10 replies to this topic

[Allen Brown]

Can somebody fill me in on the history of Supersports?

I know there is currently a series called Orwell Supersports which has been running since 2001 according to its website. There was also the International Supersports Cup (ISC) which ran from 1986 to about 2000 or 2001 but I'm not sure if this is the same series under a new name. The ISC ran all over the world and the Orwell series seems entirely European.

I'm also curious if there was a predecessor to the ISC. There was an Atlantic Computer Leasing Historic GT series in the 1980s and of course Thundersports catered to similar cars.

Thanks
Allen

[Nordic]

Pace Petroleum sponsored a series as well in the early 80's which was the fore runner to the Atlantic sponsored series I think.

[RickT]

Hi Allen

The first such series was organised by the HSCC circa 1976 and called the Historic Special GT Championship. It was sponsored by Willhire, Lepp Jewelers, Wild Rose Caravan Park and others. It was a great series with Lola T70, McLaren M1, GT40, Chevron B8, Dad's Kincraft (until it was banned when he won the big class championship in 78 !) and many others. John Foulston started racing a McLaren in the same series in 1980, and by 1982 his company Atlantic Computers became the prime sponsor. Over the years he would alternate which of his companies (Atlantic or Failsafe) sponsored the Championship. The series sadly died in about 1989 when the silencing laws meant most of the big cars stayed away and went racing in Europe. The HSCC then replaced it with a 2 litre Sports Racing Car series, and upped the cut off date to about 1975, this series eventually became the RJB Mining Thundersports Series which was eventually canned in about 2002.

The first SuperSports series was organised by David Piper and Mike Knight in 1982. Their plan was to get the organisers to pay the drivers to take their glamorous cars, as opposed to the other way round ! We had some great trips with our Willment BRM to all sorts of tracks around Europe such as Monthlery, Ricard, Zandvoort, Phoenix Park, etc, etc all of which paid start money so you could just about break even on a trip. That Series continues to this day with David's annual South Africa trip.

The second SuperSport series was started by Chris Aylett (I think) in about 1987/8 and was sponsored by the Steigenberger Hotels group. It was then taken over by Charles Agg who ran it very successfully for many years, he then passed it on to Geoff Hobbs but some sort of split occurred and a German SuperSports series was set up also. When Hobbs moved on, the two series were eventually re-united under the present Silvio and Angela Kalb organisation and Orwell sponsorship.

I think that covers most of the questions, phew !!

Cheers
Richard Taylor

[Duc-Man]

I don't know what happened what year. That's what I figured out:
The ISC was sponsored by Steigenberger Hotels for a long time. No Idea from when on.
In the program of the 1991 Oldtimer GP is the race anounced as: International Super Sports Cup for the cup of Steigenberger Hotels. Back than they had black stickers for the series on the cars saying: International Steigenberger Super Sports Cup.
Later the stickers turned orangeish red and iirc it didn't say 'International' anymore. Everybod called it the 'Steigenberger Supersports' anyway.
If the Orwell website say it runs since 2001 then that means from 2000 to 2001 did Orwell take over the main sponsorship from Steigenberger.
That is roughly as much as I know about it.

[David McKinney]

As Richard says, DM, there was a gap between Steigenberger and Orwell

[Belmondo]

The David Piper series was excellent. Saw a round at Silverstone in '86, supporting an F3 race I think. Richard Attwood won in 917K from David Franklin's M6B. Field contained Ferrari 512M, P4, P2/3, 275LM and many others.

Never thought the Steigenberger/Orwell series was half as good as the domestic HSCC series. One detail about the latter is that they only permitted up to 5-litre engines in the early days. This restriction was lifted some time in the late '80s.

[962C]

Originally posted by David McKinney
As Richard says, DM, there was a gap between Steigenberger and Orwell

I saw my first Supersports race at Donington in 1993 (and it was quite a shock it was!) and ISTR the series was backed by a company called Platypus that may or may not have been making satellite telecommunication equipment.

However, this is a very vague memory so I hope I have not made the whole thing up. I must still have a programme for this meeting but where?

[Phil Rainford]

Shot from 1985 British GP support race.....



.....which illustrates the fact in that year Failsafe were the sponsors (Red sticker bottom left)

Kind regards

Phil

[Duc-Man]

I had a look around and you're right: there was a gap between Steigenberger and Orwell as main sponsor.
Now does anybody know when Steigenberger pulled out?

Paddock OGP in the early 90's:


Pits 2008:


Here you can see the series/sponsor sticker I was talking about. Black on the old photo and redish on the new shot.

I found a photogallery from the Can-Am Thunder 1996 where obviously the International Supersports Cup was taking part of.

©2007 Racecar Collection.
It just said 'International Supersports Cup' on the offical sticker back then.

[Mark 13]

There was a lot of controvesy when Geoffrey Hobbs took over the running of the series from Charlie Agg. I personally had a great deal of sympathy for the way he was undermined by some of his fellow competitors. His own car the big block Lola T222 in L&M livery was a fantastic piece of kit. I am pleased to say that he has been sponsoring a very competitive dragster operation running an A/Fuel (Normally asprirated nitro burning)Dragster in the Top Methanol Dragster category.
As with any expensive Historic category, cars/categories seem to come in and out of fashion. When the Group 7 cars have been in fashion we have seen some fantastic racing, with a variety of big class cars i.e. McLaren M8F, M8C, Lola T222, March 707, 707/717, BRM P167. The faster 2 litre cars are also very effective and the likes of Kalb and Burton have been able to beat the larger engined cars.
It appears that with economic constraints we will probably see a lean period and I hope cars do not start to move to new homes across the Atlantic as has happened before.

[Allen Brown]

Thanks everyone who helped with this.

Thanks Richard for the excellent chronology.