Uncompromising racer
During an impressive racing career, Ronny
Meixner competed in all the world’s biggest and toughest
long-distance races, such as the Le Mans 24 Hours, 12 Hours
of Sebring and 24 Hours of Daytona. Ronny then made the
smooth transition from winning driver to winning team owner,
bringing with him the same uncompromising values that made
him an integral part of the front-line Porsche teams in the
biggest challenges – a competitive spirit, an overwhelming
desire to win, and a grit and determination to achieve these
ambitions.
Today Ronny has built VICI Racing (now
part of the VICI Group) into a tightly-focused multinational
concern, and has matched the success he achieved on the race
track with success for his ambitious team. However his story
goes back to the late 1980s when during a memorable
professional racing career he built up a reputation for raw
speed, determination and a dedication towards winning.
Like most budding drivers, Ronny started
his career in single-seaters, like Formula Renault. However
he was soon drawn to the unrivalled challenge posed by
international long-distance sports car racing, and a career,
intertwined to this day with Porsche, began when he tackled
the Porsche Carrera Cup/Trophy in the early 1990s.
His performances in the highly
competitive single-make series caught the eye of Porsche
bosses and he soon found himself elevated to the top tier of
sports car racing, driving the famous Porsche 962C for the
factory-supported Joest team. During this time he raced on
both sides of the Atlantic in the biggest challenges of all:
the Daytona 24 Hours and the Le Mans 24 Hours. This period
also saw him piloting another legendary machine for Joest,
the potent Porsche RSR 3.8, in the all-action ADAC GT Cup.
In 1993 Bob Wollek and Henri Pescarolo
joined Ron in the cockpit of the 962C to participate in the
last 24 hours of Le Mans to be reserved for the Group C
cars. That same year saw Joest develop the final evolution
of the long-running 956/962 line, the fearsome IMSA-962
known simply as the ‘Double Wing’. As the clock ticked down
to the end of the Group C era a last concerted push was made
to keep the elderly 962 competitive. And after extensive
wind tunnel testing at Weissach, a new aero package wound
back the clock to keep this legendary machine winning.
After a tough race at Road Atlanta, Ronny
Meixner, partnered by Bob Wollek once again, placed the
IMSA-962 ‘Double Wing’ (chassis #011) on the podium for the
first time in its short life. This car is fondly remembered
as one of the most brutal race cars of all time, and at a
stroke it turned the ageing sports car line into a winner
again; although its time in the limelight was to be very
brief as the rules were changed for 1994. Just a handful of
drivers raced this machine into the Group C twilight, and
only three survived the perils of racing in that era to
still be able to recount the tale today.
While racing for the Joest Porsche
factory team in Europe and America Ronny took on a new
challenge when he took his budding VICI Racing team to the
United States. Already starting to have success as a team
owner/driver, Ronny was hatching ambitious plans. And it was
a challenge he would rise to, when, in their very first
participation in a long-distance race, VICI Racing
steamrollered its way to class victory after 24 hours of
tough racing at Daytona. Not only drove the Porsche 964 past
the checkered flag, finished almost a whole hour ahead of
the second-placed Porsche, having snatched the class lead
after 7 hours battling the leading Corvette. Not once did
they surrender the GT front spot during the final 17 hours
of racing.
Ronny is a typical professional driver,
born with a competitive streak, going fast makes him tick.
And while he was racing sports cars on the world’s most
famous circuits he also took part in hillclimbs and in
offshore powerboats.
1995 kicked off with a testing program
for 24 hours of Daytona with the Champion Porsche Racing
outfit. He participated at Daytona with PTG and the BMW M3
with Ronny joining Justin Bell and David Donahue in the
cockpit. However the car was severely damaged in an accident
and forced to withdraw.
However with the rapid growth of VICI
Racing and the other interlocked divisions of the VICI
Group, Ronny was then tasked with also concentrating on his role in leading the team forward,
while at the same time, retaining a focus on
behind-the-wheel skill. Driven
as always by the uncompromising desire to win, Ronny leads VICI Racing from the pitwall,
while less regular stints in the cockpit show that he
retains all of his his speed and focus.
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