expensive cars, expensive watches: Isn’t the hedonism of these products a little out of date today? Gerhard Novak: “The demand for high-quality products with a certain, historic history and tradition is greater today than ever before. The trend is clearly moving towards high-quality, mechanical watches. Whether this is hedonistic and therefore good or bad is a question we thankfully do not have to ask ourselves. We are currently expanding our manufactory for the third time, and that is certainly a good thing.”
The grand finale on Saturday, July 23rd traditionally starts at 07h15 with the race up the Stoderzinken, from 10h30 the main street in Gröbming belongs to the performance “When the cars learned to run” presented by Fahr(t)raum as well as an autograph session with the Porsche celebrities Ricky Müller, Strietzel Stuck and Richard Lietz, from 12h30 the warm-up for the Porsche Design Grand Prix begins, which takes place at 13h. From 13h30 then: The grand finale of the Ennstal-Classic 2022 at the starting ramp in the center of Gröbming, crowned by the “Flower Ceremony” with award ceremony at about 15h45 at the starting ramp.