Yahoo Autos Watch a Porsche 962 Pull a Wheelie
We just got Forza Motorsport 7 set up in our office, and naturally, the entire staff is distracted. When it was finally my turn to play, I decided to pick one of my favorite tracks, Lime Rock Park, and one of my favorite cars, the Porsche 962. My colleagues found this to be an odd choice, as Lime Rock is a relatively short track, and the 962 was designed for long, high-speed circuits like Le Mans.
Amazingly, cars like the 962 actually raced at Lime Rock back in IMSA's GTP era, and the results were ridiculous. Just watch this video of Al Holbert pulling a wheelie at Lime Rock's uphill during a 1987 race for proof.
Holbert was charging hard in pursuit of the #45 Buick-powered Hawk-March driven by Bob Lobenberg, when it appears he hit the uphill a little too vigorously. The 962's turbocharged flat-six had a tendency to spool up quickly at the top of its rev range. It seems like that's what happened to Holbert as he crested the hill. Holbert got the car back on four wheels, and went on to win the race by a vast margin.
You'll never see this at Lime Rock today. For starters, crazy ground-effect prototypes like the 962 no longer race there, but more importantly, a chicane was installed at the uphill to prevent this exact thing from happening. Otherwise, today's top-spec GT cars would pull wheelies at the uphill.
Races like this make for a hell of an entertaining watch. Thankfully, most of this race has found its way to YouTube.
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