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(17 September, 2012) – When Rum Bum Racing moved from the highly-successful BMW M3 to the Porsche 911, it was a move that shocked the paddock.
But with back to back wins for Luis Bacardi’s Rum Bum Racing, the team made the change look easy despite never having raced the Porsche before. Drivers Matt Plumb and Nick Longhi combined for wins at Barber Motorsports Park and then again at the team’s home track, Homestead-Miami Speedway. With just one round of racing left in the 2012 GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge season, the team holds a slim lead in the team championship standings as the group chases its first-ever championship.
Part of that success doubtless comes from Rum Bum Racing’s Crew Chief Joe Varde, who has his own championship-winning legacy of success as a driver with the famed German brand. Varde, who raced his way from the drag strip to NASCAR Sprint Cup as a driver, has a history with Porsche that stretches back through the decades.
“The first experience I had racing a Porsche was in 1991,” said Varde. “A friend of mine asked if I would join him in the Firestone Firehawk Series as his co-driver. We had a Porsche 944–the factory built just seven of them that year. We were strong, I think we won six of the 10 races and went on to take the championship. That was my first year in a Porsche, actually doing a full season with a Porsche. Before that, I’d just been in and out of them just for people who wanted me to drive their car. It was the first significant time that we actually did a whole season with them.”
The consistency of a season-long run was relished by Varde, and he got another chance with the more traditional rear-wheel drive Porsche RSR just a few years later.
“Porsche had gone away from building RSR cars when they started building GTP cars and they went through this GTP 962 era,” said Varde. “When they decided that their customer base was going away, they went back to their roots and started building RSRs again. My co-driver (Mark Sandridge), bought one in 1994 and there was an IMSA endurance series that was five races of the 12 that they ran that were world endurance points races. It was a championship within a championship and Mark and I won that championship that year.”
While his winning ways in the famed marque should leave him nostalgic about the brand, Varde’s pragmatic approach to preparation is the same, no matter what kind of car that he is working on.
“It’s just a car. Cars are fairly basic, they’ve got four wheels, they’ve got a steering wheel, motor and transmission all you have to do is make sure that all that stuff operates properly,” said Varde, who still occasionally gets back behind the wheel to race a Porsche. “They’ve got four shocks, and springs and sway bars. All cars have the same stuff. You just have to make sure they all work in harmony together and the bottom line is that if the car runs well, the car will run to its potential.”
The New Jersey Motorsports Park round saw the Porsche parade slowed as GRAND-AM made a competition adjustment that meant the 911 was carrying an extra 75 lbs.
“They definitely took sting out of the car with that weight change,” said Varde. “It definitely affected the performance, there’s no doubt about it. That’s just the law of physics. It affects the acceleration and the braking. Because this car, in the scheme of things, this car has the smallest engine package. Because the 6 cylinder it’s a lower horsepower, completely stock engines from the factory, sealed so they’re street engines. They can’t take the hit that a V8 can take like a Mustang or a BMW when you put weight on them. When you start doing that to low horsepower, low torque cars – then that car is being affected by the weight more significantly. But GRAND-AM has to work to keep this series competitive, and I completely respect that. It’s just a new hurdle for us to overcome. It’s racing.”
After two seasons of racing with a BMW platform that continued to develop from weekend to weekend, Varde is looking forward to getting the most out of the 911 although the rules will keep a tight box on the kind of potential within the machine.
“I believe this is probably the most “stock-ish car” – what I mean is – GRAND-AM allows certain modifications for certain cars to make them competitive and then they deal with that. This car is completely a street car except for the shocks that we have to run. The spring rates are free and the sway bar rates are free and that’s it. This car is completely a street car other than that. So the things we can do to it are very little. We just have to execute on everything that goes into the weekend-pit stops, car preparation, and of course Matt and Nick have to do their jobs!” said Varde with a laugh.
No matter what kind of car Rum Bum Racing fields, the teamwork, preparation, and execution is always top notch.
The team will look to return to the top of the Lime Rock Park podium on September 29 after winning the 2011 race at the Connecticut circuit.
