VICI Racing is a
Miami, Florida and
Munich, Germany-based racing team with more than 20 years of experience competing at the topmost levels of international
sportscar racing.
It competes in both
GT and prototype categories, in Europe and the United States. VICI Racing is a wholly owned subsidiary of the VICI Group, which is comprised of technology-led companies. VICI Racing roll call of wins includes GT victory in the
Daytona 24 Hours. Founder and President is former professional racing driver Ron Meixner.
In 2009 VICI Racing will run 3 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (2009) in the American Le Mans Series GT2 category.
History
VICI Racing traces its roots to Bavaria, Germany. In the late 1980s, Ron Meixner, the driving force, became actively involved in the performance enhancement of Porsche vehicles, and in particular the Porsche 930. This strategy came about as a result of his long participation in motorsport, mainly to that date in the single-seater Formula Renault, and mountain climb races using a variety of Porsches. The new firm's first high profile project was to create a high-powered Porsche 930 Cabriolet, a task that was to put them on the map. The car was built in association with RS-Tuning. Using the racing and aerodynamic experience of VICI's engineers, a new aerodynamic package was developed for the vehicle, including an elongated windshield and new rear wing which made it possible for the car to achieve speeds in excess of 320 km/h without any problems of stability arising.
Early 1990 saw Ron Meixner and VICI participate in the new Porsche Carrera Trophy with a Carrera Cup racer, while continuing the develop the Porsche 930 Cabriolet. This latter project was to culminate in a customer version which boasted upwards of 850 bhp by utilising engine components of the Porsche 935/962 family. VICI was thus able to create a customer car well before the benchmark McLaren F1 had arrived which offered a top speed of over 360 km/h and was able to accelerate from 0-200 km/h in less than 10 seconds, and 0-300 km/h in 25 seconds. The car was described by the press as a true “wolf in sheepskin” an one occasion Bernd Schneider, the former Porsche Group C pilot and present day DTM Mercedes AMG Champion, took the opportunity to drive the car, commenting afterwards that, “its feels like my 962….” One leading French magazine described the 930 Cabriolet as " Le cabrio plus rapide du monde". The Porsche 930 Cabriolet programme, in all its guises, was to continue up until 1995.
VICI's engineering soon embraced a number of ‘non-core' projects. One interesting programme was an involvement with offshore powerboat racing, a project that would lead to the formation of a dedicated marine division. In 1992 VICI became involved with the Cigarette Racing Team, world renowned manufacturers of offshore power boats. One interesting aspect of this collaboration was that it led VICI to gain extensive experience with two fairly new composite materials: Carbon fibre and Kevlar. These names would quickly become synonymous with leading edge racing and road cars and from this involvement would grow VICI's experience at the forefront composite materials.
