Racing
In 1966 and 1967 the Group 4 Sports Cars played a supporting role to the Group 6 prototypes. While prototypes like the 7.0L Ford GT40 Mk II & Mk IV raced for outright victories, the 4.7L GT40 Mk I entries were competing for Group 4 class wins. Indeed competitors in the two categories were competing for two different championships, the Group 6 cars for the International Championship for Sports-Prototypes and the Group 4 cars for the International Championship for Sports Cars. In 1968, the rules were changed, so that prototypes were limited to 3.0L, but Sports cars of up to 5.0L could be still be entered. It was also announced that the minimum production figure for the Group 4 sports cars would be reduced to 25 cars for 1969. With larger engines than the prototypes, the Group 4 cars were now in contention for outright race wins. The Ford GT40 was the winner at Le Mans in both 1968 and 1969. Porsche began work on a production run of 25 cars for the Porsche 917. Ferrari, with some financial help from Fiat, produced the similar Ferrari 512.
For the 1970 season, the Group 4 Sports car category was renamed and became Group 5 Sports Cars and Group 4 designation was applied to a new Special Grand Touring category. The new Group 4 was contested by production based cars such as the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona, Porsche 911 Carrera RS and the De Tomaso Pantera.
The Group 4 GT category was replaced by a new Group B GT class for 1983.
Read more about this topic: Group 4 (racing)
Famous quotes containing the word racing:
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)