When the all-time book of bad ass cars is written, the Porsche 962 will be in the top 10 or at least it should be. This was a race car that debuted in 1984 and was still wining international races more than 10 years later. An evolution of the famed 956, the 962 was longer, badder, faster, and generally mo’ bettah than its predecessors. The car was primarily intended to be raced in the IMSA GTP series and that is exactly where we find ourselves. More specifically we find ourselves riding with Jim Busby in a Porsche 962 at Riverside, California circa 1985. Both Jim and the race track have loads of history but Jim’s still with us and the track is not. Sadly the racing facility that played host to so many epic events over the year from NASCAR to IMSA, to off-road trucks was long ago flattened for a shopping center or some such nonsense.
Jim Busby is still going strong though. Busby has had an amazing career in motorsports dating back decades to when he showed up at the NHRA Winternationals in a twin engined slingshot that used Ford Indy engines on nitro for power. It made one pass and the rest was history but he has competed at the highest levels in the the road racing world as well, as evidenced by this video. You are going to see him driving, wrestling, and manhandling this 600hp beauty through the famed esses, down the long straight, and through the many undulations of the Riverside course.
IMSA racing was fascinating in the 1980s. It was glamorous and when the wheels feel off the series it ended about as quickly as it came. Remember the joke for what IMSA stood for? The International Marijuana Smugglers Association! There were shenanigans in all of motorsports back int he 1980s and IMSA was not immune, for sure.
You’ll love this video and boy would we like a few minutes in the seat of a 962…not that we could drive it like Jim but we just want to hear that twin turbocharged flat six scream!
