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Of course I don't mind but please understand that I don't want to wash dirty laundry here on the forum, so I try to be as honest as possible, even if I have to leave out some of the "delicate" things which happened back there.

I was a member of the Funcarsonline discussion team (or better said: one of the "sheriffs" who had to take care of the discussions and their contents). Chris Kramer, the founder and owner of Funcarsonline was a friend by that time and we shared a lot of information and took advantage of various occasions to post REALLY NEW Porsche info. Chris was the FIRST EVER to post pictures of a non-camouflaged Boxster S...one year before this car was actually put on the market. Then, we were able to show the FIRST EVER pictures of the 996 Turbo, not only from the outside but also from the inside, some cars still being camouflaged. This was back in 1999, more than 8 months before the 996 Turbo was actually available for buying. The picture of me and Chris next to a 996 Turbo with "Erprobungsfahrzeug" lettering on the side and on the rear was sensational, it was re-posted on many other forums on the internet.
So yes, Chris and me were the "Porsche" dudes, there were only three or four other people on the internet who were at the same or a similar knowledge/VIP level like Porsche Pete, Viken B. and one or two others.

What happened? Well, very simple. A very dirty campaign started between the various groups. I think it was all about money, egos and again money but naive as I am and actually not interested in earning money with cars and car parts or track events, I didn't realize it by that time.
Chris started to get a little bit kind of an ego-maniac, he started his Porsche parts shop and had a lot of trouble with the Porsche law department. I still didn't see the big picture and was naive enought to think that everybody was an enthusiast like me without any other motives.
Then things started to go really bad, Chris and me were accused by other people to have deleted or modified posts, I never ever actually understood what this was all about but it started with Todd Serota, some funny lawyer from California who apparently was mad at us because we were making fun of his business (track events) and his car (a 996 Cab with various racing parts, wing, etc.). Things got out of control when Chris started to play "king", even starting to remove me as a moderator, then putting me back in, then removing me again and so on. We were talking on the phone all the time and I realized that we don't have anything in common anymore. Apparently the fact that he succeeded to sell a few used GT3 race cars to the US made him think that he is the Porsche god or whatever. He started to treat his users the same way and this is where another guy from Germany, CR, a former member of Funcarsonline jumped in and asked me: why don't we open our own forum, without any commercial background, no shop, no selling, no ads, nothing which would compromise our credibility. I found it to be a great idea but it took us several months until we were able to actually start the project.

Why the name Rennteam? Because we didn't find anything better. We were afraid to use "Porsche" in our site name due to the risk to get trouble with the Porsche law department. By that time, the law department had started some serious threats against other websites using the name Porsche in their site name.

Since Rennteam means "racing team" in German, we went for this name because we simply couldn't think of something better. The start was pretty difficult, me and CR didn't have a clue about forum software, SQL, PHP or whatever. Although it helped a lot that CR owned a communications company and offered to host Rennteam, we both were absolute beginners and didn't have any help. I was lucky that by that time, my daughter was still very young and I had a lot of time at nights (between feeding times ) to work on Rennteam.com.

We also tried to get official Porsche support for our site but without success, they didn't seem to take it too serious what we were planning to do. And the truth is: we never thought of having over 7000 registered members after more than three years only. Some private car forums, national and international, usually never had more than a couple of hundreds of members, some even closed down again. Only the forums supported with ads and press infos were actually successful and we are proud to say that Rennteam.com is the biggest non-commercial advertisement-free Porsche and Sportscars community in the world.

To make a long story short: we are so proud of us and our users, you can't imagine. We were able to establish a peaceful international community of car enthusiasts without ANY hidden agenda or business in mind. Yes, it costs a lot of time and a lot of money, I think that me and CR already spent thousands of Euros for Rennteam, not to speak about our moderators who not only helped us to keep Rennteam.com up and running but also donated money (thanks Ron/Ron from Houston!!!) and the latest forum design (thanks Sönke/zzboba!!!) to keep this site up and running for you all.

I'm sorry if I or any of the moderators sound a little bit harsh, sarcastic or even like a smarta.. sometimes, we're only here to help and to learn too.

With this occasion, I want to thank you ALL for spending your precious time over here, posting infos and pictures and taking active part of this wonderful community.
Without you guys, Rennteam.com would be nothing. THANKS!!!

And a last word: don't underestimate the "power" of our community. Porsche and other sportscar manufacturers, including journalists from various car magazines worldwide, are monitoring Rennteam.com or are even members. We were succesful to create among them a certain credibility.
We are a very powerful car community and believe it or not, we actually succeeded and still are succeeding to influence decisions regarding development and improvement of various cars, especially Porsche cars. Of course there are other forums and they are monitored too but I think we earned ourselves a lot of respect due to the fact that we're trying to keep the discussions at a pretty high quality level compared to other car forums. And our opinion has been always valued very high, unfortunately there seem to be elements in development/marketing/etc. who aren't always loving what we're doing here since our activity sometimes puts them under pressure.

My biggest dream would be to meet you all during some sort of meeting or larger event. Maybe sometimes in the near future, who knowns?!

Thanks again, guys...



Great story RC. Although I recently became a member I would visit and read many threads starting back when you guys first started the site. I was always enamored by the awesome, firsthand, Porsche information coming from a such a reliable German source. The site has only grown, definitely for the better; whereas some other forums tend to go downhill with quality car talk.