Olympia Charger

3 pedals and 2 feet: dancing steps at Monza

Braking at the end of the main straight caused the camera to tilt forward. This gave an excellent view of what my feet are doing during a race! Feel free to comment and let me know what I should improve!

Monza pictures by Oscar and Roberto: grazie ragazzi!

It is always nice to receive pictures of our Charger that our fans took at a race. Here are a few taken by very special fans from Italy: artist painter Oscar Morisini and V8 reporter Roberto Motta. Click on the pictures to enlarge them and enjoy!

Oly Express at Monza'08: first DNF since '06

Our 2008 vintage racing season started at Monza this week-end. After unloading the car, we had a good first day of free practice. The added brake cooling ducts worked fine, the engine ran very strong. Only the harder compound GOODYEAR's were...well, too hard and I was drifting in Curva Grande and in the Parabolica! Saturday Qualifying went great and we improved our 2007 best time by 1.5 seconds.

Oly Express 2008 Season Team Shirts

Our new team shirts have just come in today! These shirts, on which you'll find the logos of our sponsors Hippopotamus Le Mans, MOPARSHOP, MOTUL, NITRO, DODGE France, Chateau Claymore and Chiron Publicité, are our official 2008 team wear. Each of our VIP guests will also receive one at Le Mans Classic. All of our fans can buy one for $40 including shipping to the USA. You can order yours by writing to oly DOT express AT free DOT fr or by leaving a comment below.

2008 Oly Express race planning and dates

After checking with our main sponsors, taking into account track speeds and the motivations of our team members, here are our planned race dates for 2008:

April 24-26              CER at Monza, Italy
July 11-13                Le Mans Classic, France
September 12-14     CER at Silverstone, England

We hope to see you at the tracks!

2008 Oly Express fan card by Pixeleye

Here is our new fan card! A considerable quantity was made thanks to our sponsor Pixeleye Interactive. Pixeleye also did the photography and design for this card. What you see above is the front side. On the back side, you'll find informations about the Dodge, its racing history and its records alongside with smaller pictures. You can get one signed at the CER races in Monza and Silverstone and, of course, at Le Mans Classic 2008. For those who cannot be at the tracks, we'll be glad to send you one home if you drop us an e-mail.

Erkrath Logistics is back with us for 2008

We are pleased to announce that Erkrath Trucking, who handled all our race car logistics with great care and perfect timing during our 2007 season, will be with us for 2008. We are happy to have such a dedicated logistics partner for our coming European season!

Rebrewed Oly Express wins CER Award

The four CER class Champions, their runner- ups and third place winners received their 2007 season trophies at the annual Classic Endurance Racing and Le Mans Series banquet in Paris on December 1st. After the regular trophies were awarded, four special prices were given to the teams that tried harder during the championship. I'm very pleased that we were awarded such an encouragement trophy. This price, that I collected from CER's Patrick Peter on behalf of our team, honors our 2007 effort in the garage, on the road, in the pits and on the track. I wish to specially thank all team members, namely, my wife Petra, and in alphabetic order Alex, Bernhard, Bjoern, Dick, Guido, Oliver, Pierrot, Sally and Thierry. After winning the 1977 USAC National Championship, now 30 years later, our Charger got another trophy! This is OUR 2007 award!

2008 Classic Endurance Racing schedule

The team at Classic Endurance Racing (CER) has just released the 2008 race dates! The Classic races will again be run as an opening event to the Le Mans Series races. On top of the CER, we also hope to be at Le Mans Classic 2008! You, friends and fans, shall pick the 3 races that you would like us to do in 2008. Leave a comment below telling us where you want to see the Charger in action!

2007 Classic Endurance Racing: our season

Classic Endurance Racing (CER) was a real thrill in 2007! Our Dodge Charger performed so well that we scored some points in this premier vintage trophy. CER also gave us a great opportunity to race on some of the worlds most famous tracks.

Oly Pit Crew at the Zakspeed Lounge

Thanks to Chrysler Germany and Zakspeed Racing, the official Dodge Racing Team in Deutschland, we could relax between rounds at the Zakspeed VIP lounge, which is right above the Nürburgring Pitlane.

Nürburgring Dodge Charger Onboard Video

Thanks to team member Bjoern Schmidt and his family, we got this great onboard video from the saturday morning qualifying session. It starts with the easy going pace lap. Check out this footage as the Dodge Charger zooms past some 911 on its way to a 2'26"125 lap of the Nürburgring Grand Prix track.

Team impressions from the Nürburgring

I just received some great shots of our car and team at the Nurburgring from Arnaud Remy and Rolf Thieme. They reflect the mood and spirit at the track so much better than just words. These moments of shared fun are what makes our racing great.

A big thank you for our sponsors

After two great races, I wish to take the time to thank our sponsors. On the operationnal level, next to KFZ-Transporte Erkrath, who handled the logistics, and Camtecs Engineering, who provided the testing facility, I'd like to thank MOTUL for their great lubricants and the MOPARSHOP for their work between the races and during the week-ends. Our media sponsors MOTORAVER and NITRO also played a key role with coverage and material support. Last but not least, DODGE and Zakspeed helped us with a team car and on site service. Thank you so much! Your combined support allow us to race and make a good show for the fans!

Dodge Charger front end setup 1-2-3

Setting up the front end right is key to achieve good lap times. Thanks to the advice from Tex Powell, we were able to duplicate the front end settings that Richard Petty had on his Coke bottle Chargers in the seventies. For the Nürburgring race, we found that a height of 5" and 3° of negative camber worked best.

HEMI Charger shakes and bakes at the Ring

We just had two days of great thunder at the Ring! HEMI Thunder,that is! After a promising qualifying time of 2'26"125 and race laps in the 2'28", we were set to do a good finish. However, two slow tyre punctures threw us a back. The Charger nevertheless took the checkered flag and finished the race as 34th out of 43. More on our Nürburgring race to come soon!

MOPARSHOP readies Charger for next race

As our next race at the Nürburgring in Germany approaches, the guys at the MOPARSHOP are busy working on the Oly Express Charger. Since Monza, Oliver and his crew have made a few changes to improve the Dodge's brake cooling and the front spoiler setup. Everything else has also been double checked. Having a professionnal partner like the MOPARSHOP taking care the car gives us the necessary freedom to concentrate on our racing. Thank you, guys!

Dick Pierson to drive at Nürburgring CER

Dick Pierson, our fans favourite driver and member of the original McGriff team, will be with us at the Nürburgring on June 29 and 30! Dick and Christophe will team up as drivers to race the Oly Express Charger at the famous F1 track.

Pixeleye features Olympia Dodge Charger

As we are getting the Charger ready for the Nürburgring (June 29 and 30), we are pleased to see that Raceblog, one of Germany's leading car culture blogs edited by Dirk Behlau, features news about our coming race.
Check out Pixeleye's Raceblog!

More video from Charger at Monza CER

Here is more inboard footage from the Dodge Charger at Monza. The 6 minute long video shows two and a half of the qualifyng laps. Too bad that we had no time to turn on the camera for the race! We'll make that up at the next Classic Endurance Race on June 30 at the Nürburgring!

Onboard the Charger at Monza: Pit Stop

While our onboard videos from Monza are still being processed, here is a first one where I come out of the Parabolica into the pits and then go back on the track. You might get an idea why I did not like the first chicane. The footage is from the early free practice seesion on friday, so sorry for going a bit slow!

Italian artist Oscar Morisini paints Charger

Our Charger keeps getting the fans attention. One of them, Italy's Oscar Morisini, has chosen the Oly Express as a subject for his latest artistic inspiration. As you can read on Virtual Car dot It, the Charger was the crowd's favourite at Monza. The painting will be soon shown at the famous Lugazzo Motoring Art Gallery in Brescia.

Auto Hebdo Magazine features Oly Express

Our Charger was named the "Monza Lightningstroke" by Auto Hebdo's top writer Jean-Marc Teissedre, as he explains in his four page full color article. It's great to see that our team keeps getting more and more popular with the press. Some professionnal race outfits might become jealous!

Monza's gruelsome first chicane

Monza is really a cool and fast track, except for that first chicane between the main straightaway and Curva Grande. The Charger got up to 170 mph on the straight, but I had to slow it down to as little as 40 mph to get through here. Trying to keep the momentum made the Dodge roll quite a bit. If you look close (or click on the picture to enlarge it), you can see that the front right tyre is barely touching the ground!

Photo: Don Cann (Vintage Motorsports Magazine)

Monza Classic Endurance Race Results

You'll find the official results of our Monza Classic Endurace Race, by clicking here. We finished 19th overall and 7th in our class, scoring 3 points for the Classic Endurance Cup.

Monza Dream Team: the Oly Pitcrew

Having a great car and a driver, that can (almost) keep it on the track while trying to go fast, is one part of performing in a race. But, we would never ever have gotten from 32nd on the starting grid to 19th at the finish without the tremendous efforts, ingenuity and dedication of the Oly Express pitcrew. Every time an issue arised, you guys worked hard on the car to fix it quickly between the rounds. Thank you so much! You did the tough part all week-end, so this success is for you! From left to right: Pierrot, Björn, Alex, Thierry and Bernhard.

Top Le Mans drivers like the Oly Express

Quite a few top Le Mans Series drivers visited our garage during the Monza week-end. Among those was Stephane Ortelli (1998 Le Mans overall winner) and Soheil Ayari (2 top ten overall finishes at Le Mans). Both were stunned by the Charger. Stephane said it was like a predecessor of the Saleen that they both drive this year.

As you can see, we are in good company!

Endurance Info features Oly Epxress

Endurance Info, a web-magazine dedicated to endurance racing, is the first to feature our Charger in a report on the Classic Endurance race at the 2007 Monza Le Mans Series. Check out our Dodge at the first chicane by clicking here.

Roberto Motta's great Monza Oly pictures

We are very pleased to receive some pictures from one of our italian fans by e-mail. Roberto Motta, a photographer for Auto d'Epoca magazine, sent us three great shots and gave us permission to feature them on the Oly Express website for you to enjoy. Here, I'm coming out of the Variante Ascari, a fun S-combination where the Charger was in 3rd gear at about 4000 rpm. From there it is flat out to up to 175 mph before braking for the Parabolica.

Olympia Charger races at Monza (Italy)

To say that we had a great week-end would almost be an understatement. Monza was a blast! The car had its troubles with the brakes, but performed very well thanks to our pit crews relentless efforts and ingenuity.

Hot Laps at Rocroi prior to Monza CER Race

We took our Charger to GTS Automotive's test site at Rocroi (F) in order to do a complete shakedown before Monza. Needless to say that we had a great day.

Vintage Motorsports on Oly Express 2007

With the new season just about to start, we have the pleasure to read in the media about our coming activities. Thanks to Don Cann, the Oly Express 2007 racing program is featured in the latest issue of Americas Vintage Motorsports. Don Cann will be with us at the Monza race, from April 12 to April 15, for more great reporting on the event.

Oly Express 2007 Team shirts out now!

Our team shirts for the 2007 season have just come in today. These shirts, made thanks to our sponsors MOTORAVER, MOPARSHOP, MOTUL, NITRO and CAMTECS, will be our official team wear. Based on the same pattern as the original 1976 and our 2006 Le Mans shirts, they withstand pit work and look good at the drivers meeting.

MOTORAVER Magazine joins 2007 sponsors

We are proud to announce that Germany's gasoline culture magazine MOTORAVER  will sponsor our racing in 2007. To celebrate that great support, the Olympia Charger will be on display at MOTORAVER's booth at the Essen Techno Classica car show from March 29 to April 1st. Be there or be square!

MOPAR SHOP supports Oly Express in 2007

We are pleased to announce that the MOPAR SHOP will take care of our Charger during the 2007 season. MOPAR SHOP, a leading restoration and racing outfit, located in Olfen Germany, is specialized in vintage MOPAR's. Aside from maintaining and optimizing the Charger between the races, MOPAR SHOP will also be with us at the CER competition in Monza (April 13 - 15) and at the Nürburgring (June 29 - July 1st), to team up with our pit crew. We are happy that such a professional sponsor has joined our effort!

Le Mans Classic 2006 on Speed TV

Don't miss the one hour show about Le Mans Classic 2006 this Saturday at 1 AM Pacific Time on Speed TV. Based on french Motors TV onsite footage, it includes an interview of yours truly, as well as some great views of the Olympia Charger!

The 2007 race dates are out!

The team at Classic Endurance Racing has just released the 2007 race dates! The Classic races will again be run as an opening event to the LMES racing series.
We intend to be at the following three events:
Monza, Italy - April 13, 14 and 15
Nürburgring, Germany - June 29 and 30, July 1st
Spa, Belgium - August 17, 18 and 19

Become a supporting fan of our team and be with us at these races! Contact us via e-mail at oly.express@free.fr

Vintage NASCAR Team Shirts for 2007

Sticking to our approach of having a period correct appearence at the track, we plan on having new 70s NASCAR type team shirts made for 2007. Our sponsors logos will again be on the front, on the sleeves and on the back. Some sponsors will be new, some other from 2006 are staying on board our Oly Express in 2007.

Now comes an important question: Of what color(s) should our team shirts be next year ?

2007 Schedule is taking shape

While we considered various possibilities to race the Oly Express Charger in 2007, in terms of track speed, cost, media interest and fun, the Classic Endurance Racing series emerged as a clear favourite. We plan to enter three of the five races: Spa, Nürburgring and Monza. Practice will be either with the LMES at Paul Ricard track in Le Castellet (F) or at the Bugatti circuit in Le Mans (F). We are looking forward to see y'all at the races!