Last week I was fortunate to join the cream of the GT Racing family at a dinner in Paris to celebrate 25 Years of GT Racing. The star of the show was the charismatic Frenchman, Stéphane Ratel, who singled-handed resurrected GT Racing in Europe after its disappearance during the Group C era. This movement also undoubtedly saved the Le Mans 24 Hours, the last year of no GTs, 1992, saw only 28 cars start the race. Now there are GT classes at the great race, meaning a full grid of 60 cars and in the World Endurance Championship there is now a separate World Championship for GTs.
Stéphane has his own set of series for GT3 and GT4 cars competing all over the planet, including Pirelli World Challenge and Blancpain Endurance & Sprint Series and these are topped off with the Spa 24 Hours that he has revived from 2001. There are thousands of these race cars globally and most of the performance brands have customer racing programmes as a result.
Recording all of this story is a new book "25 Years of GT Racing". The author is Andrew Cotton, who will be familiar to some of you as the son of Michael and he is also the current editor of RaceCar Engineering. In the 400+ pages Andrew has traced the course of modern day GT Racing from the Venturi Trophy to BPR, the FIA GT Championship, the SuperRacing Weekend and the FIA GT1 World Championship, it is an epic book full of anecdotes from those who were there at the time.
I must disclose an interest as I am listed as the photographer and photo editor for the book but I have been paid for my labour of love and have a desire to share this with those who might appreciate it. I will gain nothing from any further sales.
I suggest that any of the readers of this part of the forum, a knowledgeable and discerning audience, who have an interest in GT Racing might consider purchasing this volume. There was a limited run printed and the majority were distributed to the guests of the dinner last week. However Chaters have the remaining copies that were delivered to their base yesterday. They are on sale at a very reasonable £75 per copy.
http://www.chaters.c...rs-of-gt-racing
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