IMSA (PART 2)

Team History (Part 5)

The team had a new 962 at the first race of the season in 1990, the Daytona 24 Hours. Team members called it “Box Stock Betty” because Porsche insisted the team run it without any modifications. But it soon became clear the car needed more downforce so the team bypassed the dictates of the factory and redid the bodywork substantially. Weaver was third in the next race at Miami with Scott Pruett, and ended the season with another podium at Watkins Glen and a memorable win at Tampa. James was sixth in drivers’ points, at the wheel of the only Porsche in the top ten.

James ran ten races in the team’s Porsches in 1991, with his best finish being a fourth at Miami.

The team agreed to sell the venerable 962-148 in late 1992, but before delivering it to the buyer, campaigned it 24 Hours of Daytona at the beginning of 1993, finishing second in GTP in the category’s Daytona swansong. Price Cobb rejoined the team for this effort, along with Elliott Forbes-Robinson, and Rob and James rounded out the roster. It was the only sports car race Dyson Racing ran that year before switching over to an Indy Lights effort for James Weaver for the reminder of the season.

Rob Dyson: “I remember that stock Porsche 962 we ran at Daytona in 1990. It had a small dinosaur painted next to my driver’s name: I was the last of the owner-drivers, hence the dinosaur.

“At the peak of the GTP era, we had three 962 chassis. We also ran then-radical-tailed DR1 variant of the 962. It was a Nigel Stroud design for Richard Lloyd. It had a rising-rate front suspension. We put a lot of work into it but it didn’t work very well on our American tracks. Our tracks were too rough. The suspension was a little tighter and it just didn’t work right. We won a race with it, but it was not the leap forward we thought it would be.

“Because of this and the fact it was an air-cooled car, we sold the DR1 before we went CART racing in 1989. For our IMSA return, we bought chassis number 148, the last all-Weissach-built 962. Any of the ones after 148 had tubs built by Fabcar (David Klym) under a contract with Porsche. We ran the 148 which was originally a Group C car, and put it into IMSA trim.”

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