Located in the foothills of the Ardennes and close to where the Battle of the Bulge was fought, Spa-Francorchamps was the fastest road course in Europe. The old 8.761mile (14.12 kilometer) circuit was made up of back-country public roads. The track was roughly a triangle connecting the small villages that gave their names to the various corners. Formula 1 last raced there in 1970 where Chris Amon recorded the fastest lap at 152.076mph. Pedro Rodriguez, driving a BRM P150, won the event at an average speed of 150.210mph. To appreciate how fast Spa-Francorchamps was, the average winning speed of the 1970 Indianapolis 500 was 155.749mph. Sports car racing continued at Spa until 1975 and then the circuit died. In the early 80s a smaller, slower revised circuit was created using the Blanchimont to Les Combes secrtion of the original track. The high-speed Burnenville corner was not part of the revised circuit.

Burnenville 1974 Spa 1000km

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In May of 1973 the teams contesting the Manufactures Championship gathered in Belgium at the Circuit National de Francorchamps for the fifth round of the series.  The teams would complete 71 laps of the 14.1 km (8.76 miles) track made up of public roads closed for the 1000km race.

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In 1972 Dr. Ferry Porsche decided that all members of the extended Porsche family would no longer take an active role in the management of the Porsche company. Dr. Porsche assumed the position of Honorary Chairman of the Supervisory Board, his son, Ferry “Buzzi” Porsche, resigned as head of the design department and his nephew, Ferdinand Piëch, left as head of research and development. Dr. Ernst Fuhrman returned as the president and Helmut Bott took over the research and development department.

Ferry Porsche and Fuhrman were concerned with the expensive prototype and Can-Am racing programs and wanted to cut the cost and complexity of the racing programs. Fuhrman’s wanted a project to highlight the abilities of the 911 as a marketing tool. According to Fuhrman, “Racing is good advertising for every car” so Porsche would concentrate on developing the 911 for racing.

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At the 2004 Monterey Historic Races I was talking with the owner of one of the Gulf Mirage M6 from the early 1970s. Jeff was interesting in photographs that I might have of the car when it was racing in World Championship events. The problem we had was tracking down the specific events that his car had participated in. During the conversation, Jeff mentioned that John Horsman, the Managing Director of Gulf Research Racing at the time, was now living in the states.

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I learned of the great European races on public roads from Robert Daley’s book, Cars At Speed. By 1973, only two were still in use, the Targa Florio in Sicily and Spa Francorchamps in Belgium. From my station in Wiesbaden, Germany, I set out for Spa for the 1000km sports car race. I made a morning stop at the Nürburgring for a look around and a lap of the Nordschleife. I continued on toward Spa, not certain of the exact route, finally arriving late in the afternoon east of the Burnenville corner. My late arrival meant that the track had already been closed off for racing, so I had no choice but to wait and watch the end of the Coupes de Spa touring car race.

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