If you’re a Porsche Motorsport enthusiast you might be familiar with the International Race of Champions (IROC). The series was hosted from 1973 through to 1974 and was conceived to answer that age-old question, “if you took the car out of the equation, who would be the fastest driver?”
Featuring the best oval & road racers of the day, the drivers competed in identically prepared 1974 Porsche 911 RSR race cars. The cars themselves were remembered for their simple livery, with each sporting a different bold colour and large nameplate to easily identify each driver.
We will pay homage to the IROC series for Season 3 of the Porsche Club GB Championship by featuring the colours and details from the livery design, while switching colours each race week to celebrate the different champions that competed in the series.
For the first two rounds, 11Tenths driver Johnny Elia will be sporting the Sahara Beige number 1 car which Emerson Fittipaldi drove in race 1, whilst Mark Baxter-Jones will compete in the India Red number 5 car driven by David Pearson.
No. 1 Car / Sahara Beige / Emerson Fittipaldi (Race 1)
This two-time Formula 1 World Champion needs no introduction. Emerson Fittipaldi was born in December 1946 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. For 33 years he held the record for the youngest driver to win an F1 title, winning his first championship with Team Lotus in 1972 and his second with McLaren in 1974. Fittipaldi only attended 3 of the 4 races in the IROC series – the first didn’t quite go to plan – but finished the following two races in 3rd place, finishing 7th overall and taking home $8,300 in prize money.
No. 5 Car / India Red / David Pearson (Race 1)
David Gene Pearson raced from 1960 to 1986 and was named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers. He had over 100 race wins and over 360 top-ten finishes. Pearson, nicknamed the Fox, won three Cup Series championships, with his first in 1966 and then ’68 and ’69. In the IROC series, the Fox’s best result was 2nd place in race two at the Riverside International Raceway. Pearson finished 4th overall, taking home a total of $14,600 in prize money.
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