Page 25 - Against All The Others

024 David Bull
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OPPOSITE: A 24-hour race is tough enough. Some racers have described it in war-like terms as hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror. The 84-hour Marathon was the equivalent of three and a half 24-hour races. [COURTESY PORSCHE CORPORATE ARCHIV]
August 20–24, 1968
Marathon de la Route Liège-nürburgring-Spa nordschleife und Südschleife
“Mr. Bott, the chief engineer at the time, told us we should always take our new cars, our new devel- opment work, our new systems to the Marathon de la Route,” engineer/racer Günter Steckkönig explained in an interview in 2011. “He said it was always much less expensive to enter this race at the Nürburgring for four days than to go there hiring it privately for testing!”
Originally a rally over open roads from Liège, Belgium, to Rome, Italy, and back, the event had become, with the inevitable improvements in the cars and tires, a barely disguised road race. The cars thundered through large cities and tiny villages, which infuriated some local populations as much as it thrilled others. By the early 1960s most of the international road rallies either had been terminated or organizers had found a safer alternative. Starting with its 1965 run, the Belgian Royal Motor Union gathered the entrants at Liège but then motorcaded them at strictly controlled speeds to the Nürburgring circuit, about 200 km (125 mi) to the east. Once gathered there, the real race started—at 1:00 a.m.—and by 1968 it had become an 84-hour contest around the full circuit, com- bining the Nordschleife and Südschleife for a total lap of 28.27 km (17.57 mi).
Wehrseifen
Kallenhard Metzgesfeld
Adenauer- Forst
Fuchsröhre Aremberg Schwedenkreuz
Ex-Mühle Breidscheid
Hohe-Acht Kesselchen
Flugplatz
Quiddelbacher-
Antoniusbuche Höhe
Tiergarten Hocheichen
Hatzenbach
Start/finish
Rassrück
Scharfer- Kopf
Bocksberg
Aschenschlag Seifgen Müllenbach
Bränkekopf
N
Bergwerk
Wippermann
to the 911. Engineers began with a slightly lengthened wheelbase, from 2211 mm (88.1 in) to 2268 mm (90.4 in), to improve handling and ride. To meet ever-tightening exhaust-emission standards, Porsche relied on a new Bosch twin-row, six-plunger mechanical fuel-injection system for fuel mix and feed. And to enhance ride comfort, engineers fitted new Boge self-leveling hydropneumatic front struts. The three entries Ferdinand Piëch created for this test were anything but series-production coupes, though they absolutely had to look the part. Instead, engineers and mechanics started with everything they had learned with the 911 R and applied those lessons as far as was possible.
Klostertal
Eschbach Brünnchen
Schwalbenschwanz Döttinger-Höhe
Galgenkopf
For the 1968 Marathon, Porsche had many new features to test and prove for its 1969 B-series cars, the 911 E (for Einspritz, or injection). These cars brought several upgrades
Karussell Pflanzgarten
2 7 1
1968 Racing SeaSon, PaRt ii
LIÈGE-NÜRBURGRING-SPA
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